Would you like to inspect the original subtitles? These are the user uploaded subtitles that are being translated:
1
00:00:06,960 --> 00:00:10,840
People always ask, how do people go to the loo in dresses like this?
2
00:00:10,840 --> 00:00:13,400
And there's an answer.
3
00:00:15,520 --> 00:00:19,200
Thank you. This is a bourdaloue, and it's an amazing invention.
4
00:00:19,200 --> 00:00:22,160
A secret chamber pot. What you do is slip it under here...
5
00:00:29,160 --> 00:00:33,160
And nobody knows what I'm doing.
6
00:00:33,160 --> 00:00:36,760
That feels a lot better.
7
00:00:42,240 --> 00:00:48,440
I'm Dr Lucy Worsley, chief curator of the Historic Royal Palaces, based here at Hampton Court.
8
00:00:48,440 --> 00:00:51,000
Another day at the office!
9
00:00:51,000 --> 00:00:55,240
As a historian though, I'm fascinated not just by grand palaces,
10
00:00:55,240 --> 00:01:01,920
but also by the more intimate moments and objects in history, and by how they inform our lives today.
11
00:01:01,920 --> 00:01:04,040
Oh, it's exciting, it's exciting.
12
00:01:04,040 --> 00:01:09,320
In this series, I'll be tracing the story of British domestic life through four rooms - the bathroom,
13
00:01:09,320 --> 00:01:13,080
the bedroom, the living room, and the kitchen.
14
00:01:13,080 --> 00:01:14,680
THEY LAUGH
15
00:01:14,680 --> 00:01:17,400
From homes of the Middle Ages to the present day,
16
00:01:17,400 --> 00:01:21,720
I'll be exploring the ways that our attitudes and habits have changed.
17
00:01:21,720 --> 00:01:25,720
I'll be meeting some extraordinary people. He's glowing at us!
18
00:01:25,720 --> 00:01:27,640
And doing some rather odd things.
19
00:01:28,760 --> 00:01:30,640
SHE SCREAMS
20
00:01:32,280 --> 00:01:36,040
'This time, from rebuilding Britain's first flushing toilet...'
21
00:01:36,040 --> 00:01:38,960
I just can't imagine this is going to go right first time.
22
00:01:38,960 --> 00:01:43,720
'..to taking a Victorian lady's bath, I'll be discovering how the bathroom
23
00:01:43,720 --> 00:01:46,960
has developed over the past 700 years.
24
00:01:46,960 --> 00:01:51,320
So in the Victorian age, poo becomes taboo.
25
00:02:06,680 --> 00:02:10,040
In our modern houses, we take so much for granted.
26
00:02:10,040 --> 00:02:15,320
All that comfort, privacy and technology that allows them to function.
27
00:02:15,320 --> 00:02:18,480
Yet, all these things have taken centuries to develop, and every room
28
00:02:18,480 --> 00:02:22,560
in the house has its own fascinating story.
29
00:02:22,560 --> 00:02:25,920
This time, I'll be exploring the history of the bathroom, the room which has
30
00:02:25,920 --> 00:02:32,280
taken the longest to evolve, yet the one we now consider to be the most essential in the house.
31
00:02:34,440 --> 00:02:38,880
This is a very desirable bathroom with the power showers,
32
00:02:38,880 --> 00:02:45,200
the double sinks and the big luxurious bathtubs, hot water on tap.
33
00:02:45,200 --> 00:02:47,760
And, round there, a loo to flush everything away.
34
00:02:47,760 --> 00:02:49,600
It is extraordinary
35
00:02:49,600 --> 00:02:53,840
when you consider that 50 years ago, many houses didn't even have
36
00:02:53,840 --> 00:03:00,840
plumbed-in baths, and 100 years before that, the bathroom as a specialised room didn't even exist.
37
00:03:00,840 --> 00:03:03,920
So how did all this technology come to be developed,
38
00:03:03,920 --> 00:03:07,400
and without it, how did people keep themselves clean?
39
00:03:11,040 --> 00:03:14,520
My story starts in medieval England.
40
00:03:14,520 --> 00:03:21,240
Today, we think of bathrooms as intensely private places, but in the Middle Ages, everything
41
00:03:21,240 --> 00:03:27,640
from washing and grooming to going to the toilet took place in public, in buildings just like this one.
42
00:03:27,640 --> 00:03:32,760
No functioning medieval bath houses exist in Britain today, so I've come
43
00:03:32,760 --> 00:03:40,280
to these modern baths in London's East End to have a steam with my fellow historian, Sally Dixon Smith.
44
00:03:40,280 --> 00:03:43,800
I've got the idea that medieval people were really smelly and never washed.
45
00:03:43,800 --> 00:03:45,880
But I think I'm wrong, aren't I?
46
00:03:45,880 --> 00:03:49,600
You are. It's a very-widely held misconception.
47
00:03:49,600 --> 00:03:53,080
I think because of this idea that the Tudors and the Stuarts are very
48
00:03:53,080 --> 00:03:57,160
smelly, hence medieval people must have absolutely stunk to high heaven.
49
00:03:57,160 --> 00:04:03,600
But it's not the case. Bath houses were very common in medieval cities and people would go quite regularly.
50
00:04:03,600 --> 00:04:08,160
The fashion for bathing had been established by medieval knights.
51
00:04:08,160 --> 00:04:14,680
After years fighting the crusades in the east, they returned home not only with citrus fruits and spices,
52
00:04:14,680 --> 00:04:18,400
but with a taste for steam baths, called hammams.
53
00:04:18,400 --> 00:04:22,120
700 years after Britain's Roman baths had fallen into ruin,
54
00:04:22,120 --> 00:04:24,840
bath houses were now built in every city.
55
00:04:24,840 --> 00:04:30,080
There were various ways of creating steam, you could heat up rocks or heat up tiles
56
00:04:30,080 --> 00:04:35,720
or ceramics in the fire, and either cast water on them or plunge them into water to heat the water.
57
00:04:35,720 --> 00:04:42,680
You could also pipe in steam from bake houses nearby, from their ovens, in order to warm up the steam houses,
58
00:04:42,680 --> 00:04:46,880
and people would also put spices and herbs in the water to give
59
00:04:46,880 --> 00:04:52,600
a lovely smell and be rinsed down with rose water, so all in all it must have been a lovely experience.
60
00:04:52,600 --> 00:04:56,880
and most surprisingly of all, bathing was mixed.
61
00:04:56,880 --> 00:04:58,440
Men and women
62
00:04:58,440 --> 00:04:59,880
- in there together, then?
- Yes.
63
00:04:59,880 --> 00:05:03,320
They were sometimes being used for shady business, people were meeting
64
00:05:03,320 --> 00:05:05,720
people who weren't their husband or wife there?
65
00:05:05,720 --> 00:05:09,880
You do get that implication, you get that quite a lot in literature,
66
00:05:09,880 --> 00:05:15,440
that it's something husbands fear, is that their wives are going to go to the bath house to meet their lovers.
67
00:05:15,440 --> 00:05:18,080
But, who knows? That's literature.
68
00:05:18,080 --> 00:05:22,680
Lancelot always seems to get propositioned whenever he has a bath, but then Lancelot's
69
00:05:22,680 --> 00:05:26,280
James Bond and James Bond always gets propositioned whenever he has a bath.
70
00:05:28,320 --> 00:05:31,800
In London's baths, or "stews" as they were called,
71
00:05:31,800 --> 00:05:37,400
you could have your hair cut, listen to music, get a shave or eat a meal.
72
00:05:37,400 --> 00:05:42,960
And they were so popular that they were soon licensed not just for bathing.
73
00:05:42,960 --> 00:05:46,120
The Bishop of Winchester, for instance, in Southwark,
74
00:05:46,120 --> 00:05:49,920
licensed bath houses, and licensed prostitution essentially
75
00:05:49,920 --> 00:05:56,160
and some of the women working in bath houses were known as wagtails, the Bishop's wagtails.
76
00:05:56,160 --> 00:06:00,480
This may be the origin of why women are referred to as "birds" today.
77
00:06:00,480 --> 00:06:04,240
You would have been respectable in the bath house because you had your hair covered.
78
00:06:04,240 --> 00:06:09,280
- Oh!
- And although there was a greater sense of nudity, or you might see people naked,
79
00:06:09,280 --> 00:06:14,040
women should still keep their hair covered because that was particularly private and sexual,
80
00:06:14,040 --> 00:06:16,840
and only prostitutes would have their hair down like me.
81
00:06:16,840 --> 00:06:19,480
Oh, Sally, I'm sorry to say that you're showing yours!
82
00:06:19,480 --> 00:06:22,000
Yes, very indiscreet.
83
00:06:25,160 --> 00:06:31,280
People in medieval England were quite surprisingly clean, bathing, keeping their houses clean.
84
00:06:31,280 --> 00:06:34,560
In fact in towns, if you didn't keep your house clean, you could be
85
00:06:34,560 --> 00:06:38,960
had up before a court of nuisance, given the equivalent of an ASBO
86
00:06:38,960 --> 00:06:43,680
and told you had to do a better job if smells from your property offended anybody else.
87
00:06:43,680 --> 00:06:47,640
But bath houses did fall out of fashion by the Tudor period.
88
00:06:47,640 --> 00:06:51,120
They just became too much associated with prostitution.
89
00:06:51,120 --> 00:06:56,960
They still existed, but they were now known as bagnios and bagnios turned into bordellos.
90
00:06:58,480 --> 00:07:03,560
But it wasn't only bathing that was a mixed, communal activity in medieval London.
91
00:07:03,560 --> 00:07:08,000
On the river, just near the bath houses, were also the public loos.
92
00:07:08,000 --> 00:07:11,120
We're on the modern London Bridge, but this picture shows
93
00:07:11,120 --> 00:07:14,000
its predecessor, the ancient London Bridge.
94
00:07:14,000 --> 00:07:18,680
And you see it is covered in houses, there were 138 houses on the bridge,
95
00:07:18,680 --> 00:07:22,280
and they had their own communal toilet. It was very famous.
96
00:07:22,280 --> 00:07:24,360
It was London's first public toilet.
97
00:07:24,360 --> 00:07:29,160
It was used by the residents, and also by travellers arriving into the city.
98
00:07:29,160 --> 00:07:32,880
And you can see how sensible it was to put the toilet on a bridge,
99
00:07:32,880 --> 00:07:37,040
because all the waste could fall straight down and be washed away by the river.
100
00:07:37,040 --> 00:07:39,240
All of London's rivers were used for this purpose.
101
00:07:39,240 --> 00:07:44,080
I do like the idea of these huge communal toilets that London had in the Middle Ages.
102
00:07:44,080 --> 00:07:48,040
They had these long benches with holes in them and everyone used to sit in there
103
00:07:48,040 --> 00:07:50,360
having a chat while they went.
104
00:07:50,360 --> 00:07:54,640
And with no modern loo paper, they had some interesting alternatives.
105
00:07:54,640 --> 00:07:59,040
We need to address the very important question of how they wiped their bottoms.
106
00:07:59,040 --> 00:08:04,920
Firstly, the legacy of the Romans was alive and well, the sponge on a stick for the highest in society.
107
00:08:04,920 --> 00:08:06,680
Very comfortable and convenient.
108
00:08:06,680 --> 00:08:13,720
Also, a book of instructions for a noble household recommends that the master used a piece of linen
109
00:08:13,720 --> 00:08:17,440
or blanket, also clean and convenient and comfortable.
110
00:08:17,440 --> 00:08:20,600
Lower down in society, you had to make do with what you can find.
111
00:08:20,600 --> 00:08:24,480
This is arse-wisp, straw, leaves, that sort of thing.
112
00:08:24,480 --> 00:08:28,960
And if that wasn't available, there's one more alternative.
113
00:08:30,360 --> 00:08:37,840
By the end of the Middle Ages, Britain's love affair with communal bathing was coming to an end.
114
00:08:37,840 --> 00:08:41,320
By the end of the 16th century, bathing had fallen out of fashion.
115
00:08:41,320 --> 00:08:44,600
People weren't washing like they had done in the medieval period.
116
00:08:44,600 --> 00:08:46,720
There were a couple of reasons for this.
117
00:08:46,720 --> 00:08:51,520
Firstly, it was quite hard to find clean water in crowded Tudor cities.
118
00:08:51,520 --> 00:08:53,760
Secondly, there was a medical reason.
119
00:08:53,760 --> 00:08:57,080
There was this new idea that sickness could be transmitted
120
00:08:57,080 --> 00:09:03,240
through the air, called miasma, and if you were bathing in hot water and your pores were opening up,
121
00:09:03,240 --> 00:09:05,640
this would make you vulnerable to disease.
122
00:09:05,640 --> 00:09:08,640
Air carrying bad stuff would go in through your skin.
123
00:09:08,640 --> 00:09:11,160
So bathing had become dangerous.
124
00:09:11,160 --> 00:09:15,960
The plague arrived seven times in 200 years.
125
00:09:15,960 --> 00:09:21,120
It killed 20% of the population and killed off bathing as well.
126
00:09:21,120 --> 00:09:26,240
In 1546, Henry VIII shut Britain's bath houses for good.
127
00:09:26,240 --> 00:09:33,680
Now, with no recourse to bathrooms of any kind, the Tudors came up with new theories on how to keep clean.
128
00:09:33,680 --> 00:09:39,760
Instead of bathing, the Tudors put their faith in something else - white linen underclothes.
129
00:09:39,760 --> 00:09:45,920
They thought that linen worn next to the skin would soak up the sweat and the toxins from the body.
130
00:09:45,920 --> 00:09:49,920
So instead of washing themselves, they washed their linen instead.
131
00:09:49,920 --> 00:09:55,160
To understand what it must have been like to wash linen without
132
00:09:55,160 --> 00:09:56,600
the modern washing machine,
133
00:09:56,600 --> 00:10:02,160
I've come to the Weald and Downland Museum in west Sussex to experience a typical
134
00:10:02,160 --> 00:10:07,120
Tudor wash day with historians Kathy Flower-Bond and Hannah Tiplady.
135
00:10:07,120 --> 00:10:12,320
I felt like a horse. So we are making a sort of filtering, drainage system really?
136
00:10:12,320 --> 00:10:17,920
'The first step in the process was to make a soap called lye.
137
00:10:17,920 --> 00:10:22,360
'Following an age-old method, it was made by filtering water through ash from the fire...'
138
00:10:22,360 --> 00:10:25,160
You can see it's starting to come through.
139
00:10:25,160 --> 00:10:29,160
'..through stones and straw in a bucket.
140
00:10:29,160 --> 00:10:31,920
'It was then boiled down
141
00:10:31,920 --> 00:10:36,480
'with mutton fat and mixed with herbs to make a sweet-smelling detergent.'
142
00:10:36,480 --> 00:10:38,760
That looks like soap that I would recognise.
143
00:10:38,760 --> 00:10:40,800
That's what Kathy's using over there.
144
00:10:40,800 --> 00:10:43,520
You rub that directly onto the bits that are really dirty.
145
00:10:43,520 --> 00:10:45,080
Bit of elbow grease necessary.
146
00:10:45,080 --> 00:10:47,200
Lots of elbow grease.
147
00:10:47,200 --> 00:10:49,960
After being soaked in lye and scrubbed with soap,
148
00:10:49,960 --> 00:10:53,520
the linen was then bashed with a bat called a beetle.
149
00:10:56,360 --> 00:10:58,560
Imagine doing this all day.
150
00:10:58,560 --> 00:11:01,920
You'd really need strong muscles to do this.
151
00:11:01,920 --> 00:11:05,200
It is quite fun and physical.
152
00:11:05,200 --> 00:11:09,240
Now, are these things the origin of ball games?
153
00:11:09,240 --> 00:11:11,520
The kids who were running around...
154
00:11:11,520 --> 00:11:14,000
- Playing around with the beetles and the balls?
- Yes.
155
00:11:14,000 --> 00:11:15,680
So women invented cricket!
156
00:11:16,680 --> 00:11:17,840
Yeah!
157
00:11:19,480 --> 00:11:24,960
Whereas the outer clothes were never washed, underclothes were washed every week.
158
00:11:24,960 --> 00:11:30,640
It was a female-dominated activity, but Tudor men could still make one vital contribution.
159
00:11:32,800 --> 00:11:34,680
I'm looking for a man.
160
00:11:40,280 --> 00:11:41,960
Can I ask you a favour?
161
00:11:41,960 --> 00:11:47,160
For centuries women have been doing the washing and we feel men haven't been contributing enough.
162
00:11:47,160 --> 00:11:51,040
We are hoping that you, today, can contribute some stain remover for us?
163
00:11:51,040 --> 00:11:53,880
Go forth and do your duty.
164
00:11:57,480 --> 00:11:59,680
Ah! Great, you are a gent.
165
00:11:59,680 --> 00:12:01,720
- Thank you.
- Happy washing!
- Thank you.
166
00:12:03,240 --> 00:12:06,320
So why are we pouring Brian's urine on to this sheet?
167
00:12:06,320 --> 00:12:12,840
Well, it's the best thing to whiten things, and if you've got really stubborn stains, grease,
168
00:12:12,840 --> 00:12:18,320
grass, anything like that, then that is by far the best stain remover there ever was.
169
00:12:18,320 --> 00:12:23,160
'After soaking the linen in urine for two days, they gave it a good rinse
170
00:12:23,160 --> 00:12:25,720
'and then spun it on a ringing post...'
171
00:12:25,720 --> 00:12:28,120
We are on the spin cycle of the washing machine.
172
00:12:28,120 --> 00:12:30,480
You can see how red your hands are getting.
173
00:12:30,480 --> 00:12:35,080
'..then hung it out on hawthorn hedges or rosemary bushes to dry.'
174
00:12:35,080 --> 00:12:37,400
You can see that hawthorn is just perfect for this,
175
00:12:37,400 --> 00:12:40,280
because all the prickles come through and hold it in place.
176
00:12:40,280 --> 00:12:43,240
Absolutely, you don't need clothes pegs!
177
00:12:43,240 --> 00:12:46,640
We've just done everything the modern washing machine does really.
178
00:12:46,640 --> 00:12:54,200
We soaked the clothes, we added the detergent, we agitated it and then we rinsed it and spun it out.
179
00:12:54,200 --> 00:12:58,080
But we only really washed one sheet and it took nearly all morning.
180
00:12:58,080 --> 00:13:02,240
So it's quite a lot of work really.
181
00:13:02,240 --> 00:13:06,520
I suppose what I've learned is that it shows that, although we think
182
00:13:06,520 --> 00:13:12,360
Tudor people were dirty, they didn't wash, this is a misconception.
183
00:13:12,360 --> 00:13:15,680
They put a huge amount of effort, their women put a huge amount
184
00:13:15,680 --> 00:13:19,040
of effort into making sure everyone had clean, white linen.
185
00:13:19,040 --> 00:13:26,320
Across the whole of Tudor society, clean linen, not a clean body, was the true measure of cleanliness.
186
00:13:26,320 --> 00:13:29,320
Indeed, for the very rich, it was a show of brilliant white
187
00:13:29,320 --> 00:13:34,760
at the collar and cuffs that advertised not only one's status, but one's moral worth.
188
00:13:34,760 --> 00:13:38,320
The whiter the white, the more godly the person.
189
00:13:38,320 --> 00:13:43,520
After experiencing a Tudor laundry, I've decided to take it one step further
190
00:13:43,520 --> 00:13:46,800
and find out what it was really like under those collars and cuffs.
191
00:13:46,800 --> 00:13:52,880
So, just like 16th century people, I've decided not to bathe for a whole week.
192
00:13:52,880 --> 00:13:58,040
Instead, I'll wash just my face and my hands, and wear clean linen underclothes every day.
193
00:13:58,040 --> 00:14:01,320
I think it will be challenging not to wash.
194
00:14:01,320 --> 00:14:03,560
I feel bad when I don't wash.
195
00:14:03,560 --> 00:14:05,600
I wash every day.
196
00:14:05,600 --> 00:14:07,240
I'm a fiend for hot water.
197
00:14:07,240 --> 00:14:12,760
This is the morning of my third day now without a bath,
198
00:14:12,760 --> 00:14:16,280
and I have to say I'm not very happy.
199
00:14:16,280 --> 00:14:23,640
I feel itchy and horrible all over, and yesterday, I resorted to wearing my hat.
200
00:14:23,640 --> 00:14:28,680
I had that on all day, because I felt that this would horrify the human eye.
201
00:14:28,680 --> 00:14:31,520
It just feels dirty, dirty, dirty.
202
00:14:31,520 --> 00:14:36,080
I'm worried that I smell a bit, so I've come to work today with this beautiful pomander that will
203
00:14:36,080 --> 00:14:42,440
hopefully protect my colleagues from the pestilential vapours which my body may be omitting.
204
00:14:42,440 --> 00:14:49,160
It's an orange, and the flesh has been removed, and it's been replaced by a sponge soaked in vinegar.
205
00:14:49,160 --> 00:14:54,320
And these are cloves. If I were going out into Tudor London, I would carry this with me
206
00:14:54,320 --> 00:14:59,920
and it would be like a portable air freshener I suppose.
207
00:14:59,920 --> 00:15:01,480
Reminds me of Christmas, not bad.
208
00:15:01,480 --> 00:15:03,000
Yes?
209
00:15:05,000 --> 00:15:06,560
I'll go with the smell.
210
00:15:08,240 --> 00:15:10,560
Come on, ladies, noses up close.
211
00:15:12,880 --> 00:15:18,440
Do you like it? What has been quite interesting is people's reactions to me.
212
00:15:18,440 --> 00:15:21,360
A lot of people have gone, "Ugh, that's disgusting!"
213
00:15:21,360 --> 00:15:26,720
But actually a lot of my older colleagues at work have
214
00:15:26,720 --> 00:15:30,920
said "Oh, well, when I was a girl I only had one bath a week"
215
00:15:30,920 --> 00:15:35,720
and that really shows you how things have changed in the later 20th century.
216
00:15:35,720 --> 00:15:40,560
But the one body part the Tudors did clean carefully was their teeth
217
00:15:40,560 --> 00:15:43,360
so I'm trying out a few period recipes with a Tudor toothbrush.
218
00:15:43,360 --> 00:15:45,120
It's a twig.
219
00:15:45,120 --> 00:15:48,840
It's got a nice hairy end. That's rosemary and salt.
220
00:15:54,920 --> 00:16:00,240
And the salt gives it a bit of graininess, which is what you actually need.
221
00:16:00,240 --> 00:16:04,480
This is tooth powder made out of burnt toast.
222
00:16:04,480 --> 00:16:06,880
I set the fire alarm off while I was making that.
223
00:16:08,400 --> 00:16:11,800
It's pretty hopeless, because it's too soft. That's vinegar.
224
00:16:11,800 --> 00:16:14,080
It's a kind of mouthwash.
225
00:16:25,320 --> 00:16:27,680
Ooh! That just blows your head off.
226
00:16:27,680 --> 00:16:34,840
'As my final day of not bathing approaches, I can't contain my delight.'
227
00:16:34,840 --> 00:16:41,480
It's the end of the last day of the experiment. That's a whole week!
228
00:16:41,480 --> 00:16:43,080
And here is my bag of things.
229
00:16:43,080 --> 00:16:47,000
Oh, I'm so happy to see these things again, look! Here they all are.
230
00:16:47,000 --> 00:16:53,640
Modern life, and that delightful sound that you can hear up there is the water running into my bath,
231
00:16:53,640 --> 00:16:59,040
which I'm going to leap into in just a second. Shampoo, hooray!
232
00:16:59,040 --> 00:17:01,440
Bye-bye.
233
00:17:01,440 --> 00:17:05,600
My week without washing was...
234
00:17:05,600 --> 00:17:08,360
educational rather than enjoyable.
235
00:17:08,360 --> 00:17:10,880
In fact, it was quite horrible.
236
00:17:10,880 --> 00:17:15,720
But that's because for me it was a very strange and novel experience.
237
00:17:15,720 --> 00:17:21,120
One thing that really helped was putting on a clean T-shirt every day. That was intensely pleasurable.
238
00:17:21,120 --> 00:17:22,880
Much more so than normal.
239
00:17:22,880 --> 00:17:26,000
The other thing that was pretty handy, I rather liked, was the way
240
00:17:26,000 --> 00:17:31,360
I could take my basin of water to wash my face to any room, to any part of the house.
241
00:17:31,360 --> 00:17:34,160
I could even wash my face in bed if I wanted to.
242
00:17:34,160 --> 00:17:37,600
And this is the real big difference between the Tudors and today.
243
00:17:37,600 --> 00:17:39,920
They just had no concept of a bathroom.
244
00:17:39,920 --> 00:17:42,560
That idea lay centuries into the future.
245
00:17:42,560 --> 00:17:48,960
They did still need to go to the loo though, and they had numerous different options for that.
246
00:17:48,960 --> 00:17:52,040
In Tudor England, there were three levels of toilets.
247
00:17:52,040 --> 00:17:56,120
The lowest were communal privies called great houses of easement.
248
00:17:56,120 --> 00:18:00,200
Next were chamber pots, whose contents were often thrown into the street.
249
00:18:00,200 --> 00:18:03,920
And the rich used close stools, velvet-padded chairs with a pot
250
00:18:03,920 --> 00:18:07,040
inside, which were carried away and cleaned out by servants.
251
00:18:07,040 --> 00:18:12,880
Elizabeth I even had her own stool carriage that followed her wherever she went.
252
00:18:12,880 --> 00:18:18,520
But, all of a sudden, in 1596, a revolutionary new invention arrived,
253
00:18:18,520 --> 00:18:21,480
Britain's first flushing toilet.
254
00:18:21,480 --> 00:18:25,960
It was a device so ahead of its time, it brought its inventor instant fame.
255
00:18:25,960 --> 00:18:30,560
Intrigued to know how it worked, I've come to a modern plumber's workshop
256
00:18:30,560 --> 00:18:36,200
in order to rebuild it using the original 16th-century instructions.
257
00:18:36,200 --> 00:18:38,400
So A is the tank.
258
00:18:38,400 --> 00:18:42,640
Yes, A is the tank, which is known nowadays as a toilet cistern.
259
00:18:42,640 --> 00:18:45,440
I've got one of those at home, but I don't have fish in mine.
260
00:18:45,440 --> 00:18:48,080
No, that is an added extra if you want!
261
00:18:48,080 --> 00:18:52,560
It was invented by the poet Sir John Harington, godson to Elizabeth I,
262
00:18:52,560 --> 00:18:56,000
and so impressed the Queen that it was installed in Richmond Palace.
263
00:18:56,000 --> 00:19:01,120
Sir John wrote a book describing how to make your "worst privy
264
00:19:01,120 --> 00:19:03,720
"as sweet as your best chamber."
265
00:19:03,720 --> 00:19:07,760
And called it the Metamorphosis of Ajax,
266
00:19:07,760 --> 00:19:12,160
a pun on the Tudor word for a toilet - a "jakes".
267
00:19:12,160 --> 00:19:14,600
Filled with water from the palace well,
268
00:19:14,600 --> 00:19:20,720
it flushed into a private cesspit, which was cleaned out once a month by boys called gong scourers.
269
00:19:20,720 --> 00:19:23,520
That is the equivalent of the sewer.
270
00:19:23,520 --> 00:19:25,880
Yes, sewer, septic tank, whatever.
271
00:19:25,880 --> 00:19:30,400
The toilet had two valves, one at the top to flush water into the
272
00:19:30,400 --> 00:19:33,600
toilet bowl, the other to release it into the cesspit.
273
00:19:33,600 --> 00:19:40,080
And to save precious water, a key was fitted so that only the keyholder could release the flush,
274
00:19:40,080 --> 00:19:43,240
"after at least 20 persons had used it."
275
00:19:43,240 --> 00:19:47,400
I can see how all this sort of might come together, but it seems quite clever.
276
00:19:47,400 --> 00:19:49,760
Is it still how a toilet works today?
277
00:19:49,760 --> 00:19:51,600
The essentials are exactly the same.
278
00:19:51,600 --> 00:19:55,160
- That's remarkable.
- Yes, the same idea as what we use now.
279
00:19:55,160 --> 00:19:56,920
Good job, Sir John Harington.
280
00:19:59,600 --> 00:20:06,840
After soldering and fixing the flush pipes into place, we are finally ready to test our contraption.
281
00:20:06,840 --> 00:20:09,920
I just can't believe this is going to go right first time.
282
00:20:09,920 --> 00:20:12,920
There's too much potential for disaster here, I think.
283
00:20:12,920 --> 00:20:15,240
I suggest we fill it up and give it a try.
284
00:20:15,240 --> 00:20:16,760
Here we go.
285
00:20:22,080 --> 00:20:24,480
It's leaking a little bit...
286
00:20:24,480 --> 00:20:27,320
But it's going to work. Here we are.
287
00:20:27,320 --> 00:20:30,520
We are putting in the tomatoes.
288
00:20:30,520 --> 00:20:34,120
We chose tomatoes because they were a brand new Elizabethan fruit that
289
00:20:34,120 --> 00:20:36,960
had only just caught on, so it seemed appropriate.
290
00:20:36,960 --> 00:20:39,080
- Full flush.
- Whoosh!
291
00:20:39,080 --> 00:20:44,120
Hey, that's really effective, look at that! That is looking good.
292
00:20:45,200 --> 00:20:46,880
Shall we do the bottom flush?
293
00:20:46,880 --> 00:20:49,240
Let's go for the bottom flush.
294
00:20:49,240 --> 00:20:51,400
Hey, it's flushing! It's flushing.
295
00:20:51,400 --> 00:20:54,240
Brilliant. Did you see how well they went down there?
296
00:20:54,240 --> 00:20:55,920
I see how well they went down.
297
00:20:55,920 --> 00:20:59,840
The tank didn't hold up too well, but made out of wood, it's not too bad, is it?
298
00:20:59,840 --> 00:21:05,280
But the main thing is that the tomatoes made its way beautifully down into the cesspit.
299
00:21:05,280 --> 00:21:08,440
I'm amazed that it worked! I never thought it would.
300
00:21:08,440 --> 00:21:10,320
But it's actually really effective.
301
00:21:10,320 --> 00:21:14,240
- It had a really powerful swoosh! Good effort.
- Good teamwork.
302
00:21:14,240 --> 00:21:17,800
But despite its revolutionary design, the Ajax was too early
303
00:21:17,800 --> 00:21:22,200
for its time and it wouldn't reappear for another 200 years.
304
00:21:22,200 --> 00:21:27,280
In a way, it is quite surprising that once the flushing toilet has been invented, it doesn't catch on.
305
00:21:27,280 --> 00:21:29,600
But there are a couple of very good reasons for this.
306
00:21:29,600 --> 00:21:32,000
Firstly, it smells. It still smells.
307
00:21:32,000 --> 00:21:36,760
There is nothing to stop bad smells coming out and affecting the person who is using the toilet.
308
00:21:36,760 --> 00:21:38,640
And secondly, it's fixed.
309
00:21:38,640 --> 00:21:40,280
It's a great big structure.
310
00:21:40,280 --> 00:21:43,120
The Queen doesn't want to have to GO to the toilet.
311
00:21:43,120 --> 00:21:45,120
She wants the toilet to go to her.
312
00:21:45,120 --> 00:21:48,080
So that's why the close stool remains more popular.
313
00:21:48,080 --> 00:21:52,960
As long as you've got someone to empty it for you, then flushing is just a bit of a gimmick.
314
00:21:52,960 --> 00:21:57,080
But whatever method the Elizabethans used to relieve themselves,
315
00:21:57,080 --> 00:22:00,680
there was always the question of what to do with the consequences.
316
00:22:00,680 --> 00:22:04,520
Most houses had cesspits, which were cleaned out by night soil men,
317
00:22:04,520 --> 00:22:07,560
and the waste was used for compost on market gardens.
318
00:22:07,560 --> 00:22:10,040
But this cost a shilling a week.
319
00:22:10,040 --> 00:22:14,320
Many Londoners dumped their waste directly into the rivers instead.
320
00:22:14,320 --> 00:22:19,520
To supply London with cleaner water, it was clear that a new solution was needed.
321
00:22:19,520 --> 00:22:22,680
When we turn on our taps in our modern bathrooms and
322
00:22:22,680 --> 00:22:25,800
fresh, clean water comes out, it is something of a miracle.
323
00:22:25,800 --> 00:22:29,600
A huge amount of plumbing and piping makes it all possible.
324
00:22:29,600 --> 00:22:34,040
The beginnings of this infrastructure were laid in late Elizabethan London.
325
00:22:34,040 --> 00:22:38,440
It was a crowded, smelly, dirty city. Its rivers were polluted.
326
00:22:38,440 --> 00:22:44,880
It began to be a priority for Elizabethans to find an alternative to the stinky Thames.
327
00:22:47,000 --> 00:22:53,320
And that alternative was called the New River, where I've come to meet historian, David Adshead.
328
00:22:53,320 --> 00:23:00,080
So, David, did they come up with the idea then because, in Elizabethan London, they started to realise
329
00:23:00,080 --> 00:23:04,800
that their sewage and drinking water was all mixed up together and this wasn't a good thing?
330
00:23:04,800 --> 00:23:06,360
That's absolutely it.
331
00:23:06,360 --> 00:23:09,360
By the end of Queen Elizabeth's reign, there were 180,000 people
332
00:23:09,360 --> 00:23:13,560
living in London and there wasn't a proper water supply or sewage system.
333
00:23:13,560 --> 00:23:21,040
Built by Sir Hugh Myddleton in 1613, the New River brought water all the way from a spring in Hertfordshire.
334
00:23:21,040 --> 00:23:26,080
It took 10 years to build, using a single plough and 100 men digging by hand.
335
00:23:26,080 --> 00:23:28,280
Right then, let's have a look on your map.
336
00:23:28,280 --> 00:23:32,680
That's the full extent of the New River, going all the way
337
00:23:32,680 --> 00:23:36,360
down from its source here.
338
00:23:36,360 --> 00:23:38,920
So it winds all the way along here.
339
00:23:38,920 --> 00:23:40,480
To Haringey,
340
00:23:40,480 --> 00:23:42,720
Stroud Green, Finsbury Park.
341
00:23:42,720 --> 00:23:46,200
- Islington, the new riverhead.
- So did you say that is 40 miles long?
342
00:23:46,200 --> 00:23:49,600
Well, as the crow flies it's less than 20, but because of
343
00:23:49,600 --> 00:23:54,120
all the wiggles, it was over 40 miles when it was first constructed.
344
00:23:54,120 --> 00:23:56,000
So what determined its route?
345
00:23:56,000 --> 00:23:59,680
Well, what they were trying to do was to take advantage of gravity.
346
00:23:59,680 --> 00:24:06,200
Rather than have the cost of pumping, etc etc, and long-term maintenance, they simply followed the
347
00:24:06,200 --> 00:24:09,040
- 100-foot contour line.
- That's quite a job.
348
00:24:09,040 --> 00:24:13,680
As an engineering feat, it's up there with the Channel Tunnel or the Great Western Railway.
349
00:24:13,680 --> 00:24:15,240
It's absolutely extraordinary.
350
00:24:15,240 --> 00:24:19,640
The water ended up in reservoirs at Sadler's Wells,
351
00:24:19,640 --> 00:24:23,560
from where it flowed down into the City through carved wooden pipes.
352
00:24:25,560 --> 00:24:28,360
They procured elm from all the home counties,
353
00:24:28,360 --> 00:24:34,360
thousands and thousands of elms, they bought them by the ton, and they chopped them into five-foot lengths,
354
00:24:34,360 --> 00:24:38,760
and they then bored them out, so these are the strings of elm pipes.
355
00:24:38,760 --> 00:24:41,240
Was there a particular reason for the choice of elm?
356
00:24:41,240 --> 00:24:44,480
Well, elm has fairly unique properties.
357
00:24:44,480 --> 00:24:48,800
It has a twisted grain, so that meant where the
358
00:24:48,800 --> 00:24:52,040
pipes were exposed to sunlight they were less likely to split.
359
00:24:52,040 --> 00:24:54,000
Makes the best pipes.
360
00:24:54,000 --> 00:24:57,880
- So these pipes are just running along the top of the road? That's amazing.
- They are.
361
00:24:57,880 --> 00:25:01,160
Might we have seen that in this street here, a great run of pipes?
362
00:25:01,160 --> 00:25:04,240
I think you probably would, and there are descriptions in some
363
00:25:04,240 --> 00:25:08,560
streets and squares in London of as many as nine strings of these pipes.
364
00:25:08,560 --> 00:25:10,480
Nine pipes all at once, that's incredible.
365
00:25:10,480 --> 00:25:13,160
There can't have been room for the carriages.
366
00:25:13,160 --> 00:25:18,800
Lead pipes called quills were then drilled into the wood and connected to paying customers' homes.
367
00:25:18,800 --> 00:25:22,040
For the first time, fresh Hertfordshire water
368
00:25:22,040 --> 00:25:26,440
instead of the dirty Thames could be used for drinking and washing.
369
00:25:26,440 --> 00:25:30,720
It cost 24 shillings a year, the equivalent of £160 today.
370
00:25:30,720 --> 00:25:37,800
It was such a successful system that it was still being used 100 years later in Georgian London.
371
00:25:45,880 --> 00:25:50,600
Here it is. The point at which water finally gets into the house.
372
00:25:50,600 --> 00:25:55,160
It comes down in these underground kitchen basements.
373
00:25:55,160 --> 00:26:00,600
There's a tap here, not everybody had a tap and not everybody had water every day.
374
00:26:00,600 --> 00:26:05,800
Different streets had their own water day when the supply would be turned on for a couple of hours.
375
00:26:05,800 --> 00:26:08,800
So when it was your water day, you got all your pots and pans,
376
00:26:08,800 --> 00:26:14,920
you filled up everything you could because, once water day was over, that's it till next time.
377
00:26:14,920 --> 00:26:21,720
The water was then carried upstairs to dressing tables set up in the corners of Georgian bedrooms.
378
00:26:21,720 --> 00:26:23,320
These "toilette stations"
379
00:26:23,320 --> 00:26:27,520
were like modern bathrooms in miniature, with their trio of jug, bowl and washstand.
380
00:26:27,520 --> 00:26:31,520
This is where Georgian men and women would have had their morning wash.
381
00:26:31,520 --> 00:26:35,160
Unlike today, this was a social event.
382
00:26:35,160 --> 00:26:38,040
Wealthy people would even allow visitors to watch.
383
00:26:38,040 --> 00:26:43,040
To learn more about the Georgian toilettes, I'm meeting historian Amanda Vickery.
384
00:26:43,040 --> 00:26:45,800
I think I would be washing my face in that?
385
00:26:45,800 --> 00:26:48,320
And my hands? Any other body parts?
386
00:26:48,320 --> 00:26:50,160
I think the extremities.
387
00:26:50,160 --> 00:26:56,960
I think the face and hands, and sometimes water is enough, you know, a wipe down with linen.
388
00:26:56,960 --> 00:27:00,120
Because again, how much of your body is going to be seen by the world?
389
00:27:00,120 --> 00:27:03,880
- It's what protrudes out of your clothes.
- We call this a basin.
390
00:27:03,880 --> 00:27:09,120
It is the forerunner to the modern washbasin that we have in our bathrooms today, isn't it?
391
00:27:09,120 --> 00:27:13,480
Well, I suppose this is the beginning of the idea that you are going to have a sink.
392
00:27:13,480 --> 00:27:17,960
Some servant has got to labour up the stairs with that hot water.
393
00:27:17,960 --> 00:27:23,280
Do you know, I do like the idea that the washbasin comes to me, rather than I have to go to the washbasin.
394
00:27:23,280 --> 00:27:28,080
I imagine it's lovely just rolling out of bed and there it is, all lovely and warm.
395
00:27:28,080 --> 00:27:32,400
To cater for the tastes of an aspirational middle class, new items of
396
00:27:32,400 --> 00:27:39,400
washware exploded onto the market, from men's shaving tables to a thoroughly new invention, the bidet.
397
00:27:39,400 --> 00:27:42,440
It didn't really catch on, did it? Although it did in France.
398
00:27:42,440 --> 00:27:47,640
The interesting thing is that it seems that it's prostitutes and courtesans in France who really drive
399
00:27:47,640 --> 00:27:54,360
on the fashion for the bidet, so I love that idea that these women who are so despised were actually at the
400
00:27:54,360 --> 00:27:59,440
forefront of fashion, because clearly it's in their interest to be as fresh as possible for the next customer.
401
00:27:59,440 --> 00:28:03,960
Hmm, but in England they were always viewed with grave suspicion, really.
402
00:28:03,960 --> 00:28:07,280
Unsurprising really if it's something that's deployed by a French prostitute.
403
00:28:07,280 --> 00:28:11,240
You can't imagine some nice Protestant girl thinking, "Ooh, that's the thing for me."
404
00:28:11,240 --> 00:28:16,160
Exposed to the eyes of visitors, a washing station was also a sign of status.
405
00:28:16,160 --> 00:28:20,320
It was crammed with perfume bottles, combs, head scratchers, all the
406
00:28:20,320 --> 00:28:23,280
fashionable accoutrements, including make-up.
407
00:28:23,280 --> 00:28:27,440
So, is this made of something like cochineal, ground up?
408
00:28:27,440 --> 00:28:32,840
Cochineal was one ingredient of rouge, and the other thing you could do is get a red ribbon and cut it
409
00:28:32,840 --> 00:28:36,160
and wet it and you could use that.
410
00:28:36,160 --> 00:28:38,640
I think I would just slap the cheeks myself.
411
00:28:38,640 --> 00:28:41,480
I think I've gone a bit overboard, do you?
412
00:28:41,480 --> 00:28:44,560
- Definitely.
- Do you think I look a little bit too French?
413
00:28:44,560 --> 00:28:46,320
You look like a sinister doll.
414
00:28:46,320 --> 00:28:48,880
Get it off! Get it off!
415
00:28:48,880 --> 00:28:52,800
Despite access to fresh water, the toilette was more about make-up,
416
00:28:52,800 --> 00:28:57,600
perfume and powder, more about disguising dirt than washing it off.
417
00:28:57,600 --> 00:29:02,560
And to make matters worse, in 1712, Queen Anne imposed a tax on soap,
418
00:29:02,560 --> 00:29:06,400
so burdensome that soap became a luxury item.
419
00:29:06,400 --> 00:29:08,680
Can you possibly give me a hand with my wig?
420
00:29:08,680 --> 00:29:11,680
I'm just putting something around myself.
421
00:29:11,680 --> 00:29:14,160
"Give me a hand", you mean be your servant.
422
00:29:14,160 --> 00:29:17,480
Everybody thinks, "I'd love to go back in the past." They think
423
00:29:17,480 --> 00:29:20,720
they'd marry Mr Darcy, but of course they'd be the housemaid,
424
00:29:20,720 --> 00:29:23,240
I mean the ladies maid. Am I sticking it on?
425
00:29:23,240 --> 00:29:25,760
Oh, well, if you wouldn't mind.
426
00:29:27,120 --> 00:29:31,560
But this is a real treat, Amanda, if you want to do it, to use the little bellows.
427
00:29:33,080 --> 00:29:36,640
Now, you can't complain about that.
428
00:29:42,720 --> 00:29:45,760
Lots of people think that the 18th century was the
429
00:29:45,760 --> 00:29:49,760
age of elegance but I think it was the age of body odour.
430
00:29:49,760 --> 00:29:52,560
However, we have seen something very interesting up there.
431
00:29:52,560 --> 00:29:56,520
That is the birth of the modern bathroom, that little corner of the bedroom.
432
00:29:56,520 --> 00:30:01,960
It has the ingredients of a basin, fresh water, even a little piece of soap if you could afford it.
433
00:30:01,960 --> 00:30:07,160
So that's the first time we've seen part of the house just given over to washing, and that corner of the
434
00:30:07,160 --> 00:30:11,440
bedroom will go on to become a whole room of its own.
435
00:30:12,960 --> 00:30:18,880
Even if the toilette involved more perfume and powder than water, the concept of bathing
436
00:30:18,880 --> 00:30:23,000
did return to prominence for the first time since the medieval age.
437
00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:26,520
But, rather than bathing in hot water to cleanse the body,
438
00:30:26,520 --> 00:30:30,280
the Georgians preached the medicinal virtues of cold water.
439
00:30:30,280 --> 00:30:33,280
In particular, sea water.
440
00:30:33,280 --> 00:30:39,400
Georgian doctors were recommending that you immerse your body into sea water to cure practically anything,
441
00:30:39,400 --> 00:30:44,680
from constipation to infertility, to what they called "disorders of the codpiece economy".
442
00:30:44,680 --> 00:30:48,640
And, in fact, the quotation I like most of all is from the doctor who
443
00:30:48,640 --> 00:30:55,440
recommends that you go into cold water because it will "powerfully excite your stupid mind."
444
00:30:56,960 --> 00:31:00,920
The sea was regarded as frightening, so for those who couldn't pluck up
445
00:31:00,920 --> 00:31:05,800
the courage to get into it, it was recommended they drink it instead.
446
00:31:05,800 --> 00:31:10,440
This peculiar-looking drink is the prescription of Dr Richard Russell
447
00:31:10,440 --> 00:31:13,680
and this will cure absolutely anything, if you believed him.
448
00:31:13,680 --> 00:31:17,800
It's a pint of seawater boiled with milk and cream of tartar.
449
00:31:17,800 --> 00:31:20,320
Now I'm going to tell you what it tastes like.
450
00:31:28,400 --> 00:31:34,240
That tastes exactly like vomit and I'd rather have a swim in the sea than drink a pint of that.
451
00:31:37,240 --> 00:31:42,240
OK. Ha-ha! It's time. The moment has come. I'm going to give it a go!
452
00:31:44,400 --> 00:31:47,760
SHE SQUEALS
453
00:31:49,680 --> 00:31:55,000
To preserve their modesty, ladies wore long dresses weighted down with lead so
454
00:31:55,000 --> 00:31:58,320
that they wouldn't reveal anything that shouldn't be seen by gentlemen.
455
00:31:58,320 --> 00:32:02,280
They were taken down to the waters in horse-drawn bathing machines
456
00:32:02,280 --> 00:32:05,440
and helped in by doctors and elderly matrons.
457
00:32:05,440 --> 00:32:07,680
No such luxury for me.
458
00:32:11,520 --> 00:32:13,400
Oh!
459
00:32:21,480 --> 00:32:25,280
Ladies were advised not to plunge in all at once in case it was too much
460
00:32:25,280 --> 00:32:30,640
for them, in case they burst a blood vessel, so I might have gone in a bit too quickly.
461
00:32:30,640 --> 00:32:33,480
But that is really rather strangely pleasant.
462
00:32:33,480 --> 00:32:38,040
It's certainly woken me up, it's roused up my drowsy spirits...
463
00:32:39,560 --> 00:32:42,480
..and it's invigorated my stupid mind.
464
00:32:42,480 --> 00:32:45,480
I really quite enjoyed it, but I can see why some Georgian
465
00:32:45,480 --> 00:32:48,680
ladies thought it was all too much and they never did it again.
466
00:32:51,080 --> 00:32:58,480
Over the next 100 years, between 1750 and 1850, Britain would now plunge headlong into the greatest
467
00:32:58,480 --> 00:33:03,280
social and economic change in its history - the Industrial Revolution.
468
00:33:03,280 --> 00:33:09,320
Alongside cotton mills and steam trains came gas lamps and the first kitchen range.
469
00:33:09,320 --> 00:33:12,320
This age of invention would transform the home and culminate
470
00:33:12,320 --> 00:33:19,800
in the Great Exhibition of 1851, the greatest showcase for British technology the world had ever seen.
471
00:33:19,800 --> 00:33:26,280
The watchmaker, Alexander Cumming, became the first to reinvent Sir John Harington's Ajax toilet in
472
00:33:26,280 --> 00:33:31,480
1775, but it was at the Great Exhibition that the masses would not only see new pieces of
473
00:33:31,480 --> 00:33:36,760
bathroom technology, but also use a flushing toilet for the first time.
474
00:33:36,760 --> 00:33:39,280
The lack of public toilets had once restricted
475
00:33:39,280 --> 00:33:45,200
women's mobility outside the home but now the streets of London could potentially be transformed.
476
00:33:45,200 --> 00:33:50,960
51 Bedford Street is not a well-known address, but it is so important in the history of London.
477
00:33:50,960 --> 00:33:56,120
It's now a newsagent, but this is where the first public toilets for women were.
478
00:33:56,120 --> 00:34:00,280
This was just in the wake of the Great Exhibition of 1851, where
479
00:34:00,280 --> 00:34:04,000
over 800,000 people used the public loo and were really impressed by it.
480
00:34:04,000 --> 00:34:06,520
Unfortunately, it didn't really catch on here.
481
00:34:06,520 --> 00:34:11,880
There were two reasons for this. Firstly, women were ashamed to be seen to be using a public toilet,
482
00:34:11,880 --> 00:34:16,320
women weren't supposed to go, they also weren't expected to be out on the streets of the city.
483
00:34:16,320 --> 00:34:18,360
Secondly, it was expensive.
484
00:34:18,360 --> 00:34:23,480
It cost you tuppence to actually use the toilet, another two to wash your hands, so that's four pence.
485
00:34:23,480 --> 00:34:25,920
That's not exactly spending a penny, is it?
486
00:34:29,080 --> 00:34:35,520
The public loo didn't catch on immediately but the flushing toilet did, and the main beneficiary of
487
00:34:35,520 --> 00:34:39,920
this loo revolution was not a person, but a city - Stoke-on-Trent.
488
00:34:39,920 --> 00:34:43,560
A regional hub of the Industrial Revolution, it was here in the
489
00:34:43,560 --> 00:34:47,480
kilns of its potteries that the world's toilets would be made.
490
00:34:49,040 --> 00:34:53,440
In a gallery devoted entirely to the humble loo, I'm meeting Angela Lee,
491
00:34:53,440 --> 00:34:58,000
a curator who knows more about toilets than anyone else on earth.
492
00:34:58,000 --> 00:35:01,720
So Stoke-on-Trent, it's really the toilet capital of the world, isn't it?
493
00:35:01,720 --> 00:35:05,720
I've never seen so many different toilets before.
494
00:35:05,720 --> 00:35:08,440
- Is it truly the largest collection in the whole world?
- It is.
495
00:35:08,440 --> 00:35:12,120
That's incredible. 'This museum is filled with hundreds of toilets, all
496
00:35:12,120 --> 00:35:17,360
'of which were patented by a number of competing Victorian inventors.
497
00:35:17,360 --> 00:35:20,360
'The most famous of them all was Thomas Crapper,
498
00:35:20,360 --> 00:35:24,760
'a man who many believe to be the sole inventor of the flushing loo.'
499
00:35:24,760 --> 00:35:29,080
It would be great if you could explode for me the myth of Thomas Crapper.
500
00:35:29,080 --> 00:35:33,080
Thomas Crapper is important in sanitation history, but not for
501
00:35:33,080 --> 00:35:36,160
- the reasons people think he is.
- He didn't invent the flushing toilet?
502
00:35:36,160 --> 00:35:42,080
No, he didn't invent the flushing toilet because no one person did, and crap doesn't come from his name.
503
00:35:42,080 --> 00:35:44,840
- That's such a disappointment.
- It is, I know.
504
00:35:44,840 --> 00:35:51,360
But it's a really old word meaning rubbish or waste or something you desperately want to get rid of.
505
00:35:51,360 --> 00:35:56,720
In the 18th century, people were using chamber pots and close stools in different rooms in the house,
506
00:35:56,720 --> 00:36:03,000
sometimes with other people present, but now this becomes a completely solitary activity.
507
00:36:03,000 --> 00:36:07,880
It does. I think there has always been a sense of privacy if you could afford it.
508
00:36:07,880 --> 00:36:11,480
So, in the Victorian age, poo becomes taboo?
509
00:36:11,480 --> 00:36:15,040
Certainly you didn't want to be seen, and that was a problem with the early toilets.
510
00:36:15,040 --> 00:36:20,000
They were jolly noisy, so quite often what would happen was
511
00:36:20,000 --> 00:36:25,720
you'd use the chamber pot and then empty it into your flushing toilet when there was nobody else about.
512
00:36:25,720 --> 00:36:32,480
Elizabeth I's Ajax had failed to prevent noxious gases rising up its pipes and into the palace,
513
00:36:32,480 --> 00:36:39,640
but all these toilets featured the great technological breakthrough - U-bend and S-bend pipes.
514
00:36:39,640 --> 00:36:42,880
When flushed, the curve of the pipes created water traps which
515
00:36:42,880 --> 00:36:45,480
prevented smells from coming back up into the room.
516
00:36:47,040 --> 00:36:51,120
With this design breakthrough, toilets of all shapes and sizes flooded the market,
517
00:36:51,120 --> 00:36:55,880
determined to win over the public with some fabulous names.
518
00:36:56,840 --> 00:37:00,120
It seems to me that people were inventing new types of toilet every
519
00:37:00,120 --> 00:37:02,160
ten minutes throughout the 19th century.
520
00:37:02,160 --> 00:37:06,680
Certainly in the 1870s. It's like mobile phones, they're going off in all different directions.
521
00:37:06,680 --> 00:37:10,560
Every company wants to get into this new big market of making toilets.
522
00:37:10,560 --> 00:37:15,200
But then 10, 15 years later, it's all settled and we have the
523
00:37:15,200 --> 00:37:17,840
British standard toilet, the toilet we know today.
524
00:37:19,360 --> 00:37:22,720
As Victorian England fell under the spell of the flushing loo,
525
00:37:22,720 --> 00:37:27,960
the sudden surge in mass flushing created a major public problem.
526
00:37:27,960 --> 00:37:34,360
In order to see just how big a problem it was, I've come to the Northern Outfall Sewer in London.
527
00:37:34,360 --> 00:37:37,920
Until the 1840s, your own sewage was your own problem.
528
00:37:37,920 --> 00:37:43,800
You kept it in your own cesspit that belonged to your house, or you paid night soil men to take it away.
529
00:37:43,800 --> 00:37:46,320
What happened in the 1840s was that the government said you've
530
00:37:46,320 --> 00:37:52,000
got to link up your water closet to the general drains, which we use for surface water. It was a good idea,
531
00:37:52,000 --> 00:37:56,600
but it just didn't work because the drains couldn't take it, they weren't designed for it.
532
00:37:56,600 --> 00:37:59,920
And literally, if there was a storm, all the sewage came back up
533
00:37:59,920 --> 00:38:03,480
and exploded all over Holborn, for example.
534
00:38:03,480 --> 00:38:09,320
1858 was the Great Stink, when the Thames was absolutely
535
00:38:09,320 --> 00:38:13,440
horrific and everyone realised that London needed new drains.
536
00:38:13,440 --> 00:38:17,560
The answer, the solution to the whole problem, we can see it down there.
537
00:38:19,320 --> 00:38:21,880
And that solution was the world's first
538
00:38:21,880 --> 00:38:26,760
purpose-built sewer system, built by the engineer Joseph Bazalgette.
539
00:38:29,040 --> 00:38:33,960
I think they could just lower me down, like a...carcass.
540
00:38:33,960 --> 00:38:37,200
You can float down like an angel, Luce.
541
00:38:37,200 --> 00:38:39,840
Descend out of the heavens.
542
00:38:39,840 --> 00:38:41,360
Where's the floor?
543
00:38:41,360 --> 00:38:44,920
Go on, Luce, down you come, a couple more steps. It's not very deep.
544
00:38:44,920 --> 00:38:46,680
Only about a couple hundred mill.
545
00:38:49,080 --> 00:38:51,640
Am I standing in actual poo, here?
546
00:38:51,640 --> 00:38:55,000
You are, indeed. You're not up into your neck in it yet.
547
00:38:55,000 --> 00:38:57,240
OK, up top.
548
00:38:57,240 --> 00:39:00,160
There you are, Luce. Welcome to Barrel No. 3
549
00:39:00,160 --> 00:39:01,760
of the Northern Outfall Sewer.
550
00:39:01,760 --> 00:39:05,320
I can see why people say the sewers are like a cathedral, because
551
00:39:05,320 --> 00:39:09,680
it is a bit echoey and spectacular.
552
00:39:09,680 --> 00:39:12,240
Are you impressed as an engineer today with what Bazalgette did?
553
00:39:12,240 --> 00:39:13,800
Yes.
554
00:39:13,800 --> 00:39:15,960
Do you think he was good at his job?
555
00:39:15,960 --> 00:39:18,080
He was bloody marvellous!
556
00:39:19,240 --> 00:39:26,120
Three cholera epidemics had swept over London by the mid-1800s, killing more than 100,000.
557
00:39:26,120 --> 00:39:30,160
Cholera was still believed to be transmitted through bad air, or miasma.
558
00:39:30,160 --> 00:39:32,720
The sewers were designed to enclose it
559
00:39:32,720 --> 00:39:36,840
and London's waste, carrying it away from the rivers for the first time.
560
00:39:36,840 --> 00:39:41,240
Measuring 1,300 miles and built in just nine years, this remarkable feat
561
00:39:41,240 --> 00:39:44,760
was followed by similar schemes all over the land.
562
00:39:44,760 --> 00:39:50,840
So Bazalgette and his amazing sewers, they allowed the modern bathroom to happen.
563
00:39:50,840 --> 00:39:57,000
You couldn't have water closets until Bazalgette came along and made this transformation.
564
00:39:57,000 --> 00:40:03,040
With the creation of the sewers, and a city-wide network of lead pipes to replace the wooden pipes
565
00:40:03,040 --> 00:40:08,680
of the past, houses could now be built with a wonderful new feature - piped water which went not just
566
00:40:08,680 --> 00:40:16,400
to the basement, but to all areas of the house, in particular to a completely new room, the bathroom.
567
00:40:16,400 --> 00:40:21,840
In order to see some really advanced Victorian plumbing, I've come to this London house.
568
00:40:21,840 --> 00:40:26,360
I'm being shown around by the curator, Reena Suleman.
569
00:40:26,360 --> 00:40:28,040
Essentially used by the servants,
570
00:40:28,040 --> 00:40:33,280
with what they called a revolving washbasin, or a tip-up sink.
571
00:40:33,280 --> 00:40:37,240
You have your wash and you revolve it, and the water rushes out
572
00:40:37,240 --> 00:40:41,960
and you can see right down the drain there. That's how it works.
573
00:40:41,960 --> 00:40:46,480
This house was rented in the 1870s by the artist Linley Sambourne.
574
00:40:46,480 --> 00:40:51,000
It came not only with a downstairs toilet, but also plumbed-in bathrooms.
575
00:40:51,000 --> 00:40:55,920
For Mrs Sambourne though, being connected to the sewers was not a wonder but a curse.
576
00:40:55,920 --> 00:40:59,880
Here we go, so this is Mrs Sambourne's bedroom, and this
577
00:40:59,880 --> 00:41:02,680
is her own plumbed-in washbasin.
578
00:41:02,680 --> 00:41:05,880
It would have been considered quite avant-garde at the time.
579
00:41:05,880 --> 00:41:09,760
Now, I've got this idea that she didn't like drains, and having been
580
00:41:09,760 --> 00:41:12,240
down the sewer, I can really understand that.
581
00:41:12,240 --> 00:41:15,720
It was disgusting down there. And she kept the plug in at all times.
582
00:41:15,720 --> 00:41:20,240
She did, and not only did she keep the plug in, but she hardly ever used it.
583
00:41:20,240 --> 00:41:24,000
She doesn't like that. She's still using the old system, which is here,
584
00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:26,720
and that is the chamber pot that she is still using,
585
00:41:26,720 --> 00:41:29,920
even though there are three plumbed-in toilets in this house.
586
00:41:29,920 --> 00:41:36,720
Now, I don't blame her, because it's kind of nicer in here than it is in the cold stony bathroom, and people
587
00:41:36,720 --> 00:41:41,080
would have seen her if she had gone to the bathroom, which is immodest.
588
00:41:41,080 --> 00:41:43,960
Yes, but also given the costumes they were wearing as well, it would
589
00:41:43,960 --> 00:41:49,200
have been quite cumbersome, with the myriad of skirts they had underneath them, to be able to pull those up.
590
00:41:49,200 --> 00:41:52,920
- You'd need to be in private, in a big room with a chamber pot.
- Yes.
591
00:41:52,920 --> 00:41:57,000
And Mrs Sambourne was not alone.
592
00:41:57,000 --> 00:42:01,280
In Dundee, a Mrs Owler claimed to have been poisoned by the proximity
593
00:42:01,280 --> 00:42:04,920
of her bedroom sink to the city's main sewer.
594
00:42:04,920 --> 00:42:09,320
Mr Sambourne, however, had a little more faith in his plumbing.
595
00:42:09,320 --> 00:42:10,840
Da-dah!
596
00:42:10,840 --> 00:42:15,280
We are in a recognisably modern bathroom for the first time.
597
00:42:15,280 --> 00:42:19,040
- Yes.
- Here it is. This is the 1880s, is it, that he has this put in?
598
00:42:19,040 --> 00:42:25,440
- He does.
- Mr Sambourne had a cold bath here every morning, as he didn't have hot water yet.
599
00:42:25,440 --> 00:42:28,080
Although as an artist, keen to explore the new medium
600
00:42:28,080 --> 00:42:31,560
of photography, he didn't use the bath just for bathing.
601
00:42:31,560 --> 00:42:38,840
This whole bath was designed to house his chemicals, so this shelf was fitted just here.
602
00:42:38,840 --> 00:42:41,720
So when he was doing the photographic stuff,
603
00:42:41,720 --> 00:42:46,280
he'd open up the shelf, and put all the equipment on here.
604
00:42:46,280 --> 00:42:48,360
We've got a few photos here.
605
00:42:48,360 --> 00:42:50,440
They are rather interesting - what's going on with these?
606
00:42:50,440 --> 00:42:53,760
Photography was very key to the way that he worked.
607
00:42:53,760 --> 00:42:57,440
He referred to them as his pencil sketches, and he would develop these
608
00:42:57,440 --> 00:43:01,880
photographs, and trace them and do his final drawings for Punch.
609
00:43:01,880 --> 00:43:07,000
- Now, was it absolutely essential that all these ladies were naked?
- No, no.
610
00:43:07,000 --> 00:43:09,920
And what did his wife think about all of this?
611
00:43:09,920 --> 00:43:15,040
The interesting thing is Mrs King, who was one of Mr Sambourne's favourite models, who came here
612
00:43:15,040 --> 00:43:20,440
to be photographed, and that's actually, that table survives and is in the morning room.
613
00:43:20,440 --> 00:43:22,760
That's in his own morning room in his own house?
614
00:43:22,760 --> 00:43:26,120
- Yes.
- Does his wife know that Mrs King was sitting in the morning room with no clothes on?
615
00:43:26,120 --> 00:43:29,120
Well, no. You have to read their diaries in parallel
616
00:43:29,120 --> 00:43:32,600
for that particular day, so she's actually holidaying in Ramsgate.
617
00:43:32,600 --> 00:43:34,880
She's out of the way when Mrs King comes round.
618
00:43:34,880 --> 00:43:36,560
And he's given the servants the day off.
619
00:43:38,160 --> 00:43:42,160
I've got a book of bathroom porn here.
620
00:43:42,160 --> 00:43:46,680
It's full of new technologies that exploded in the late 19th century.
621
00:43:46,680 --> 00:43:56,720
Between 1855 and 1900, 4,700 people applied for a patent to do with some new bit of bathroom kit.
622
00:43:56,720 --> 00:44:00,640
And the middle classes are creating bathrooms that we would recognise.
623
00:44:00,640 --> 00:44:04,040
This is where it all starts, in the late 19th century.
624
00:44:04,040 --> 00:44:06,880
Whereas toilet technology had been the obsession of the 1840s,
625
00:44:06,880 --> 00:44:11,760
now it was the turn of other fixtures and fittings.
626
00:44:11,760 --> 00:44:17,400
There's things in this book like power showers, there's one here that looks just like
627
00:44:17,400 --> 00:44:20,680
the rainmaker shower, that you can get today and is hugely expensive.
628
00:44:20,680 --> 00:44:24,000
Charles Dickens had a shower that was called the Demon.
629
00:44:24,000 --> 00:44:26,000
Don't you love that?
630
00:44:26,000 --> 00:44:29,480
'What all these patents revealed was that bathing had now become
631
00:44:29,480 --> 00:44:32,640
'an established part of middle-class life.'
632
00:44:32,640 --> 00:44:36,360
Theories on the role of miasma or bad air in spreading disease were
633
00:44:36,360 --> 00:44:40,640
finally debunked by the discovery of germs in the late 19th century.
634
00:44:40,640 --> 00:44:45,960
Now daily bathing was no longer seen as a novelty, but as a medical necessity.
635
00:44:45,960 --> 00:44:51,600
Soon even people lower down the social scale began to see improvements in sanitation.
636
00:44:51,600 --> 00:44:56,720
So, in order to see how the other half lived, I've come to the back-to-backs in Birmingham,
637
00:44:56,720 --> 00:44:59,360
a series of 19th century workers' houses
638
00:44:59,360 --> 00:45:06,200
built literally back to back, where I'm being guided round the communal yard by local historian Kris Gough.
639
00:45:06,200 --> 00:45:11,360
Most back to backs had them, and they were usually in the corner of the yard.
640
00:45:11,360 --> 00:45:14,760
- This is 1870s...
- 1870s upwards.
641
00:45:14,760 --> 00:45:19,520
- A proper flushing toilet.
- That flushed into the new sewerage system, the Victorian sewerage system.
642
00:45:19,520 --> 00:45:21,040
We've got 11 houses.
643
00:45:21,040 --> 00:45:25,560
- And only three privies?
- Well, there would have been four originally, for up to 60 people sharing four toilets.
644
00:45:25,560 --> 00:45:30,120
60 people were using these four? Do you think there were sometimes queues out here then?
645
00:45:30,120 --> 00:45:34,640
There could have been, but the doors were always closed, you never knew who was in, there were no locks.
646
00:45:34,640 --> 00:45:38,800
So you'd go... and they'd go "I'm in here", so you'd have to wait.
647
00:45:38,800 --> 00:45:43,080
And despite the invention of commercially manufactured toilet paper
648
00:45:43,080 --> 00:45:49,280
in 1863, users of these privies resorted to less expensive ways of wiping their bottoms.
649
00:45:49,280 --> 00:45:55,800
I'm just preparing some Victorian toilet paper, as would have been used in this Victorian privy.
650
00:45:57,320 --> 00:46:00,320
Here at the back to backs they would have been using
651
00:46:00,320 --> 00:46:07,960
wastepaper, newspaper, junk paper, and in fact, even today, if I get junk mail through my letter box,
652
00:46:07,960 --> 00:46:15,360
I might well describe it as bumf, bits of old paper, and in fact that word originally meant bum fodder.
653
00:46:15,360 --> 00:46:17,920
You would talk about wastepaper as bum fodder because you would
654
00:46:17,920 --> 00:46:20,480
literally use it to wipe your bottom.
655
00:46:23,440 --> 00:46:25,760
But despite the breakthrough of flushing toilets,
656
00:46:25,760 --> 00:46:29,680
at the back to backs, that's where bathroom technology ended.
657
00:46:29,680 --> 00:46:33,800
With just one tap in the yard and little access to clean water,
658
00:46:33,800 --> 00:46:37,440
instead of bathing, the women went to enormous lengths to keep their
659
00:46:37,440 --> 00:46:42,520
family's clothes clean, a legacy seemingly unchanged since the Tudor age.
660
00:46:42,520 --> 00:46:45,480
Here we are. What do you call this? Not the brew house?
661
00:46:45,480 --> 00:46:47,480
No, this is the bruhus.
662
00:46:47,480 --> 00:46:52,120
- We are in the bruhus.
- And we are going to light the fire because that is the first job of the day.
663
00:46:52,120 --> 00:46:58,520
The single Victorian copper, used to heat up the water, was shared between all 11 houses.
664
00:46:58,520 --> 00:47:01,880
So washday was every 11 days.
665
00:47:01,880 --> 00:47:06,480
- Quite a hard day for the ladies. They would start really, really early.
- And finish really late.
666
00:47:06,480 --> 00:47:08,680
We don't just get to sit here looking at it and warming our hands?
667
00:47:08,680 --> 00:47:11,760
No, no, no! We've got lots of jobs to do.
668
00:47:11,760 --> 00:47:13,320
It's raining out there, though.
669
00:47:13,320 --> 00:47:15,160
Alongside the copper, the women had mangles,
670
00:47:15,160 --> 00:47:21,680
dollies and Canadian cones, making the process of washing a little easier than it was in Tudor times.
671
00:47:21,680 --> 00:47:25,400
So this is like a pre-preparation for your washing.
672
00:47:25,400 --> 00:47:27,080
Like a pre-wash,
673
00:47:27,080 --> 00:47:28,880
After a vigorous pre-wash called a "poss",
674
00:47:28,880 --> 00:47:34,000
the boiling copper was then prepared with new commercially available soaps.
675
00:47:34,000 --> 00:47:35,920
You need to put in your soap.
676
00:47:35,920 --> 00:47:38,040
- Would you like to have a go?
- I would.
677
00:47:38,040 --> 00:47:40,720
Mind your fingers while you do.
678
00:47:40,720 --> 00:47:44,120
In 1853, someone finally decided that
679
00:47:44,120 --> 00:47:48,200
it would be better for the hygiene of the nation if soap wasn't taxed.
680
00:47:48,200 --> 00:47:52,400
The government actually give up a million pounds of revenue as a result of that decision.
681
00:47:52,400 --> 00:47:55,720
But, on the other hand, hygiene becomes much better.
682
00:47:55,720 --> 00:47:57,360
The Victorian age is the age of soap.
683
00:47:57,360 --> 00:48:00,320
'After William Gladstone, the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
684
00:48:00,320 --> 00:48:06,640
'repealed soap tax for the first time since 1712, soap became much more readily available.
685
00:48:06,640 --> 00:48:12,080
'From the posher Pears and Palmolives, to the more affordable, but horrible-smelling carbolic.'
686
00:48:12,080 --> 00:48:16,240
When people wanted to have a bath, did they heat up the water for that in here as well?
687
00:48:16,240 --> 00:48:21,640
- Yes.
- And that would have been augmented with stuff heated on the stove in the house?
688
00:48:21,640 --> 00:48:25,760
Yes, you would have done kettles and saucepans on the stove in the house.
689
00:48:25,760 --> 00:48:28,240
The bath, the old tin bath, sometimes they were on the top
690
00:48:28,240 --> 00:48:32,920
of the cellar head, but sometimes they were kept as a communal one that was kept in the bruhus.
691
00:48:32,920 --> 00:48:35,320
So you take that, and you set it up in your kitchen?
692
00:48:35,320 --> 00:48:38,440
In the warmest place in the house, right in front of the fire.
693
00:48:38,440 --> 00:48:41,560
And then you would fill it just once for the whole family, wouldn't you?
694
00:48:41,560 --> 00:48:44,280
You can see how much trouble and effort it all was.
695
00:48:44,280 --> 00:48:47,320
Absolutely, so you would take buckets and buckets across
696
00:48:47,320 --> 00:48:53,000
and you'd start to fill it up, and you would use the old carbolic again, and Dad would go in probably first.
697
00:48:53,000 --> 00:48:58,200
Then it would go down all the family until it got to the children, and you could probably get two or three
698
00:48:58,200 --> 00:49:01,360
of the children in together, into the same water.
699
00:49:01,360 --> 00:49:05,480
So the very dirtiest water was left for the smallest baby, in fact.
700
00:49:05,480 --> 00:49:09,680
- Usually.
- It's the survival of the fittest then, isn't it?
- Yeah!
701
00:49:09,680 --> 00:49:13,440
And the old phrase, "don't throw your baby out with the bathwater",
702
00:49:13,440 --> 00:49:16,760
it's probably because you couldn't find them, because the water was so mucky.
703
00:49:18,280 --> 00:49:21,680
Private bathrooms might have been out of reach for working-class people,
704
00:49:21,680 --> 00:49:27,520
but those at the upper end of society rejected plumbing for entirely different reasons.
705
00:49:27,520 --> 00:49:32,680
With legions of servants to heat up their hot water, they simply didn't need it.
706
00:49:34,320 --> 00:49:39,760
In fact, here at Shugborough, there is the heartbreaking story of a poor little housemaid, 14 years old,
707
00:49:39,760 --> 00:49:43,640
whose job it was to fill up the big boiling copper in the morning.
708
00:49:43,640 --> 00:49:47,600
50 buckets of water every day she had to pour into that thing.
709
00:49:47,600 --> 00:49:50,880
At Shugborough Hall, it was the housemaid's job
710
00:49:50,880 --> 00:49:54,720
to prepare Lady Anson's bath in her bedroom twice a week.
711
00:49:54,720 --> 00:50:00,960
I've always wanted to experience for myself just how much hard work it was to fill up a bath...
712
00:50:02,560 --> 00:50:05,000
and I'm getting a sense of it already.
713
00:50:05,000 --> 00:50:08,760
The bedroom is miles away. I'm wondering what I've taken on here.
714
00:50:08,760 --> 00:50:14,200
I'm going to carry the hot water all the way upstairs to the bath.
715
00:50:14,200 --> 00:50:20,240
In grand houses like this, not only was plumbing deemed middle-class and vulgar,
716
00:50:20,240 --> 00:50:25,920
but worst of all, Victorian pipes could burst and wreak havoc on the fabric of an 18th century mansion.
717
00:50:45,040 --> 00:50:48,760
I reckon the housemaid was a lot fitter than the lady of the house.
718
00:51:00,720 --> 00:51:07,040
After 50 trips by the humble housemaid, the semi-dressed mistress of the house
719
00:51:07,040 --> 00:51:10,080
would get into what she called her modesty bath.
720
00:51:13,360 --> 00:51:17,920
Although I'm in a super-luxurious bedroom, my bath could be more luxurious.
721
00:51:17,920 --> 00:51:26,120
I'm using carbolic soap, and I'm using a rough sponge, and I'm still wearing my shift,
722
00:51:26,120 --> 00:51:29,640
not sort of luxuriating in the water, because upper-class ladies
723
00:51:29,640 --> 00:51:34,920
still had a puritanical, suspicious attitude towards bathing.
724
00:51:34,920 --> 00:51:37,600
It was considered degenerate to loll about in the water.
725
00:51:37,600 --> 00:51:42,720
Something your husband's French mistress might do, not something a proper English girl would do.
726
00:51:44,520 --> 00:51:48,320
I read a brilliant ladies' hygiene manual from 1844
727
00:51:48,320 --> 00:51:53,160
saying that certain parts mustn't be washed more than once a day.
728
00:51:53,160 --> 00:51:58,600
To do so would be degenerate and would lead to unfortunate consequences. It must never be done.
729
00:51:58,600 --> 00:52:06,240
So upper-class ladies went on bathing in these rather sort of ramshackle camping-like conditions
730
00:52:06,240 --> 00:52:08,080
right into the 20th century.
731
00:52:08,080 --> 00:52:13,120
Well after hot water and plumbing and bathrooms were available, and it's hilarious when
732
00:52:13,120 --> 00:52:16,160
the dollar princesses, the American heiresses come over
733
00:52:16,160 --> 00:52:20,280
to marry English aristocrats in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
734
00:52:20,280 --> 00:52:26,560
They are shocked by the primitive conditions they find in English country houses.
735
00:52:26,560 --> 00:52:30,200
It wouldn't be until 1910 that Shugborough would finally
736
00:52:30,200 --> 00:52:37,280
get its first bathroom, in an age that would see huge advances in the provision of hot water to the home.
737
00:52:37,280 --> 00:52:42,640
The first Victorian systems had heated up hot water directly from the kitchen range.
738
00:52:42,640 --> 00:52:45,960
But the laying on of gas in the late 19th century
739
00:52:45,960 --> 00:52:52,840
gave rise to geyser baths, which had to be lit by hand, and which had a terrifying tendency to explode.
740
00:52:52,840 --> 00:52:56,840
And finally, the early 20th century saw the great breakthrough,
741
00:52:56,840 --> 00:53:00,360
the invention of the high-pressure circulating gas boiler.
742
00:53:00,360 --> 00:53:05,120
This was the final piece of the jigsaw and the modern bathroom was complete.
743
00:53:05,120 --> 00:53:09,720
By the beginning of the 20th century, it looked like things were coming together for the bathroom.
744
00:53:09,720 --> 00:53:12,400
Hot water was available, the plumbing was in place.
745
00:53:12,400 --> 00:53:15,600
People understood that it was healthy for them to keep their bodies clean.
746
00:53:15,600 --> 00:53:20,840
But there was one thing missing before people could enjoy a guilt- free wallow in a hot bath -
747
00:53:20,840 --> 00:53:23,960
there needed to be a change in the moral climate.
748
00:53:23,960 --> 00:53:29,120
This only happened after the First World War, and there were two main reasons for it.
749
00:53:29,120 --> 00:53:30,760
The first was Hollywood.
750
00:53:30,760 --> 00:53:34,320
On the silver screen, people could see film stars wallowing
751
00:53:34,320 --> 00:53:38,160
in bubble baths, taking telephone calls, making it all look perfectly normal.
752
00:53:38,160 --> 00:53:45,560
And the second influence was where film stars themselves stayed in London, luxury hotels like this one.
753
00:53:48,480 --> 00:53:52,800
Victorian hotels were built with only one bathroom for every floor,
754
00:53:52,800 --> 00:53:56,680
but these hotels had an en suite in every room.
755
00:53:56,680 --> 00:54:00,280
And so to get me ready for the glamour of the 1930s bathroom,
756
00:54:00,280 --> 00:54:07,200
I'm having a Hollywood makeover with the help of all the latest '30s beauty products.
757
00:54:07,200 --> 00:54:09,200
A teeny, tiny razor!
758
00:54:09,200 --> 00:54:12,840
A rapid shampoo which requires no rinsing.
759
00:54:17,840 --> 00:54:21,000
You've turned me into a film star.
760
00:54:22,520 --> 00:54:24,280
It's amazing!
761
00:54:31,760 --> 00:54:32,760
Da-dah!
762
00:54:34,880 --> 00:54:41,480
So this is the bathroom in 1932. It's totally different from its Victorian predecessor.
763
00:54:41,480 --> 00:54:46,640
Victorian bathrooms were masculine places, very functional, probably designed for washing
764
00:54:46,640 --> 00:54:50,640
yourself in cold water, but this is a room for enjoying yourself.
765
00:54:50,640 --> 00:54:52,520
It's just fabulous, isn't it?
766
00:54:52,520 --> 00:54:57,400
This is Hollywood glamour brought into English society,
767
00:54:57,400 --> 00:55:04,360
and you can just imagine a film star covered in bubbles, sipping a cocktail, maybe having a smoke
768
00:55:04,360 --> 00:55:08,160
in there, and because she has got a lovely Marcel wave like mine,
769
00:55:08,160 --> 00:55:13,720
doesn't want to get her hair wet, so is probably using this very cunning shoulder shower, look at that.
770
00:55:13,720 --> 00:55:18,760
There's the main shower and there's the shoulder shower, so you don't get your 'do wet.
771
00:55:18,760 --> 00:55:20,680
And you can also...
772
00:55:22,200 --> 00:55:28,000
I love this! You can also summon the maid while you are in the bath and the valet as well.
773
00:55:28,000 --> 00:55:33,800
Although the suite is very plain white in here, it's set off with veined marble to show that
774
00:55:33,800 --> 00:55:38,760
this is no ordinary bathroom. It's clearly a place to enjoy yourself.
775
00:55:38,760 --> 00:55:43,400
Now that the bathroom was established as place of relaxation and luxury, it was in the
776
00:55:43,400 --> 00:55:52,040
private building boom of the 1930s that hot water bathrooms became standard in most middle-class homes.
777
00:55:52,040 --> 00:55:55,400
For people living at the back-to-backs, however, it wouldn't be
778
00:55:55,400 --> 00:55:59,600
until way into the 1950s that they too would finally follow suit.
779
00:55:59,600 --> 00:56:02,080
And they decided to pull them all down.
780
00:56:02,080 --> 00:56:07,080
The 1951 Census revealed that 37% of British households
781
00:56:07,080 --> 00:56:12,120
still didn't have a plumbed-in bath, with 22% not even having a hot tap.
782
00:56:12,120 --> 00:56:18,080
So Britain's slums were cleared to rehouse 3 million people in new flats, all with built-in bathrooms.
783
00:56:18,080 --> 00:56:21,600
Well, Christopher and David, how do you like your new home?
784
00:56:21,600 --> 00:56:23,160
Yes, thank you.
785
00:56:23,160 --> 00:56:25,520
What do you particularly like about it?
786
00:56:25,520 --> 00:56:29,840
We don't have to boil every drop of water now, whereas in the old days we did.
787
00:56:29,840 --> 00:56:33,800
And also we have a toilet to ourselves now, whereas in the other
788
00:56:33,800 --> 00:56:37,240
house we had to share one and also walk across the yard.
789
00:56:37,240 --> 00:56:41,440
Now that bathroom technology had established itself,
790
00:56:41,440 --> 00:56:44,320
the main thing to change over the last 50 years has been the styling.
791
00:56:44,320 --> 00:56:51,200
In the 1960s, we got jacuzzis and shower chandeliers, fit for the sexual revolution.
792
00:56:51,200 --> 00:56:58,680
In the 1970s James Bond age, we got coloured suites and solid gold taps and toilets.
793
00:56:58,680 --> 00:57:01,040
A lovely Victorian wash hand basin...
794
00:57:01,040 --> 00:57:06,040
In the 1980s, we went right back to the beginning with a rather questionable Victorian revival.
795
00:57:06,040 --> 00:57:12,280
..With its rounded head, square foot, curved lip and ball and claw feet.
796
00:57:12,280 --> 00:57:14,680
No matter what technological wizardry is available in the modern
797
00:57:14,680 --> 00:57:21,080
bathroom today, what we want from it hasn't changed since the 1930s.
798
00:57:21,080 --> 00:57:26,160
So I'm not going to turn that gorgeous 1930s bathroom down.
799
00:57:26,160 --> 00:57:28,840
The bathroom's had a really remarkable journey.
800
00:57:28,840 --> 00:57:31,400
150 years ago, it didn't even exist.
801
00:57:31,400 --> 00:57:38,000
It's come from no room to one of the most luxurious and pleasurable rooms in the house.
802
00:57:38,000 --> 00:57:44,200
Today bathrooms are about technology and gadgets. Everybody wants their own.
803
00:57:44,200 --> 00:57:47,480
People are converting spare bedrooms into bathrooms
804
00:57:47,480 --> 00:57:52,920
so everybody has got en suite, and that is because they are somehow essential to modern life.
805
00:57:52,920 --> 00:57:57,640
They're places where you withdraw from the world, they are places where you pamper yourself, recover,
806
00:57:57,640 --> 00:58:01,720
be your true self without anybody watching you for once, and they are
807
00:58:01,720 --> 00:58:06,000
the one room in the whole house that still has a lock on the door.
808
00:58:06,000 --> 00:58:08,080
Keep out.
809
00:58:09,760 --> 00:58:12,440
Next time, the bedroom.
810
00:58:12,440 --> 00:58:15,120
From the communal Medieval hall to the glamorous boudoir.
811
00:58:15,120 --> 00:58:17,680
- A full English for you this morning.
- Marvellous.
812
00:58:17,680 --> 00:58:22,880
I'll be seeing how the bedroom's development has affected our most private moments.
813
00:58:22,880 --> 00:58:27,720
You're so like that person in that horror film who says that, and then everything goes horribly wrong!
814
00:58:48,120 --> 00:58:50,080
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
83594
Can't find what you're looking for?
Get subtitles in any language from opensubtitles.com, and translate them here.