| Disgrifiad | A rumour that the Marquess intends to convert the Baths into lodging houses calls forth a strong remonstrance in the North Wales Chronicle for August 18, 1852. It would be sheer vandalism, remarks the indignant correspondence, thus to mutilate "our beautiful Baths", deprive the inhabitants of one of the town's "brightest ornaments, with its Natural History Museum and its well-managed News Room". C.H. Evans, the Plas Newydd agent, is far less sanguine : the Baths, he informs Thomas Beer, cost £10,000 to build; Lord Anglesey gets only £10 a year for them, and that with the greatest difficulty because they are not supported by the inhabitants. The Billiard Room is only used by some young men of the town who drink gin and water there; the News Room until lately has been neglected and the subscribers have not even the decency to keep it clean. Plans are suggested for revising the whole establishment and placing it to a more profitable use. And then, in August 1853, comes an offer from the Committee of the Caernarvon Training Institution to rent the whole premises (1526). It meets with a favourable response from Evans, who regards the proposition as one that retains the "original object of the creation of the Baths" - the Public Good" of the inhabitants of Caernarvon. By the summer of next year, the committee is negotiating for the purchase of the Baths; its original offer of £2,300 - £700 more than the valuation - is raised at the insistence of the Marquess' trustees to £2,500 and at this figure the deal is finally clinched. |