The Blackball Bathhouse

This video started with an early morning wander around Blackball while there on holiday in December 2020.

The project turned into something of a collaboration when I made contact with author and former resident of Blackball, Jeffrey Paparoa Holman, whose sonnet is included on an information board affixed to the bathhouse remains.

Jeffrey reads Sonnet xxxi from his book ‘The Late Great Blackball Bridge Sonnets’ in the video.

The Blackball bathhouse was built in 1917, ‘gained through union agitation’, for the miners. It’s one part of this town’s fascinating history.

More information on Blackball and Jeffrey Holman below.

Here are a couple of images from the ‘West Coast New Zealand History’ website (see source ULRs below images) which put the bathhouse in it’s original context.

This first shot (used in the video) has no date attached but is entitled ‘Blackball mine looking towards the bath house’.

Blackball miners' bathhouse — ‘Blackball mine looking towards the bath house.’ Image source: https://westcoast.recollect.co.nz/nodes/view/6976

This image is entitled ‘Blackball mine .ca.1960’. The contributor/uploader of the photos, Andrew McRoberts, commented on the web page: ‘The photos were taken by dad with his box brownie camera when he was about 13’.

Blackball bathhouse — Blackball mine circa 1960. Image source https://westcoast.recollect.co.nz/nodes/view/6978

This is a crop of the above image focussing on the bathhouse. Clearly quite a large building.

Links to further information

More about writer and poet Jeffrey Holman: https://www.read-nz.org/writer/holman-jeffrey/
Sonnet xxxi is from his book: The Late Great Blackball Bridge Sonnets, Steel Roberts, 2004.