IT’S easy to develop emotional attachments to buildings.

Those attachments sometimes don’t become evident until the building no longer exists.

I wonder if I would have such vivid and happy memories of Huddersfield’s old Market Hall if it was still with us.

Reader Dave Whitworth has similar feelings about Cambridge Road Baths.

He said: “The Examiner’s recent photograph of the baths brought back memories of school swimming lessons with Harry Chambers and galas as well as dances over the big bath in winter.

“I recall one such dance in 1957 or 1958 organised by the College of Technology (later the university) students’ union, when the band was the John Dankworth Orchestra.

“When Cleo Lane stood up to sing the dancing stopped and people just crowded in front to listen.”

Land for the baths was presented to the borough by Sir John Ramsden in April 1919.

The first sod for the building was cut by Huddersfield mayor Ald Thomas Canby JP in 1929 and the foundation stones were laid the same year.

The £60,000 building was opened in August, 1931 and was closed in 1997.

The first length was swum by Mr William Stoney, an England and Yorkshire champion and twice a British representative in the Olympics.

It then cost 6d to swim and lessons could be had for a shilling for 20 minutes.

Costumes could be hired for 3d and ‘drawers’ for a penny.

In May 1934 the baths committee successfully applied to install a movable floor for winter dances and meetings.

During the Second World War the control centre for Air Raid Precautions was situated at Cambridge Road Baths. There was also sleeping accommodation (air raids permitting) for overnight staff to rest before going out to their day jobs.

The slipper baths were basically bathrooms for members of the public to use, but when houses were being built with bathrooms their use declined.

In the 1980s the female slipper baths were converted into a sauna area and the male ones into a snooker room.

Dave took the photograph of the ‘big’ bath (above) just before closure while filming with Huddersfield Video and Ciné Club (now Huddersfield Film Makers Club) for an item in the club’s 1997 magazine.

He said: “In a booklet to commemorate the baths’ 60th anniversary in 1991 the Kirklees Head of Leisure and Recreational Services, Mr R Brooker, said he hoped and trusted that the baths would continue to play its part within the framework of recreational provision in Kirklees for many years to come.

“Alas, they had only another six years left!”