Britain | Loosing it

In defence of Britain’s public toilets

Britain’s toilets used to be Crapper. Now they are worse

Public toilets in the City of London, UK.
A welcome, but increasingly rare, sightImage: Alamy
|Islington

It is a magnificent Crapper. Push open the door of the gentlemen’s toilets beneath Wesley’s Chapel in London and you find yourself in some of the oldest and grandest loos in the city. The sinks are marble; the cubicles are panelled wood and everywhere—on the cisterns, on the ceramic pull chains, on the toilet bowls—is the name of the man who made them: “THE VENERABLE THOMAS CRAPPER.” These are a sanitary relic and a social one: toilets today rarely contain such pride.

This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Loosing it”

From the August 12th 2023 edition

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