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 miasma – fear, in particular, of…
30 days of filth blog tour
Dirty Old London: 30 Days of Filth: Day 29
‘Many myths and ‘factoids’ appear on the web and in print. They are often incorrect…’ Throughout this month, Lee Jackson reveals the background to Dirty…
Dirty Old London: 30 Days of Filth: Day 28
‘In the previous arrangement, no-one cared how many friends and family shared a room – nor even pigs. The cost of accommodation for any…
Dirty Old London: 30 Days of Filth: Day 27
‘The capital was increasingly blighted by darker, longer visitations of gloom; and doctors were able to collect more and more data on the public…
Dirty Old London: 30 Days of Filth: Day 26
‘The Lady’s Newspaper, keen to plug a new shopping street, waxed lyrical: ‘the most loathsome of the haunts of vice and infamy … St. Giles converted…
Dirty Old London: 30 Days of Filth: Day 25
‘The idea that women – particularly respectable women – might want or need purpose-built public toilets, on the streets of the capital, was considered a nonsense. Those in…
Dirty Old London: 30 Days of Filth: Day 24
‘They claimed the hint of mud added to the liquid’s vital properties.’ Throughout this month, Lee Jackson reveals the background to Dirty Old London: The…
Dirty Old London: 30 Days of Filth: Day 23
‘Sewer workers were sent to unblock tunnels clogged with everything from ‘coals, cinders, bottles, broken pots’ to ‘old hats, dead cats, scrubbing brushes’; and…
Dirty Old London: 30 Days of Filth: Day 22
‘As one contemporary put it, ‘People like to be buried in company, and in good company’.’ Throughout this month, Lee Jackson reveals the background…
Dirty Old London: 30 Days of Filth: Day 21
‘They built poorly-designed flat-bottomed sewers, prone to clogging and producing miasma.’ Throughout this month, Lee Jackson reveals the background to Dirty Old London: The Victorian…
Dirty Old London: 30 Days of Filth: Day 20
‘Many respectable women wore goloshes – rubber overshoes – which allowed them to ‘enter a friend’s drawing-room in the smartest of patent foot-gear, instead…
Dirty Old London: 30 Days of Filth: Day 19
‘Flanking one side of the yard were a score or so of upreared dustcarts, and on the other side, extending almost from the outer…
Dirty Old London: 30 Days of Filth: Day 18
‘Fog also crept indoors. Court-rooms, museums, theatres and art galleries could become filled with a choking haze. Perhaps the worst such incident occurred at…
Dirty Old London: 30 Days of Filth: Day 17
‘Doctors actively explored the worst parts of the capital. They sought out typhus cases and entreated landlords to fix windows (broken sash windows were…
Dirty Old London: 30 Days of Filth: Day 16
‘Respectable householders and shopkeepers regularly wrote letters to the parish authorities, describing disused doorways or entrances being used as ‘urinals’, citing the offence to…
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