An 1856 select committee of the Legislative Council of Victoria recommended the establishment of a Sea Bathing Company at St Kilda of two bathing houses. Construction commenced in 1858 and the baths opened in 1860. They included gymnasium, refreshment rooms, residence, and offices and a 234 x 61 metre swimming enclosure. Bathers formed a club, ‘Companions of the Baths’. Eventually there were at least four separate enclosures. The last, in 1903, was the most exotic with clusters of domes, and hot sea baths, and was destroyed by fire in 1926.