
Dirty Old London: 30 Days of Filth: Day 30
‘The fact that sewers and cesspools brought miasma into the home was an important factor, creating powerful anxieties. Fear of…
‘The fact that sewers and cesspools brought miasma into the home was an important factor, creating powerful anxieties. Fear of…
‘Many myths and ‘factoids’ appear on the web and in print. They are often incorrect…’ Throughout this month,…
‘In the previous arrangement, no-one cared how many friends and family shared a room – nor even pigs….
‘The capital was increasingly blighted by darker, longer visitations of gloom; and doctors were able to collect more…
‘The Lady’s Newspaper, keen to plug a new shopping street, waxed lyrical: ‘the most loathsome of the haunts of vice…
‘The idea that women – particularly respectable women – might want or need purpose-built public toilets, on the streets of the capital,…
‘They claimed the hint of mud added to the liquid’s vital properties.’ Throughout this month, Lee Jackson reveals…
‘Sewer workers were sent to unblock tunnels clogged with everything from ‘coals, cinders, bottles, broken pots’ to ‘old…
‘As one contemporary put it, ‘People like to be buried in company, and in good company’.’ Throughout this…
‘They built poorly-designed flat-bottomed sewers, prone to clogging and producing miasma.’ Throughout this month, Lee Jackson reveals the…
‘Many respectable women wore goloshes – rubber overshoes – which allowed them to ‘enter a friend’s drawing-room in…
‘Flanking one side of the yard were a score or so of upreared dustcarts, and on the other…
‘Fog also crept indoors. Court-rooms, museums, theatres and art galleries could become filled with a choking haze. Perhaps…
‘Doctors actively explored the worst parts of the capital. They sought out typhus cases and entreated landlords to…
‘Respectable householders and shopkeepers regularly wrote letters to the parish authorities, describing disused doorways or entrances being used…