Saturday, July 6, 2019

Anatomy of a Castle – Latrines

From A Writer's Perspective:
Since my novels are romances, arrangements for some of the more mundane aspects of life are rarely mentioned, although Tilda, the heroine of my novel The Monk’s Tale, does use a visit to the outhouse at an inn as an excuse to meet Mark, her prospective rescuer. My recent visits to castles in the North East has provided me with many examples of latrines and garderobes and I thought some of them might be of interest. 
Since castles were usually built on top of hills they weren’t always near running water, which could be a problem when it came to disposing of waste. If you were fortunate enough to be by a river or the sea, garderobes could be positioned over the moat, which would take the waste to them. None of the castles I visited this year were that blessed.
In many castles, like Aydon in the picture at the top of the post, the garderobe chutes jutted out a little from the external wall and waste simply fell to the ground. I’m sure one of the lower servants was tasked with clearing it up and taking it away every now and again. 
Some people had private garderobes. This wasn’t a matter of privacy, but of status. Privacy wasn’t something that really concerned people in the Middle Ages. Many latrines were communal, with people sitting next to one another. They weren’t always situated where they were most needed, but the lord could have one where it was most convenient for him. 
Strictly speaking, Aydon Castle isn’t a castle, but a fortified manor house. I’ll still use it as an example, though, as its lord had a private garderobe. As you can see in the photograph below, the Garderobe Tower extends beyond the wall of the castle and is on the edge of a ravine. It was just off the solar block where the lord and his family slept and spent most of their time when they were indoors. Only they had access to their garderobe. (Read more.)
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