Ennis Bathing Pavilion and Patented Swimming Baths at Enniston Park

The renowned Pavilion on Shippan Point was wrecked in a storm on October 1894. John Ennis, builder of St. John's R.C. Church, also designed and built swimming baths at the tip of Shippan point in the late 1880s.

The Patent Swimming-Baths at Enniston Park, on the extreme south end of Shippan Point was one of the famous sea-side institutions of the town. The baths were constructed on a plan designed and patented by John Ennis, and they were growing more popular every season as their unique advantages for saltwater bathing were advertised and better understood by the public at large. Among the special advantages of this apparatus, in relation to the purpose intended, was the following: The depth of water in the bath could be regulated and held stationary at any desired level between high and low water mark.

Timid and delicate bathers who did not wish to enter the open water outside, were attracted by the easy convenience, comfort, safety, and cleanliness of the enclosed and regulated water.

For ladies and children and for all desirous of learning to swim this bath furnished unique and unequaled facilities. A traveling g trolley overhead, with a cord sustaining the swimmer, afforded a safe, easy and effectual plan by which even young children and the most timid of adult bathers were able rapidly acquire confidence and skill in the art of swimming.