Shepherd's Bush, W12

Although this lavatory is no longer in use it gained notoriety in the 1960s as the place where Wilfred Brambell, star of the sitcom Steptoe and Son, was arrested for soliciting gay sex; having recognized Brambell the undercover officer read him his rights then concluded the arrest with the programme’s most famous catchphrase, which was, fittingly, ‘You dirty old man!’

Whilst Brambell was used to having the phrase shouted at him by the public he felt that its use in this context (this being several years before homosexuality was decriminalized) was somewhat inappropriate, but did not say anything in the hope that it would be a one off occurrence. Much to Brambell’s chagrin, however, the phrase went on to be repeated by almost everyone he encountered during the judicial process and his resentment of the programme from which it came became intense. When the judge summed up by saying, ‘I sentence you to be fined twenty pounds… You dirty old man!’ it was the last straw for Brambell; although he continued to work on the programme for several years his bitterness was irreversible and TV historians have cited Brambell's experience as the event that began the decline of one of Britain's most popular sitcoms.

Primrose Hill, NW1

Originally Published in Time Out London June 18-24 2009

Primrose Hill earned its place in literary history when HG Wells used it as the location of the Martians' headquarters in his novel the War of the Worlds, which he was inspired to write after seeing a series of images taken using primitive telescopes in the late 19th century that seemed to show canals running across the surface of Mars.

     Wells set about writing a novel in which Martians travel to earth having rendered their own planet uninhabitable due to an ill-conceived system of open-air sewers but his publishers argued that this was a less than gripping subject for a novel and urged him to rewrite it so that the Martians' motivation was evil galactic domination rather than to get sanitation tips and advice on how to build toilets. Wells reluctantly agreed but retained two things from his original draft. He kept the ending, in which the aliens are on the verge of world domination only to be killed off by a mysterious disease, as a chilling warning of the dangers of poor hygiene, and he kept the setting of Primrose Hill as he reasoned that aliens escaping poor sewerage would want to base themselves near to some excellent public toilets. 

Crystal Palace, SE19

The Crystal Palace was originally constructed in Hyde Park for the Great Exhibition of 1851 and afterwards was disassembled and rebuilt in South East London but during this process the architect, Sir Joseph Paxton, realised that he had neglected to include adequate toilet facilities in the original design so set about rectifying this. However, when the building reopened in 1854, in a ceremony attended by Queen Victoria, the flaw in the new design became apparent: like the rest of the building, the public lavatory was made out of glass and as such offered its users very little by way of privacy. The problems this presented were immediately demonstrated when the local mayor was caught short during the opening and had to use the toilet, meaning his attempts to pass a stool were watched by a crowd of several hundred including the Queen, who was not amused.

When the Crystal Palace burnt down in 1936 there was a persistent rumour that it was an act of arson committed by someone tired of the appallingly designed toilets; if that is true then their actions were rewarded, as this facility, significantly more private than the original, was subsequently built and has been enjoyed by visitors ever since.

Putney Embankment, SW15

Originally Published in Time Out London, June 4-10 2009

Now sadly closed and falling into disrepair, the public convenience in Putney gained its place in infamy when the murderer John Christie (of 10 Rillington Place) was apprehended there in 1953 whilst on the run from the police. It was a week since the warrant for Christie’s arrest had been issued and whilst crime historians disagree over why he went to Putney the commonly accepted explanation is that he was caught short whilst on the tube so alighted there to look for a toilet. However, being the subject of a police manhunt had made Christie nervous and agitated, and in his confusion he followed the signs to the ladies’ toilet, a mistake that was to cost him dearly. Realising that the gents’ was ten minutes in the other direction, Christie broke into a run, which aroused suspicion amongst passers by on the high street, one of whom recognised him and called the police.

     Christie did find the toilet but it cost him vital minutes: as he left the cubicle he was arrested before he could even wash his hands and although he was allowed to wash them once he got to the police station it was only a minor consolation as he was tried, found guilty and hanged at Pentonville later that year.  

Coram's Fields, WC1N

It is testament to the versatility of the public toilet that something originally intended simply as a place for members of the public to relieve themselves has long since outgrown its original purpose and can be used today by anyone from a junkie wanting to shoot up his latest fix to somebody just looking for a convenient place to dispose of an unwanted baby, but the way that public toilets have been adapted to multiple uses is something that has often been attributed to Thomas Coram, who established a Foundling Hospital on what is now Coram’s Fields.

  Realizing that many mothers were understandably reluctant to deposit their unwanted children in the hospital itself, Coram had some public conveniences built in nearby Guilford Place, knowing that its location was sufficiently far away from the hospital that mothers could abandon their children without being noticed but close enough that the infants could be collected before any harm could come to them, and the original design of the toilet included a hatch and chute into which the newborns could be safely deposited. The hospital left its original site in 1926 but the toilets were kept open for several more decades as a memorial to their visionary founder.

Marble Arch, W1

Originally featured in Time Out London, 14-20 May 2009

Many tourists get hopelessly lost trying to find the toilets at Marble Arch due to the labyrinth of underpasses that surrounds the station, but few know of the reason for this apparently illogical design. For when Speakers’ Corner was created in 1872 some MPs were concerned about the effect free speech would have on a volatile public so agreed to it as long as they were allowed to design the nearby conveniences, for reasons that became apparent shortly after they opened, during a speech by Karl Marx.

    Midway through his oratory, Marx went off to use the lavatory but struggled to find it and after walking around for a while soon became horribly lost and disorientated, at one point entering the ladies’ toilet by mistake and being chased out by an irate old woman who took him to be a pervert. By the time he had found the gents’ and returned to his podium, almost half an hour had passed and his audience had grown bored and wandered off, which was exactly what the MPs had intended when they designed the facility. Historians have subsequently cited this as one of the major examples of political ideologies failing to take off as a result of cunning toilet design.

Leyden Street, E1

No Jack the Ripper walk is complete without a visit to this toilet, which is forever linked to the legend of London’s best loved serial killer due to an incident that took place in 1888 when Annie Chapman, a keen amateur prostitute, was approached by a mysterious stranger who then pulled out a knife and attempted to stab her. Chapman managed to get away, and ran into the conveniences in the hope of hiding, only to make a fatal mistake: crouching in one of the cubicles she noticed that the toilet had not been flushed so pulled the chain out of habit. The silence of the East London night was immediately broken and the Ripper, alerted to her whereabouts, ran down into the facility in hot pursuit; whilst Chapman evaded him once more he eventually caught and brutally murdered her on nearby Hanbury Street.

     Decades later, however, Ripperologists used the incident in an attempt to prove the briefly fashionable theory that the Ripper was in fact Queen Victoria, arguing that she had taken to prowling the streets and committing murders in an attempt to rid London of undesirables. Their ‘proof’ was that Victorian morality would have prevented a man from entering a ladies’ toilet, so the killer must have been female, but critics pointed out that a deranged and maniacal murderer would have paid scant attention to such a piece of social etiquette, and the theory was swiftly discredited.