British Toilets

British toilets can be surprisingly mysterious, especially regarding their flushing mechanism. I received an e-mail from Alistair MacDonald, a Wall Street Journal reporter, asking:

I am a reporter at the Wall Street Journal writing a story about a best toilet competition in the UK. It seems they take their toilets very seriously over here. Given you have written about toilets around the world, I was wondering how British toilets rated compared with other nations and if they had any particular idiosyncrasies?

My response to him included:

There are a few things that I have found peculiar to Britain, or at least much more common there. (disclaimer: I've never been to Wales, but otherwise I've been places from Skara Brae to Glastonbury, both pictured on my pages)

One is the wall mounted tank up by the ceiling, providing a somewhat violent flushing action. It does what it needs to, but in the process it can dampen the surroundings. You lean over to pull the chain and then quickly jump back. Some of them seem to date from the Victorian era, but it was probably the thick multiple coats of paint in some low-budget hostels near the Earls Court Tube station that gave me that impression. Not bad, just different.

The second is the flushing mechanism when it's mounted just above and behind the bowl. The handle tends to be an enormous paddle (at least to my habit of dealing with tiny chromed flippers), and you have to use just the right angular velocity to get it to really flush. My first several flushes on each visit to Britain tend to be misfires, until I get the rhythm back again. I have pulled the lid off a tank to see what is so very different, only to encounter what looks very familiar. Hmmm. Next time, I need to take a picture of the inside of a British toilet tank... Not bad, but it is humbling to be unable to do something that would seem to be so obvious as flushing a toilet (and then after a few days, wondering why I had any trouble when I first arrived).

The third is the impressive confidence exhibited by the tank being enclosed within the wall. The handle is all that's visible, and the bowl itself may look fairly old, suggesting that the tank and flush mechanism have needed no attention since the Great War. Maybe there is some cabal of plumbers and carpenters guaranteeing extended hourly billing opportunities for each other, or maybe the toilets really are that reliable. Impressive, if a bit mystifying.

The fourth would be the labeling as "Gents" and "Ladies" as opposed to "Men" and "Women" (which aren't even in the expected possessive form, unless you interpret it more as a command than an announcment). Or the stylized "Trousered Humanoid" and "Aproned Humanoid" outlines. Anyway, "Gents" and "Ladies" is more cultured, or so I choose to believe.

The fifth would be a non-toilet plumbing issue, the tiny sinks with separated faucets so you have choices of Icy and Boiling and no way to get your hands below either. But again see my frequent reference point of cheap hostels in old buildings.

Finally, if one wanted to see toilets through history, Britain seems to be a good place to go (once you get past the myth that Thomas Crapper invented flush toilets). Examples are easily found from Neolithic times through Roman Britannia, the Middle Ages, and the 19th century.

That's all that occurs to me right now. If you're looking for attribution (or blame), and it would provide any helpful clarification, I do have a Ph.D. from Purdue University. However, it isn't in any toiletological or scatalogical field. One finds fame or fortune where one can.

Here are two of the toilets at the Castle Rock Hostel in Edinburgh, Scotland.

See how the tank and flushing mechanism are embedded in the wall.

Also see the Trompe l'Oeil Toilet Page, where one of these fixtures is featured in detail.

Ruins of the toilets at Glastonbury Abbey, in Somerset, in south-western England, used from the late 1100s into the 1200s. See about these in detail on the Arthurian Toilet Page.

Ruins of the toilets at the Saint Andrew Cathedral Priory, in Scotland. See about these in detail on the Medieval Ecclesiastical Scottish Toilet Page.

At left, Roman toilets at Vercovicium Fort, a part of Hadrian's Wall, Northumberland, in northern England.

At right, Roman toilets at Vindolanda Fort, also near Hadrian's Wall.

See these in detail on the Imperial Roman (Britannia) Toilet Page.

The Neolithic settlement of Skara Brae includes what are believed to be toilets attached to each of the eight interconnected dwellings.

See the Neolithic Toilets page for details.

19th-century Scottish industrial samples at the National Museum in Edinburgh.

See about these in detail on the 19th-Century Scottish Toilet Page.

The toilet in the formerly secret UK government bunkers tunneled into the cliffs above Dover.

Some of the tunnels date from the Napoleanic Wars, but they were greatly expanded during World War II. The UK anti-aircraft operations were controlled from here — radar and other data was gathered and interceptors were dispatched from here. See my page with many pictures from there.

Also see the Loos with Views page.

This is Winston Churchill's private room within the Cabinet War Rooms in London. See the page on Winston Churchill's chamber pot, visible here, for more.

A sturdy all-steel toilet at The Tron pub, in Edinburgh, Scotland. See the Stainless Steel Toilet page for more of this design.

British pub toilets tend toward the large, steel, and utilitarian, like this example from the Prince of Teck pub in Earl's Court, London.

See the Stainless Steel Toilet page for more of this design.

As I was saying, large, steel, and utilitarian. This is from another Earl's Court pub.

See the Stainless Steel Toilet page for more of this design.

Walking along the Avon River path between Bristol and Bath in the UK, and interested in a public toilet rather than secluded bushes? At left, this is what you'll find.

See the Stainless Steel Toilet page for more metallic toilets.

This pub toilet in Dunfermline, Scotland, has an unusually sturdy latch and lock.

According to a correspondent, this is probably a rather old door, and an example of what once was common on public toilets. These doors had locks requiring an old-style Penny to unlock the door. This is the origin of the British euphemism "To spend a penny".

The use of the old Penny or Pence coin dates this door back to before the decimalisation of British coinage in 1971.

Back in the pre-decimal days of £sd, the pound (£) was divided into 20 shillings (s) of 12 pence (d) each:
£1 = 20s, 1s = 12d

The origins of this go back to Charlemagne's 8th century decree that the money of the Holy Roman Empire should be silver coins, so quantities could be determined by counting rather than weighing.

This in turn is based on the Roman Empire's 12 denarii being equal to one gold solidus, and 240 denarii being cut from one Roman libra of silver. The English name pound is a Germanic adaptation of the Latin libra pondo or "pound weight".

Many monetary systems based on a 240:12:1 ratio were used across medieval Europe. Just like the Babylonians and their base-60 mathematics and calendar, the 240:12:1 system supports many fractions: twelfths, tenths, eights, sixths, fourths, thirds, and halves. With the addition of the British Guinea of 21 shillings you could do even more.

The toilet in a washroom on board an Airbus A330 en route from London to Detroit.

This is one of the toilets against the fuselage skin, not one of the only slightly more roomy center ones.

Why do your ears sometimes feel pressure changes when you flush an airline toilet? Because the vacuum flushing may cause the pressure altitude within the tiny toilet cabin to quickly jump 5 to 20 meters, say from about 2000m pressure altitude to 2015m.

For other odd A330 photographs, see my Gallery of Crash Dump Screens. The seatback entertainment systems run an embedded version of the Linux operating system. The OS is fairly stable, but the application is not.

On the Great Northern Railway train between London and Edinburgh, UK. Although it's a very nice and modern train, they still give the traditional advice regarding train toilets:

Magnets! MAGNETS!! LOOK OUT!!!

Some of the UK railways put magnets in their train toilet seats and lids.

They provide rather ominous warnings about it.

See the Toiletological Signage page for more toilet signs.

National Express buses in the U.K. also have on-board toilets. This is from an overnight bus from Edinburgh to London (about 7 hours).

Also notice the sign —
Do not even attempt to pee standing!
That also helps to keep things clean.

See the Toiletological Signage page for more toilet signs.

Citylink buses connect cities and towns within Scotland. As bus toilets go, these are the nicest that I have encountered. They are constructed about like aircraft toilets, and very clean.

At right is a picture of a Citylink bus passing through Pitlochry, Scotland on the route from Edinburgh to Inverness.

See the Bus Toilet page for more toilets on buses.

The M/V Hamnavoe ferry links the Orkney Islands with the north coast of Scotland.

Several sailings a day, 90 minutes en route each direction.

Here are the heads.

The M/V Isle of Mull is one of the many ferries connecting the Inner Hebrides islands with the west coast of Scotland.

Here is one of the heads as photographed during a trip from Oban to Craignure on the Isle of Mull.

See the Ship Toilet page for more toilets on ships.

Also see the page about Doctor John Snow and the 1854 Soho cholera epidemic, and the infamous water pump that largely caused it.

Rose George's The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters is a fascinating description of sanitation conditions around the world. "2.6 billion people don't have sanitation. [....] Four in ten people have no access to any latrine, toilet, bucket, or box."

In September 2009, Morna Gregory and Sian James published a book titled Toilets of the World. It's pretty much the same theme that you find here — photographs and commentary on other people's plumbing.

The Porcelain God: A Social History of the Toilet, by Julie Horan, contends that civilization began with the toilet.

Toilet: Public Restrooms and the Politics of Sharing, edited by Laura Noren and Harvey Molotch, has essays by anthropologists, sociologists, and architects on the importance of the toilet, especially for urban dwellers.

Latrinae Et Foricae: Toilets in the Roman World describes the toilets of the Roman Empire from Iberia to Syria, and from North Africa to Hadrian's Wall in Britannia.

Toilets, Bathtubs, Sinks, and Sewers: A History of the Bathroom, explains the history of personal cleanliness and hygiene to children in grades 5-8.

If you're not bored yet, you might be interested in (or at least tolerate):

• Travel suggestions
• To Bob's main site