Last week we carried a photograph showing the 'York Swimming, Slipper and Shower Baths’ in Marygate in 1893. They were clearly right at the bottom of Marygate next to Museum Gardens, we wrote. But did anyone know what they were like inside - or when they were pulled down?

There's been a huge response to that appeal for information, by letter, email and online.

It appears the baths were opened on August 7, 1837, on land at the bottom of Museum Gardens leased from the Yorkshire Philosophical Society. A public meeting had apparently been held three years before, in 1834, with the object of 'providing a bath in the City in which the citizens could obtain the benefit of cold water bathing'.

The charge for using the baths seems to have been 6d for adults and 3d for children - which would have been quite a lot at the time.

The baths closed in 1922 but weren't demolished until 1969, according to local historian David Poole.

Several readers remember the baths. David McElheran, who grew up in the Bootham area, remembers that in the early 1950s they were derelict. "My mother used to talk about using the pool as a child. She was born in 1900," David wrote.

"As children we climbed in and the pool was almost fully silted up. I do recall some large cast iron dragons' heads which I assume once fed water into the pool. They were quite impressive and I wonder what happened to them."

Graham Wallace, who was born in 1951, grew up in Grosvenor Terrace. "All my friends lived in and around Marygate so this was my playground right through to my early teens," he wrote. "I recall a bonfire night party inside the pool area put on by St Olave's Scout Group when I was about six years old - a huge bonfire (how did they get all the wood in?) plus fireworks. The last time I 'played' there was when I was about 14 or 15 and apart from the lack of water the baths were still complete with the tiled bath, wooden changing huts and I seem to recall a rather fancy water spout at the deep end which I imagine would have been used to fill the bath."

Many thanks to everyone who replied.

Stephen Lewis