Well, strike us pink with a rum-soaked towel, have we ever got joyous news for you today! We have found, dear readers, a soul-mate! A whole bunch of them! They reside at the
Twyfords headquarters (wherever that might be - we must quickly find out)!
You know how we're obsessed with
Roman plumbing, maintaining that if Britain could only reach the same standard of technical prowess as existed, for instance, in
4th-century York, the world would be a better place? Well, look at this joyous little snippet, from the
Twyfords history of plumbing:
The Cretan Palace of Knossos has been described as “a plumbers’ paradise” and
well it might be. From around 1650 B.C. it had an extensive system of drains,
fresh water pipes and settling tanks. You can still see the closets which almost
certainly flushed, and a bath virtually identical in shape with its late nineteenth
century successor.
The island, as tourists will know to their cost, is considerably less well-equipped
today, although in Heraklion Museum, where the treasurers of Knossos are kept,
the gentlemen’s cloakroom can boast a row of superbly plumbed Twyfords
Cascatas - 3,600 years after Knossos, circa. 1950 A.D..
More familiar than the Minoans perhaps, the Romans were also skilful plumbers -
the very word sanitation stemming from ‘sanitas’ meaning health.
By the first century A.D., Rome’s water supply was provided by eight main
aqueducts, about 22Omiles long, and the sheer scale of their operation defies
belief. The baths of Diocletian are said to have accommodated an incredible
3,000 people, whilst those of Antoninus Caracalla, dating from around 215 A.D.,
covered an area of 28 acres or six times the site of St. Paul’s! ‘In the fourth
century A.D.’ wrote Lawrence Wright in his sanitary classic ‘Clean and Decent’,
‘Rome had 11 public baths, 1352 public fountains and cisterns, and 856 private
baths.’ In addition, as well as private water-flushed latrines, there were plenty of
public ones’ - 144 is the figure he gives - and the city supplied water at the
staggering rate of ‘300 gallons per head, per day’.
The Romans, of course, brought the concepts of piped running water and bathing
to Britain, and built baths over natural springs - as at Aquae Sulis at Bath. They
included among their pantheon, ‘Crepitus’ and ‘Cloacina’ - god of conveniences
and goddess of sewers - and even at the nethermost outpost of Empire, they did
their best to keep up standards.
See?
See? It's not just us!
We came across some lovely old Twyfords sinks, dating from the 1930s, recently. Here they are, in all their glory - enjoy!
 |
| Ain't it a beauty! |
 |
| Look at the lovely porcelain! |
 |
Woof!
(We seem to be barking an awful lot lately.) |
 |
| Look at this graceful curve! |
 |
| The genteel simplicity of old-fashioned plumbing |
We've got a multitude of non-toilet-related things to get on with today, but, thanks to this dual dose of porcelain porn and historical plumbing, we'll be all brio, gusto, and demented humming - getting shit done like there's no tomorrow!
Related Reading
All Posts on Roman Plumbing
Historical Baths, Toilets and Kitchens - A Useful and Humbling Lesson
Caffè Nero Coppergate: Cocks, Valves, Nuts, Bolts, etc. In Short, Plumbing!
No comments:
Post a Comment