Leyden Street Underground toilets

[yen_powell]

One of my colleagues said he had to fill in a similar one in Sutton Street many years ago. He said they lifted the lid off and it was in perfect condition with the most beautiful tiled floor, he said it looked like a swimming pool when you looked down into it.

He watched as they punched holes at regular intervals into the tiles before filling it all up with concrete.

[Ginger]

Thanks for posting those! The builders do seem to have gone to some lengths to make the place attractive and modern-looking.

Is anyone else struck by the angular, quite phallic shape of the central structure of the men's room pointing at the rounded central structure of the women's room? The architect was enjoying himself, I think.

[Robert]

Thanks for that, Yen. Important to have a record of this before it's destroyed.

[Monty]

Outstanding Yen,

Your posts are always wort waiting for.

Monty

[yen_powell]

[yen_powell]

[yen_powell]

[yen_powell]

A bit late for most of you but interesting just the same, so hope it's okay to post here.

Many years ago whilst looking through lots of old dusty plans at work, I stumbled upon one dated 1900 that caught my eye.

Drawn on linen as most old plans used to be (to make them tough enough to last being handled for many years), it showed an underground toilet in Whitechapel. It’s shown as Short Street, now named Leyden Street (name changed in 1913) and is just off of Wentworth Street/Petticoat Lane Market.

As a draftsman who started knocking out plans in the last years of drawing boards, T-square, scalpels, chalk, blue pencils and ink and knowing a well drawn plan when I see one, I got myself a copy made and hung it up in my garage, along with a Rotherhithe Tunnel beauty I found at the same time.

A while later I found out that the old toilet, although disused and locked up, still existed. I have taken a few pictures of it over the years, but being a bit peculiar, I really wanted to go down and see it before some developer turns it into a bar, or worse it gets filled in with concrete as has happened to so many over the last 40 years.



I finally came up with a valid excuse to get the locks cut off and go down to take measurements for a future job on the road above. Not the most pleasant smelling of places, but you can see how well the Edwardians built things. Anyway, here are the pictures I took, starting with the plan that started my curiosity off.

If you’re wondering, the ‘urinettes’ referred to on the plan are urinals for women in Victorian/Edwardian dress to piddle into whilst standing up. They only had a curtain for privacy rather than a door. Price was a half penny rather than the full penny for using the adjacent water closets. They were probably only in existence here for a few years as women of the time considered them unladylike and they were mostly unused. They would have been replaced with proper water closets or removed all together.