Poplar Baths is a former public bath house dating from 1933.
The original Poplar Baths opened in 1852, being built to provide public wash facilities as a result of the Baths and Washhouses Act 1846. A public laundry was located at the rear of the building on Arthur Street.
The Baths were rebuilt in 1933 to a design by Harley Heckford and the larger pool was covered over to convert the building into a theatre. Called the East India Hall, it had seating capacity for 1400 people and incorporated a dance hall, cinema, exhibition room and sports hall for boxing and wrestling programmes.
The main bath hall sustained bomb damage during the Second World War and was forced to close. The baths reopened in 1947 and continued to be used as a swimming facility, before the facility’s eventual closure and conversion to an industrial training centre in 1988.
A campaign to restore the baths won the support of Tower Hamlets Council in 2010 and works created a new leisure centre incorporating a swimming pool, gymnasium and affordable housing on adjacent land. The site reopened in July 2016.
