The world's oldest public toilet (it's in London!)

[paul]

Champagne celebrations and classical music today accompanied the re-opening of the world's oldest public convenience at London's Oxford Circus after a posh £300 000 makeover.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/4564921.stm

Paul
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[massageLondonUK]

doesn't say it's the oldest - but I would suspect it's the most exppensive one and the most publiciesed.
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[massageLondonUK]

It seems the first toilet with flushing water belonged to Queen Elisabeth of England (That was in the 16th C.) The name of that toilet was Ajax!!!

In the 19th C, the cities realised that the bacterial deseases came from a particle (particular) problem you will understand. So the cities started building sewers.

One of the guys who worked on elaborating such sewage systems was a man called Sir Thomas Crapper. What's wrong with that name? Don't ask me!
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[trev]

Imagine how many normal public loos you could reopen for £300K!? And why go to all that trouble is they're paying an attendent? And what the heck excuse did Visit London Tourist Board have for being there apart from wasting even more public money?

The best ones around are the Scottish pubic loos where they have an attendent and you pay about 20p. They're always very clean, no drug dealers or graffiti, never seen any CCTV and no need for very high doors which doesn't sound like a good idea at all.

Actually to be honest, if a loo starts advertising all those features, I'd question whether it's in the right place.


As for Sir Thomas Crapper - I suspect his name came first...

Trev
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[paul]

Other articles I read were saying that it was the oldest public toilet in the world. Maybe that's wrong, I don't know.

What I can say is that 300K for a toilet maybe isn't all that bad... see here.

Paul
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[trev]

But if it's the oldest one in the world, I'd imagine English Heritage should be coming down on them as it should be a listed building at the very least and that didn't look like it was very in keeping with the previous design...

Trev
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[Kids To London]

Fascinating history on the man (and the company) about whom we should all give a crap, so to speak:

http://www.thomas-crapper.com
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[PeterW]

[PipiTheLongNiner]

I believe we in Sarajevo, Bosnian capital, we have the oldiest public toilete in the Europe. I am not sure about this fact, but if you have info which public toilete is the most old and it is still in use, please, inform me.

Please see the pictures:

Built up 1530.
Destroyed 1992.
Rebuilt 2001.


Free of the charge!


Tourists are happy to use it despite facilities in are designed for Muslims.

From the begening (1530) the toilete was with running water which came trough wooden tubes under the ground. Also, there was sewage of the stone slabs with a square profile.

***I am sorry Paul I broke your rules abt posting links and pictures, but I could not stand any more (impatience) the fact from the title of the topic that is ''The most old public toilete in the world is in London'' what is not true.

The toilete is in front of Bey's Mosque in Sarajevo-Europe, main Mosque in Bosnia.

Next to the Mosque, between the toilete and the Mosque, there is Clock tower which shows lunar time (Ala -Turkey). The mechanism of the Clock have been made in London during 18th century when old Cloc's mechanism became out of order and people from Djamat (Muslim prayers comunity) decided to collect money for repair.

The same compay, Gillett & Johnston which made Litle Big Ben Clock repaired Clock from Sarajevo, infact, they produced brand new one. In present time there is one man (Muvekit) whose duty is to adjust the mechanism every day bcs. of lunar time showings.

Here is picture of Sarajevo's Litle Big Ben Clock:


View of Tolerance from Jewish Museum in Sarajevo.
The most important cultural heritage which have been brought by Sephardic Jews in Sarajevo is Sarajevo's Hagada.

From the Hagada, Jewish children use to learn that the Earth is shaped like a ball. In the same time Gallileo, and Kopernik suffered from the Catholic Inquisition because of their statements about the same fact.

Best regards,
@PipiTheLongNiner

[dwibre]

The worlds smallest police station is in trafalgar square

[hrtfreeman]

And I think that this has to be the world's quirkiest thread :S

I'll have to add this 'public convenience' to my to-do list when I make a trip back to London lol

[mike_like_travel]

Holy crap, that's amazing! I suppose there are a lot of puns we could do here, but I will try to hold it in...
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[hrtfreeman]

I agree.

I mean making puns like that is just taking the...

[tntferrari]

lol-best comment of the day-"Splendid loos"!