Connollys Mill, Former public baths and flour mill in Goulburn, New South Wales, Australia
Connollys Mill is a former public baths and wheat mill on Sloane Street in Goulburn. The 1892 baths building, 102 ft by 45 ft, became a store, with a platform above for packing and a verandah loading dock. Adjoining it is a four-storey brick and cement mill, 73 ft by 31 ft, beside a 28 ft by 20 ft engine room.
Goulburn Municipal Council built the Corporation Baths here in 1892 to a design by E. C. Manfred, after rejecting plans by McKinnon and Weitzell; Wilkie Brothers erected the brick building for £1,497. The baths lost about £160 a year, and in October 1906 the council voted by one majority to sell the site to William Connolly Ltd. for £1,000. John Dunkley designed the conversion, and the flour mill opened in 1908; it closed in the early 1970s.
The name Connollys Mill comes from William Connolly Ltd., owner of the Argyle Flour Mills, which bought the baths site in 1906. The mill could store 40,000 sacks of wheat in its 11,200 sq ft shed. After closing in the early 1970s the building held a leisure centre and retail businesses, most recently the Goulburn Furniture Warehouse.
The former baths and mill front onto Sloane Street, with the corner tower at Sloane and Goldsmith Streets marking the entrance from Goldsmith Street. The old baths building backed onto the railway line, and the 1908 warehouse shed had its own private siding platform. The site now holds shops, so visitors pass through the same Sloane Street frontage where the baths shop once stood.
Remnants of the original swimming baths remain preserved beneath the building's current floorboards. This hidden history shows how complete the transformation was while traces of the past were protected.
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