Original subtitles

[Music]

you've always asked how the people go to

the loo and dresses like this and

there's an answer thank you

this is a fourth aloof it's an amazing

invention secret chamber pot so what you

do is you slip under here and nobody

knows what I'm doing

perhaps feels a lot better morning I'm

dr. Lucy Worsley she curator at historic

royal palaces based here at Hampton

Court not a daily office as a historian

though I'm fascinated not just by grand

palaces but also by the more intimate

moments of object in history and by how

they inform our lives today oh it's

exciting it's exciting in this series

I'll be treating the story of British

domestic life through four rooms the

bathroom the bedroom the living room and

the kitchen from the homes of the Middle

Ages to the present day I'll be

exploring the ways that our attitudes

and habits have changed I'll be meeting

some extraordinary people slowing us and

doing some lover odd things

this time from rebuilding Britain's

first flushing toilet I just can't

believe this is going to go right first

time to taking a Victorian ladies bar

I'll be discovering how the bathroom has

developed over the past seven hundred

years so in the Victorian age who

becomes to do

[Music]

you

in our modern houses we take so much for

granted all that comfort privacy and

technology that allows them to function

yet all these things have taken

centuries to develop in every room in

the house has its own fascinating story

this time I'll be exploring the history

of the bathroom the room which has taken

the longest to evolve yet the one we now

consider to be the most essential in the

house this is a very desirable bathroom

with the power shower and the double

sinks and the big luxurious bath tub hot

water on tap and round that allude to

flush everything away but it's

extraordinary when you consider that

fifty years ago many houses didn't even

house plumbed in bath and a hundred

years before that the bathroom is a

specialized room didn't even exist so

how did all this technology come to be

developed and without it how did people

keep themselves clean

[Music]

my story starts in medieval England

today we think of bathrooms as intensely

private places but in the Middle Ages

everything from washing and grooming to

going to the toilets took place in

public in buildings just like this one

no functioning medieval bath houses

exist in Britain today so I come to

these modern baths in London's East End

to have a steam bath with my fellow

historian Sally Dixon Smith I've got the

idea that mint evil people were really

smelly and they never washed but I think

I'm wrong answer you are it's very

widely held misconception I think

because of this idea that the cheaters

and the Stewart's are very smelly and

medieval people must have absolutely

stunk to high heaven but it's not the

case all houses were very common in

medieval cities and people would go

quite regularly the fashion for bathing

had been established by medieval night

after years fighting the Crusades in the

east they returned home not only with

citrus fruits and spices but also with a

tastes of steam baths called hammam 700

years after Britain's Roman bastards

fallen into ruin bath houses were now

built in every city there were various

ways of creating steam you could heat up

rocks or heat up tiles and ceramics in

the fire and then either cast water on

them or plunge them into water to heat

the water

you could also pipe in steam from baked

houses nearby from their ovens in order

to warm up the steam house and people

would also put sort of spices and herbs

in the water to give a lovely smell and

be rinsed down with rose water so all in

all it must be a lovely experience and

most surprisingly of all bathing was

mixed men and women in there together

than just sometimes being used for shady

business people were meeting people who

weren't their husband or wife but you do

get that implication you get that quite

a lot in literature that it's something

that husbands fear is that their wives

are going to go to the bathhouse and

meet their lovers but who knows that's

literature you know Lancelot always

seems to get propositioned whenever he

has a bath but then lots lots kind of

James

James Bond always gets proposition when

every other bar in london's baths or

scuse as they were called you could have

your haircuts listen to music get a

shave or eat a meal and they were so

popular that they were soon licensed not

just for bathing a Bishop of Winchester

for instance in Southwark licensed bath

houses and licensed prostitution

essentially and so some of the some of

the women working about dark houses were

known as wagtails the bishops wagtails

and this may be the origin of why people

why women can be referred to as birds

today but you would have been very

respectful in the bathhouse because you

have your hair covered oh and although

there was a great sense of nudity or but

you might see people naked that women

should still keep their hair covered

because that was particularly sort of

private and sexual and so only

prostitutes would have their hair down

like valium so today you're very

indiscreet the people in medieval

England were quite surprisingly clean

bathing keeping their houses clean in

fact in towns if you didn't keep your

house key you could be shut up before a

course of nuisance and given the

equivalents of an ass code told you how

to do a better job if smells and your

property offended anybody else but both

houses did fall out of fashion by the

junipers they just became too much

associated with prostitution they still

existed that they were now in the

Spaniards and banning turning to

bordello

but it wasn't only bathing that was a

mixed communal activity in medieval

London on the river just near the bath

houses were also the public views we're

on the mobs and London Bridge but this

picture shows its predecessor the

ancient London Bridge you think it's

covered with houses there are hundred

thirty-eight houses on the bridge and

they have their own communal toilet it's

very famous in London's first public

toilets it was used by the residents and

also by travelers arriving into the city

and you can see how sensible it was to

put the toilet on the groom all the ways

could pull straight down and be washed

away by the river all of London to

others we use sinister and with no model

loo paper they have some interesting

alternative we mean search that's a very

important question and how they wipe

their rotten personally the legacy of

the ruins are alive and well the sponge

on the sixth of the highest synthesis

I'd be very comfortable and convenient

also a book of instructions to enable

household recommends that the master use

a piece of linen for blankets also clean

and convenient and comfortable lower

down in society you have to make view of

what you could find this is off with

straw lead that sort of thing and if

that wasn't available there's one more

alternative

by the end of the Middle Ages Britain's

love affair with communal bathing was

coming to an end by the end of the

sixteenth century

bathing had fallen out of fashion people

just weren't washing like they had done

in the medieval period there are a

couple of reasons for this firstly it

was quite hard to find clean water in

crowded to the circuits secondly there

was a medical reason there was this new

idea that sickness could be transmitted

through the air called miasma and if you

were bathing in hot water and your pores

were opening up this would make you

vulnerable to disease air carrying bad

stuff will go in through your skin

succeeding had become danger the plague

arrived seven times in two hundred years

it kills 20% of the population and

killed off bathing as well in 1546 Hemi

the ape shuts Britain's bath houses so

good now with no recourse to bathrooms

of any kind the Tudors came up with new

theories on how to keep clean

instead of bathing the Tudors put their

faith in something else white linen

under clothes

they thought that linen worn next to the

skin was soaked up the sweat and the

toxins on the bodies so instead of

washing themselves they washed their

linen instead to understand what it must

have been like to wash linen without the

modern washing machine I've come to the

Weald and down and Museum in West

Suffolk to experience the typical Tudor

wash days with historians Kathy

Flowerbomb and Hanna tipped lady I felt

like a horse oh they're making a sort of

a filtering drainage system um it's

really you'd be doing this a week the

first step in the process was to make a

soap called ly following an age-old

method it was made by filtering water

through a SRAM the fire Thank You Daisy

people see it starting to interest oh

yeah I was Kryptonian through stones and

straw in a bucket tom is getting

stronger and stronger

it was then boiled down with mutton fat

and mixed with herbs to make a

sweet-smelling detergent actual soap

that I would recognize and that's what

Kathy's using over here

so you're rubbing that directly onto the

bits a really dirty bit of elbow

grace necessary lots of evergreen SSS

after being soaked in lye and scrub

through soap the linen was then bashed

with a bat called a beetle imagine doing

this all day you would be really and you

really need strong muscles to do this it

is quite fun and physical now how these

things the origin I'm from ball games

the kids who are running around the

playground mortals and the boss yes

those women invented quickest day

whereas the outer clothes were never

washed under clothes to wash every week

it was a female dominated activity the

tudor men could still make one vital

contribution looking for a man can I ask

you a favor

for centuries women have been doing the

washing and we feel that men haven't

been contributing enough we're hoping

that you today can contribute some stain

remover for what go for it and do your

GP

ah great you're a gent thank you happy

washing thank you

so while we're pouring blinds urine onto

the sheet well it's the best thing to

whiten things and also if you've got

really stubborn stains grease grass or

anything like that that is by far that

the stain remover there ever was after

soaking the linen in urine for two days

they gave it a good rinse then spun it

on a ringing post to an analyst spin

cycle of washing machine yeah you can

see how Reggie has to get the wet works

then hung it out on Hawthorne hedges or

rosemary bushes to dry Hawthorne is just

perfect for this because the little

prickles come through and all this in

place absolutely

certainly totally we've just done

everything that a modern washing machine

does really we soaked the clothes we

added the detergent we agitated it and

then we rinsed it only son it out that

we only really washed one sheet and it

took nearly all morning it's quite a lot

of work really I suppose what I've

learnt is that it shows that also we

think to the people were dirty

it isn't really didn't washed it is a

it's a misconception they put a huge

amount of effort their women was a huge

amount of effort into making sure

everyone had clean white linen Tudor

England there are three levels of toilet

the lowest were communal proving called

Great Houses of evening next with

chamber pods his contents were often

thrown into the street and the rich used

clothes tools velvet padded chairs with

a pot inside which was carried away and

cleaned out by the servants Elizabeth

the first even had her own stool

carriage that followed her wherever she

went

but all of a sudden in 1596 a

revolutionary new invention arrived

Britain's first flushing toilet it was a

device so ahead of its time in force its

inventor instant fame intrigued to know

how it works I've come to a modern

plumbers workshop in order to rebuild it

using the original 16th century

instructions so a is the tank I yes I

used the tank which is now nowadays as a

toilet system got one of those at home I

recognize that but I didn't have fish in

mine

no no doubt is an added extra if you

want it was invented by the poet Sir

John Harington godson to Elizabeth the

first and so impressed the Queen that it

was installed in Richmond palace

Sir John wrote a book describing how to

make your worst privy as sweet as your

best chamber and called it the

metamorphosis of Ajax

a pun on the Tudor word for a toilet a

jig filtered water from the palace well

it flushed into a private cesspit which

was cleaned out once a month by boys

called gongs Kara's in that time that's

roughly equivalent of the suet yes sure

our septic tank forever the toilets had

two valves one at the top to flush water

into the toilet bowl the other to

release it into the cess pit and to save

precious water a key was fitted so that

only the key holder could release the

flush after at least 20 persons had used

it I can see how all this all sort of

might come together it seems quite

clever

is it still how the toilet works today

the essentials are exactly the same as

this thing the same idea is what we use

now good job Sir John Harington

after soldiering and fixing the flush

pipes into place we're finally ready to

test our contraption I just can't

believe this is going to go right first

time there's too much potential for

disaster here I think mas suggest we

fill up and give it a try

it's looking a little bit nice but it's

going to work Syria I'm a pityingly

tomorrow we chased the martos because

they were brand new a little be some

fruits so it has only just caught on so

it seems appropriate for us Hey look at

that is looking good

shall we do the bottom

see if you have all they all $1 yeah

well we're with that Frank didn't hold

up too well / no it's not so bad so the

main thing is that the Somalis made its

way beautifully down into the into the

sisters I'm amazed Lizzie were kind the

floors just beautiful pubs it's actually

really effective you had a really this

house was smooth good effort good the

same way but despite its revolutionary

design the Ajax is too early for its

time and it wouldn't really r4 another

200 years in a way it's quite surprising

that once the flushing toilet has been

invented it doesn't catch on but there's

a couple of very good reasons for this

firstly it smells it still smells

there's nothing to stop the bad smell

coming out and affecting the person

who's using the toilet and secondly it's

fixed it's a great big structure the

Queen doesn't want that to go to the

toilet she wasn't order to go to her so

that's why the closed tool remains more

popular as long as you've got someone to

empty it for you then flushing is just a

bit of a gimmick but whatever method the

Elizabethans used to relieve themselves

there was always the question of what to

do for the consequences most houses had

cesspits which were cleaned out by

knights oil men and the waste was used

for compost on market gardens but this

cost a shilling a week many Londoners

dumped their waste directly into the

rivers instead to supply London with

cleaner water it was clear that a new

solution was needed when we turn on our

taps in our modern bathrooms

fresh clean water comes out it is

something of a miracle a huge amount of

plumbing and piping makes this all

possible the beginnings of this

infrastructure were laid in late

Elizabethan London it was a crowded

smelly dirty city its rivers were

saluted it began to be a priority for

Elizabethan to find an alternative to

the stinky Hemi and that alternative was

called the New River where I've come to

meet the historian David ad said David

did they come up with the idea of n

because in Elizabethan London they

started to realize that their sewage and

their drinking water will all mix stuff

together and that this wasn't suggesting

that's absolutely it by the end of Queen

Elizabeth's reign there were 180,000

people living in London and they're

welcome to have proper water supply or

sewage systems built by Sir Hugh

Middleton in 1613 the new river port

water all the way from a spring in

hartfordshire

it took 10 years to build using a single

plow and a hundred men digging by hand

quite then let's have a look on your lab

so that's pretty much the full extent of

the new river going all the way down

where does it start source here so it

winds all the way along here having a

and then down to green since we park

isn't in the New River head they do you

say that's 40 miles long well as the

crow flies it's less than 20 foot

because of all the Wiggles it was over

40 miles when it was first constructed

so what determines its route or what

they were basically trying to do is to

take advantage of gravity so rather than

have the cost of pumping etc etc and

long term maintenance they simply

followed the hundred foot contour line

that's quite a job as an engineering

feat it's up there with the Channel

Tunnel or the Great Western Railway

isn't it it's actually the extraordinary

yep

the water ended up in reservoirs at

Sadler's Wells somewhere it slows down

into the city through cast wooden pipes

they procured Elm from all the Home

Counties I mean thousands and thousands

of Elms and they bought them by the ton

and they topped them into five foot

lengths and they then bore them out so

these are the strings of elm types there

are particular reason for the choice of

Elm well Elm has fairly unique

properties it's got a sort of twisted

grain so that that meant where the pipes

were exposed to sunlight they were less

likely to split me it's the best pipe

though these pipes are just running

along the top of the road well I meant

going on we have seen that in this

street here our gratefulness I think you

probably would and there are

descriptions in some streets and squares

in London of as many as nine strings of

these pipes nine quite for one size

incredible that they can screen moves

the character lead pipes called quills

were then drilled into the wood and

connected to paying customers homes for

the first time fresh hartfordshire water

instead of the dirty Thames could be

used for drinking and washing it costs

twenty four shillings a year the

equivalent of one hundred and sixty

pounds today it was such a successful

system that it was still being used a

hundred years later in Georgian here is

the point at which water finally gets

into the house and it comes in down here

in these underground kitchen basements

and there's a tap here not everybody has

a tap and not everybody had water every

day different streets have their own

water day when the supply would be

turned on for a couple of hours so when

it was your water day you've got all

your pots and pans you filled up

everything you could because one for

today was over that's it till next time

the water was then carried upstairs to

dressing tables set up in the corners of

Georgian bedrooms these toilet stations

were like modern bathrooms in miniature

with their trio of jug bowl and washed

and this is where George and men and

women would have had their morning wash

unlike today this was a social event

wealthy people would even allow visitors

to watch to learn more about the

Georgian twilit I'm meeting historian

Amanda Vickery I think I would be

washing my face enough on my hands any

other body parts I think the extremities

I think the eastern sea I think the face

and hands and sometimes of water is

enough you know no wipe down with linen

because again how much of your body is

going to be seen by the world it's what

protrudes out of your clothes

we call this a basin it is the

forerunner to the modern wash basin that

we have in our bathroom today isn't it

well I suppose this is this is the

beginning of the idea that you're going

to have a sink I mean some servants got

some labour up the stairs with that hot

water you know I do like the idea that

the wash basin comes to me I have a go

to the washed face well I even imagine

it's lovely just rolling out of bed and

there it is you know or lovely and warm

to cater for the tastes of an

aspirational middle class new items of

wash we're exploded onto the market for

men's shaving tables to a thoroughly new

invention the bday it didn't really

catch on dinner till they did in France

and then the interesting thing is it

seems that it's prostitutes and

courtesans in France who really drive on

the fashion for the bday so I love that

idea really that these women who have so

despised were actually at the forefront

fashion because clearly it's in their

interest to be as fresh as possible for

them

customer mmm but in England they are

always viewed with great suspicion well

is unsurprising really if it's something

that's deployed by a French prostitute

you can't imagine okay I'll think of all

that's the thing for me exposed to the

eyes of visitors a washing station was

also a sign of status

it was crammed with perfume bottles

combs head scratches all the fashionable

accoutrements including makeup so if

this made it something that kind of

culture Neel around well Chanel was one

ingredient to food and the other thing

you could do just get a red ribbon like

this one and cut it and wetters and you

could use that tool was allowed to slap

the cheeks myself hahaha

despite access to fresh water the

toilette was more about makeup perfume

and powder more about disguising dirt

than washing it off and to make matters

worse in 1712 Queen Anne imposed attacks

on soap so burdensome that soap became a

luxury item

can you possibly give me half of my wig

I'm just putting something around gave

me a how do you mean be your server

poker I really always think oh I'd love

to go back in the past and I think

they'd marry mr. Darcy but possibly the

housemates are we related me am i

sticking it on oh well if you want mine

so this is a real treat Amanda if you

want to do it just use the little

fellows where is it now you can't

contain that

[Music]

lots of people think that the 18th

century was the age of elegance but I

think it was the age of 40 holder

however we have seen something very

interesting out there that's the surface

of modern bathrooms that little corner

of the bedroom it has the ingredients of

a basin fresh water even a little piece

of soup if you could afford it so that's

the first time we've seen part of the

house just given over to washing and

that corner of the bedroom will go on to

become a whole room of its own even if

the toilette involves more perfume and

powder than water the concepts of

bathing did return to prominence for the

first time since the medieval age but

rather than bathing in hot water to

cleanse the body the Georgians

preach the medicinal virtues of cold

water in particular the water Georgian

doctors are recommending that you

immerse your body into seawater secure

practically anything from constipation

to infertility to what they call

disorders of the codpiece economy and in

fact the creation I like most of all is

the one the doctor who recommends that

you go into cold water because it will

powerfully excite your stupid mind the

sea was regarded as frightening so for

those people it's like up the courage to

get into it it was recommended they

drink it instead and this peculiar

looking drink is the prescription of dr.

Richard Russell and little cure

absolutely anything if you believe him

is the point of seawater spoils with

milk and cream of tartar and I'm going

to tell you what it tastes like

that takes exactly like bullet and I'd

rather have a swim in the season during

a point of that

[Music]

haha exciting the losers Club I can get

again

[Music]

to preserve their modesty ladies wore

long dresses weighted down with lead so

that they wouldn't reveal anything that

shouldn't be seen by gentlemen they were

taken down to the waters in horse-drawn

feeding machines and helped him by

doctors and elderly mittens

knew such luxury for me

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

lots of clumsy and all one thing please

give us one in case they burst a

blood-vessel say I might be going too

big too quickly around pretty rather

hearings we present it certainly waking

me up

it smelled like drowsy seriously

it's invigorated my design I really

quite enjoy this so I can see why some

Georgian lady for whom she must they

never did it again over the next hundred

years between 1750 and 1850 Britain was

now plunge headlong into the greatest

social and economic change in this

history the Industrial Revolution

alongside cotton mills and steam trains

came gas lamps and the first kitchen

range this age of invention would

transform home and culminate in the

Great Exhibition of 1851 the greatest

showcase for British technology the

world had ever seen

the watchmaker Alexander coming became

the first to reinvent the John

Harrington's Ajax toilet in 1775 but it

was at the Great Exhibition so the

masses would not only see new pieces of

bathroom technology but also used the

flushing toilet for the first time the

lack of public toilets had once

restricted women's mobility outside the

home but now the streets of London could

potentially be transformed 51 Bedford

Street is not a well known address but

it's so important in the history of

London it's now a news agents that this

is where the first public toilets for

women were this is just in the wait is a

great exhibition of 1851 where over

800,000 people use the public loo and

really impress five unfortunately it

didn't really catch on here there are

two reasons for this firstly women were

ashamed to be seen for using a public

toilet women weren't supposed to go they

also weren't expected to be out on the

streets of the city secondly it was

expensive it costs you tough and start

to use the toilet another to to wash

your hands so that's open not exactly

spending a penny is it

[Music]

the public knew didn't catch on

immediately but the flushing toilets did

and the main beneficiary of this new

revolution was not a person but a city

stoke-on-trent

a regional hub of the Industrial

Revolution it was here in the kilns of

its potteries that the world's toilets

would be made in a gallery devoted

entirely to the humble loo I'm meeting

Angela Lee a curator who knows more

about toilets than anyone else on earth

so stoke-on-trent it's really the toilet

capital of the world isn't it I've never

seen so many different toilets before is

it treated the largest collection in the

whole world area this museum is filled

with hundreds of toilets all of which

were patented by a number of competing

Victorian inventors the most famous of

them all was Thomas Crapper

a man who many believed to have been the

sole inventor of the flushing loop it

would be great if you could explain for

me the myth of Thomas Crapper Thomas

Crapper

is important in sanitation history but

not for the reasons that people think

use he didn't invent the flushing no he

didn't event the flushing toilet because

no one person did and crap doesn't come

from his name that's such a

disappointment you know and it's a

really old word meaning rubbish or waste

or something you desperately want to get

rid of in the 18th century people were

using chamber pots and closed stools in

different rooms of the house sometimes

with other people present but now this

becomes the completely solitary activity

because merci there has always been a

sense of privacy if you could afford it

say in the Victorian age who becomes

taboo I mean certainly didn't want to be

seen and that was a problem with the

early toys I went jolly noisy so quite

often what would happen was you'd use

the chamber port and then empty into

your flushing toilet where there was

nobody else around

Elizabeth the first Ajax had failed to

prevent noxious gases rising up its

pipes and into the palace but all these

toilets seated the great technological

breakthrough you bend and s-bend

pipes when flushed the curve of the

pipes created water trap which prevented

smells from coming back up into the room

with this design breakthrough toilets of

all shapes and sizes flooded the market

determined to win over the public with

some fabulous names it seems to me that

people are inventing new types of toilet

every 10 minutes throughout the 19th

century certainly 1870s

it's like mobile phones they're going

off in all different directions every

company wants to get to this new big

market of making toilets but then 10 15

years later is all settled and we have

the British Standard toilet the toilet

we know today as Victorian England fell

under the spell of the flushing loo the

sudden surge in mass flushing created a

major public's problems

in order to see just how big a problem

it was I've come to the northern out

board sewer in London until the 1840s

your own Serge with your own problem you

kept it in your own separate that the

long to your house or you paid

night-night romance takes away what

happens in the 1840s is that the

government says you've got a link up

your water closet he's a general James

which he used for surface water it was a

good idea but it just didn't work if the

James couldn't take it they weren't

designed for it and literally if there's

a storm or the surge came back up

exploded all over Hoban if it's for

example 1858 was the great think when

the thames was absolutely horrific and

everyone realized london needed new

drains the answer for solution to the

whole problem we can see it down there

and that solution with the world's first

purpose-built sewer system built by the

engineer Joseph passenger

I think they could just lower me now

like like a carpet it's like they're

Laden over extend out the heavens or the

loose Stanny come cuddle more steps

don't marry didn't say about couple

advil all right am i standing an actual

tool here you are indeed yeah

you're not actually making it yet right

they are top Alex welcome to barrel

number three of the northern outfall sir

I can see why people say the scissor

like a Cathedral sister is a bitch

she's and caring and spectacular are you

impressed as an engineer today with what

gas injected you think he was good at

this job she was gladion office three

cholera epidemics as swept over london

by the mid 1800s killing more than a

hundred thousand cholera was still

believed to be transmitted through bad

air or miasma the sewers were designed

to enclose it and London's waste

carrying it away from the rivers for the

first time measuring 1,300 miles and

built in just nine years this remarkable

feat was followed by similar schemes all

over the land there babbled n is amazing

stores they allowed the Morgan Barton to

happen you couldn't have water closets

until valchek came along and made this

transformation with the creation of the

sewers and a citywide net worth of lead

pipes to replace the wooden pipes as a

past house it could now be built with a

wonderful new feature pipes water which

went not just to the basement but to all

areas of the house in particular to a

completely new room the bathroom

in order to see some really advanced

Victorian plumbing I've come to this

London house I'm being shown around by

his curator Rina Suleiman essentially

used by the servants and they had a what

they called a revolving wash basin or

the pickup sink you have your wash you

revolve it and the water rushes out and

you can see right down the dreamer

that's how it works

this house was rented in the 1870s by

the artist lynly Sanborn it came not

only with the downstairs toilet but also

plumbed in bathrooms for mrs. Sanborn

though being connected to the sewers was

not a wander but a curse here we go so

this is mrs. Sanborn bedroom and this is

her own London washing station but it

would have been considered quite a von

guard at the time now I've got this idea

that she well she didn't like drains and

having been down the sewer I can really

understand that it was disgusting down

there and she kept the plug in all time

she did and not only did she keep the

tugging but she hardly ever used it she

doesn't like that she's still using the

old system which is all laid out here

and that down there is the chamber pot

which she's still using even though

there are three plumbed in toilets in

this house now I don't blame her because

it's kind of nicer in here than it is in

the cold stony bathroom and people would

have seen how if she'd gone to the

bathroom which is immodest yes also

given the costumes that they were

wearing as well it would have been quite

cumbersome I've myriad of skirts that

they had underneath and to be able to

pull those up you'd need to be in

private in a big room with a chamber pot

yeah

and mrs. Sanborn was not alone in Dundee

and mrs. Fowler claims to have been

poisoned by the proximity of her bedroom

sink to the city's main sewer mr.

Sanborn however had a little more faith

in his plumbing we're in a recognizably

modern bathroom to the first time yes

here it is this is the 1880s is it the

DFS foot in you go mr. Sanborn had a

cold bath here every morning that he

didn't have hot water yet although as an

artist keen to explore the new medium of

photography he didn't use the bath just

for bathing this whole bath was designed

to house his chemical so this shelf was

fitted Daria so when I was doing the

photographic stuff he'd open up the

shelf and that's all the equipment on

here yes God looking sisters here there

are interesting I was getting on with

Billy Photography was very key to who

the way that he worked here asserted

them as his pencil sketches and he would

develop these photographs and trace them

and do final drawings for punch a little

bit absolutely essential that all these

ladies were naked no no and what did his

wife think about all of this well the

interesting thing is mrs. King who is

one of sanborns favorite models who came

here and to be photographed and that's

actually that table survives and is in

the morning room and that's in his a

morning room in his own house yes did

his wife know that mrs. King was sitting

in the morning room was no closer well

no well if you have to read their

Diaries in parallel for that particular

day so she's actually holidaying in

Ramsgate Assoc well out of the way when

mrs. and he's given the servants the day

off I've got a book of bathroom porn

here it's full of new technologies

exploded in the late 19th century

between 1855 and 99 4700 people applied

for a patent to do with some new bit of

bathroom kit and the middle classes are

creating bathrooms that we would

recognize that is where it all starts in

the late night

a century where as toilet technology had

been the obsession at the 1840s now it

was the turn of other fixtures and

fittings there's things in this book

like power showers there's one here that

looks just like the Rainmaker shower

that you can get in hugely expensive

Charles Dickens had a shower that was

called this demon that you are that what

all these patents revealed was that

bathing had now become an established

part of middle-class life theories on

the role of miasma or bad air in

spreading disease were finally debunked

by the discovery of germs in the late

19th century

now daily bathing was no longer seen as

a novelty but as a medical necessity

soon even people lowered down the social

scale began to see improvements in

sanitation so in order to see how the

other half lived I've come to the back

to facts in Birmingham a series of

nineteenth-century workers houses built

literally back to back where I'm being

guided around the communal yard by local

historian Chris cough most back-to-backs

have them and they were usually in the

corner of the yard

this is 87 1970 foot woods and a

flushing toilet flush away into the new

sewage system from the victorian sewage

system we've got 11 houses and only

three previous what they would have been

for with early for previous up to 60

people showing photos 60 people were

using these four do you think there were

sometimes cubes out here that that could

have been but the door was closed

you never knew then there was no locks

so you go and they go are mini up yeah

so you'd have to wait and despite the

invention of commercially manufactured

toilet paper in 1863 users of these

previous resorted to less expensive ways

of wiping their bottoms and just

repairing some Victorian toilet paper as

would have been used in this Victorian

fury here at the back to back they would

have been using waste paper newspaper

junk paper and in fact even today if I

get junk mail through my letterbox I

might well describe the some bits of old

paper thumps and that word originally

meant some fodder you talk about waste

pay

at some important because you would

literally use it to wipe your bottom

but despite the breakthrough of flushing

toilets the back to back

that's where bathroom technology ended

with just one tap in the yard and little

access to clean water instead of bathing

the women went to enormous lengths to

keep their family's clothes clean

a legacy seemingly unchanged since the

Tudor age here we are what you call int

is not the brew house that were anything

down there

Brewis the brewers threw in the paris

i'ma gonna light the fire because that's

the first job of the day the single

Victorian copper used to heat up the

water was shared between all 11 houses

so wash day was every 11 days quite a

hard day for the latest I would stop

really early yeah just get to sit here

looking at this and war we are huh no

lots of jobs to do bring me out there

though alongside the copper the women

had mangles dollies and Canadian Coons

making the process of washing a little

easier than it was in cuter times so

this is like a pre preparations awesome

you start you pretty much right after a

vigorous pre-wash called a pause the

boiling copper was then prepared with

new commercially available soaps it's

supporting you so so much have a go I

would mind your fingers while you do

yeah in 1853 someone finally decided

that it would be better for the hygiene

of the nation of soap wasn't text the

government actually gave a million

pounds of revenue as a result of that

decision start on the other hand you

know hygiene becomes much better than

each other it is the age of soup after

William Gladstone the Chancellor of the

Exchequer

repealed soap tax for the first time

since 1712 so became much more readily

available from the Pasha pears and palm

olives to the more affordable but

horrible smelling carbolic when people

wanted to have a boss did they heat up

the water for that in here yes well yes

and that would have been augmented was

buffeted on the stove in the house yes

you would use the gun kettles and sauce

pans on your stove in the house the bath

the old tin bath sometimes they were on

the top of the cellar head but sometimes

they were kept as

communal one that was kept within the

Brewers so you take that and you set up

in your kitchen in the warmest place in

that has right in front of the fire and

then they fill it just once for the

whole family

absolutely latex you can show you how

much trouble and I will absolutely so

you would take buckets and buckets

across and you would start to fill it up

you'd use the old carbolic again and dad

would go in probably first and it would

go down all the family until it got to

the children and you could probably get

two or three of the children together in

yeah the same water if you're very

dirtiest poor service Lester the

smallest maybe usually yeah yeah I mean

a survival of the fittest fellas yeah

yeah I'm the old phrase Sam's throwing

the baby out with the bathwater it's

probably good you couldn't find much

private bathrooms might have been out of

reach for working-class people but those

at the upper end of society rejected

plumbing for entirely different reasons

with legions of servants to heat up

their hot water they simply didn't need

it in fact here at Chadron as a

heartbreaking story of poor little

housemaid fourteen years old

whose job it was to fill up the big

boiling copper in the morning 50 buckets

of water every day she has to pour into

that thing at Shugborough Hall it was

the house maids job to prepare lady

Anson saw in her bedroom twice a week

I've always wanted to experience for

myself just how much hard work it was to

fill up a bath I'm getting a sense of it

already the bedroom is miles away I'm

wondering what I've taken on here and

then carry the hot water all the way out

there it is a bath

in Grand houses like this not only was

plumbing teams middle class and soldier

but worst of all Victorian pipes could

burst and wreak havoc on the fabric of

an 18th century mansion

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I reckon the housemaid was a lot fitter

than the lady of the house

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after 50 trips by the humble house made

the semi dress from mistress of the

house we'll get into what she would call

her mother's feet bath although I'm in a

super luxurious bedroom my boss could be

more luxurious I'm using carbolic soap

I'm using a rough sponge and I'm still

wearing my shift I'm not sort of

luxuriating in the water because

upper-class ladies still had quite a

puritanical suspicious attitude towards

bathing it was considered degenerate to

Lal about in the water something that

your husband's French mistress might do

rather than something a proper English

girl would do I read a brilliant lady's

hygiene manual from 1844 saying that

certain parts mustn't be washed more

than once a day to do so would be

degenerate and it would lead to

unfortunate consequences must never be

done so um

upper-class ladies went on bathing and

these rather sort of ramshackle camping

like conditions right into the 20th

century

well after hot water and plumbing and

bathrooms were available and it's

hilarious when all the dollar princesses

the American heiresses come over to

marry English aristocrats in the late

19th and early 20th centuries and

they're shocked by the primitive

conditions they find in English country

houses it wouldn't be until 1910 but

Shugborough would finally get its first

bathroom in an age that would see huge

advances in the provision of hot water

to the home the first Victorian systems

that heated up hot water directly from

the kitchen range but the laying on of

gas in the late 19th century gave rise

to geezer baths which had to be lit by

hand and which had a terrifying tendency

to explode

and finally the early 20th century saw

the great breakthrough the invention of

the high pressure circulating gas boiler

this was the final piece of the jigsaw

and the modern bathroom was complete by

the beginning of the 20th century they

looked like things were coming together

for the bathroom hot water was available

the plumbing was in place people

understood that it was healthy for them

to keep their forties clean but there

was one thing missing before people

could enjoy a guilt-free wallow in a hot

spot there needed to be a change in the

moral climate this only happens after

the First World War and there were two

main reasons for it the first was

Hollywood on the silver screen people

could see film stars wallowing in below

bus taking telephone calls making it all

perfectly normal and the second

influence was the places where film

stars themselves stayed in London luxury

hotels like this one

Victorian hotels were built with only

one bathroom for every floor but these

hotels had an ensuite in every room and

so to get me ready for the glamour of

the 1930s bathroom I'm having a

Hollywood makeover with the help of all

the latest versus beauty products it's a

teeny tiny razor a rapid shampoo which

requires no rinsing turn into film star

it's amazing so this is a bathroom in

1932 it's totally different from its

Victorian predecessor Victorian

bathrooms were masculine places very

functional probably designed for washing

yourself in cold water but this is a

room for enjoying yourself just

happiness isn't it this is Hollywood

glamour brought into English society and

you can just imagine a film star covered

in bubbles sipping a cocktail maybe

having a smoke in there and because

she's got lovely Marcel waves like mine

doesn't want to get her hair wet and so

probably using this very cunning

shoulder shower look at that there's the

main shower and there's the shoulders

shallow so you can get your dude wet and

you can also have an office you'll hit

some in the mood while you're in the bus

and the valet as well although the suite

is very plain white in here it's set off

with veined marble to show that this is

no ordinary bathroom clearly a place to

enjoy yourself

now that the bathroom was established as

a place of relaxation and luxury it was

in the private building boom of the

1930s that hot water bar things became

standard in most middle-class homes

so people living at the back to back

however it wouldn't be until way into

the 1950s that they too would finally

follow suit trying to pull order the

1951 census revealed that 37 percent of

British households still didn't have a

plumbed in bath for 22 percent not even

having a hot tub though Britain's slums

were cleared to rehouse 3 million people

in new flats all with built in bathrooms

the friend David how'd you like a new

home and yes linking what you're

particularly liked about it

well we don't have to boil every drop of

water now whereas in the old days we did

and also we have a toilet to us out

there whereas in the other hand you have

to share one lotta water across the

earth

now that bathroom technology had

established herself the main thing to

change over the last 50 years has been

the styling in the 1960s we got jacuzzis

and shower chandeliers sit for the

sexual revolution in the 1970s James

Bond's age we got colored Suites and

solid gold taps and toilets the lovely

Victorian wash hand basin and in the

1980s we went right back to the

beginning with a lover questionable

Victorian revival but its rounded head

square foot curved lip and the bore and

clawed feet no matter what technological

wizardry is available in the modern

bathroom today what we want from it

hasn't changed since the 1930s so I'm

not going to turn that gorgeous 1930s

bathroom down

the parkings had really remarkable

journey because 150 years ago it didn't

even exist it's Canton no room to one of

the most luxurious and pleasurable rooms

in the house today bathrooms are about

technology and gadgets everybody wants

their own people are converting spare

bedrooms into bathrooms there

everybody's got ensuite and that's

because somehow essential to modern life

they're places where you withdraw from

the world that places where you pamper

yourself recover be your true self

without anybody watching you for once

and the one room in the whole house that

still has a lock on the door

keep out next time the bedroom from the

communal medieval hall to the glamorous

boudoir cilinders for you this morning

brother I'll be seeing how the bedrooms

development has affected our most

private moment you'll see like the

person in the horror film who says that

in there every day is holy

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