Bathing Boxes: The Lost Icons Of Our Beaches

A century ago, the foreshore at Torquay looked vastly different, and nestled in the dunes and grasses were rows of eclectic, brightly coloured wooden bathing boxes.

We explore what they were and where they’ve gone.

The first bathing boxes

Bathing boxes were popular in Torquay from the 1880s when large-scale land sales began in the area, and people started building holiday homes.

These bathing boxes weren’t only constructed in Torquay. Anglesea and other seaside centres along the Surf Coast had their share of bathing boxes too.

Typically single-roomed timber shacks with a lockable front door and simple gable roof, bathing boxes were usually owned and erected by local families. This was an era when maintaining modesty, privacy and dignity (and not revealing too much of your body) was still very important. So the boxes were used for changing, storing beach gear, and sheltering while at the beach.

According to Torquay’s Museum Without Walls, in 1888, Harry Rudd received the first authorised permit to build a bathing box from the Lands Department. However, the first (unlicensed) bathing box was built in 1887 at Zeally Bay by James Follet, who hosted guests at “Spring Creek Ocean View House”. According to reports in the Geelong Advertiser at the time, “Follet erected for the summer season a bathing house specially designed for the comfort of the ladies.”

The rules around bathing boxes

While owners technically were meant to apply for a licence and pay a fee to the Lands Department, it was not uncommon for families to erect a bathing box and not apply for the correct license or pay their fees. And bathing boxes remained fairly basic, without running water or electricity.

A lot of beachgoers had a problem with the lack of facilities. So in 1902, after much lobbying, the Torquay Improvement Association built a toilet block to improve sanitation.

In 1906, drowning in Geelong prompted the Minister of Lands to add conditions that required bathing boxes to contain life-saving equipment, including a buoy and a rope.

By 1910, records show there were 63 bathing boxes, with a yearly rental of 10/- each.

In 1917 the authorities cracked down on using bathing boxes as weekend accommodation or dividing them up with rooms. Then, new by-laws introduced more regulations, including specifying minimum distances that boxes had to be from each other, as well as prescribing paint colours and roof styles.

A boom in bathing boxes

Following the Great War, road access to the Surf Coast improved – thanks in no small part to the Great Ocean Road project. As a result, the number of bathing boxes on beaches grew exponentially. By the 1920s, licence fees became payable to the Trustees of Public Reserves Torquay and revenue collected was reinvested in the Torquay foreshore.

In the 1930s, the number of bathing boxes hit a peak of around 155. Unfortunately, however, a large fire over Christmas 1935 destroyed several. Beach erosion then meant a seawall had to be built to prevent the loss of many more.

The smell of summers past

Sallie Ramsay was born in Geelong in 1939, the great-granddaughter of an early Torquay settler, Andrew White. She gave a vivid account of her family’s bathing box in the Torquay Museum Without Walls Magazine History Matters in 2017:

“The front beach at Torquay was a magical place for me when I was a child. My family would walk down from our house to the end of Anderson Street, then we would scramble down a short steep path to our bathing box. The front beach was edged with the old bathing boxes, not posh painted ones like at Brighton Beach or on post cards, but an eclectic collection of shapes, some large, some small some with a deck…”

“Our Box always smelt of “summers past”. The smell of old seaweed and shells that had not been vacated by the ocean creatures when left forgotten in the corner, was mixed with the musty damp smell of swimmers, towels and bathing caps. The only light came in through the door gaps, under the eaves or up through the slatted sandy floor, so it was always hard to see. There were large nails in the walls and from them hung rusty little buckets and spades, my surfboard and all manner of other beach stuff.”

The last bathing box

After the Second World War, a combination of factors led to a decline in bathing boxes. These included changing fashions regarding modesty, increased regulations around dwellings, the neglect of many bathing boxes and the rise of holiday accommodation and caravanning. A surf life-saving club building was also built, along with better toilet and change room facilities.

The last “locals” to own a bathing box had theirs removed in 1958. After that, just 14 boxes remained, all owned by “visitors”, according to records.

In 1960, the final seven owners were advised that their bathing box leases would not be renewed for 1961.

That last of the beach’s bathing boxes was removed in 1960.

A replica unveiled

In 2016, the Anglesea & District Historical Society discovered the last Anglesea bathing box behind the Art House. The Society launched a campaign to restore it, eventually putting it on display behind History House in 2018.

More recently, the Torquay & District Historical Society has created a replica of a bathing box in the garden of the Torquay Old Police Station at 18 Price Street.

The replica bathing box was opened in October 2022, and contains records, displays and photos of the old bathing boxes and other beach treasures and memorabilia.

The Society also holds a register of bathing boxes. So if your family owned a bathing box many decades ago, you can apply to find out more about it.

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Photo credit: Victorian Collections