I've visited East Riddlesden Hall, our most local National Trust property, lots of times and it still holds a fascination for me. It's a 17th century manor house, rebuilt in the 1640s around an older house for wealthy clothier, James Murgatroyd. (A good Yorkshire name there!) Originally an agricultural estate, it has a Great Barn near the entrance, which would have housed cattle in the winter as well as providing storage for food, fodder and tools. It's a magnificent oak-framed barn with a stone flagged floor and huge entrance doors. There's another old barn too, the Airedale Barn, now used for weddings and events.
Every time I visit I seem to 'see' different things. This time my attention was focused on all the ancient doors.
This one has a date stone of 1642 and family initials from when the Murgatroyds bought the estate.
At the rear of the house, across the garden, behind an unassuming little door, lies this old privy. Disconcertingly to our modern sensibilities, it has two latrine holes side by side!
Round the side of the house in a small walled garden, these holes in the wall would at one time have held straw skeps: upturned straw baskets in which bees would have made their honey combs.
A fascinating look at some of the more mundane facets of this ancient property. I'm pleased to see that the NT have resisted their persistent urge to tidy everything up to Chelsea Flower Show standards. Those double-seated loos often had different size openings to accommodate adult and junior bottoms - I lived my first years in house that had that arrangement.
ReplyDeleteConsidering how indoor plumbing has only been around a short while, the presence of a roofed privy with double holes (after all many time a parent and kid are in rest-rooms together here!) is wonderful to see. It's part of history that existed for millennia, and the old privies have also been sources of many archeological digs...where lots of household items would have also been thrown down.
ReplyDeleteThe everyday aspects of a place are often really interesting.
ReplyDeleteHa. I see I am not alone in wanting to comment on the privy. My grandparents' house had one when I was a child....70 years ago. It was only a two-holer....that's how we said it, but it looks odd written. Two hole-er? Ah well. Anyway, not as fancy as John's which had one size for adults and another for children. In this part of the world, I was always afraid of black widow spiders biting me.....they never did. I was also charmed by the nooks for bee houses!
ReplyDeleteThe first is my favourite.
ReplyDelete