The Cerberus Privy, at

Gayhurst House Gayhurst House (now known as Gayhurst Court) is a late-Elizabethan country house in Buckinghamshire. It is located near the village of Gayhurst, several kilometres north of Milton Keynes. The earliest house dates from the 1520s. In 1597 it was ...

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-ea ...

, England, is a communal lavatory built for the male servants of the house. It was constructed between 1859-1860 and was designed by

William Burges William Burges (; 2 December 1827 – 20 April 1881) was an English architect and designer. Among the greatest of the Victorian art-architects, he sought in his work to escape from both nineteenth-century industrialisation and the Neoc ...

. Now converted to a private home, it is a Grade II* listed building.

History

was built in the early sixteenth-century on the site of a Roman villa and Norman manor. It was expanded in 1597 by William Moulsoe. The house was completed by his son-in-law, Sir Everard Digby, one of the conspirators involved in the Gunpowder Plot. In 1704 the estate was sold to Sir Nathan Wrighte. The house was extensively refurbished, 1858–72, by

for Robert Carrington, 2nd Baron Carrington, and his son. Lord Carrington was Burges' first significant patron. In total, some £30,000 was spent which did not include the costs of construction for Burges' planned main staircase that was never built. However, a minor stair, the Caliban Stair, was constructed. The Cerberus Privy was built as a communal lavatory for the male servants of the house. Burges's biographer,

J. Mordaunt Crook Joseph Mordaunt Crook, (born 27 February 1937), generally known as J. Mordaunt Crook, is an English architectural historian and specialist on the Georgian and Victorian periods. He is an authority on the life and work of the Victorian architec ...

, considers it "one of Burges's happiest inventions." The Gayhurst estate was broken up in the twentieth century and the house was converted into flats, and the estate buildings including the privy were developed into houses, between 1971 and 1979. The estate is privately owned and is not open to the public, although the house can be seen from the

footpath A footpath (also pedestrian way, walking trail, nature trail) is a type of thoroughfare that is intended for use only by pedestrians and not other forms of traffic such as motorized vehicles, bicycles and horses. They can be found in a wide ...

to the adjacent Church of St Peter.

Architecture and description

Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (1 ...

and

Elizabeth Williamson Elizabeth M. Williamson MRPharmS is a former Professor of Pharmacy at the University of Reading, England. Her main research interest is in herbal medicines Herbal medicine (also herbalism) is the study of pharmacognosy and the use of medicin ...

, in their 2003 revised edition, ''Buckinghamshire'', of the Pevsner Buildings of England suggest Burges's main design influence for the privy was the

Abbot's Kitchen, Glastonbury The Abbot's Kitchen is a mediaeval octagonal building that served as the kitchen at Glastonbury Abbey in Glastonbury, Somerset, England. It is a Grade I listed building. The abbot's kitchen has been described as "one of the best preserved mediev ...

. The building is circular and consists of a main storey, with a

dormer A dormer is a roofed structure, often containing a window, that projects vertically beyond the plane of a pitched roof. A dormer window (also called ''dormer'') is a form of roof window. Dormers are commonly used to increase the usable space ...

attic above. Atop this is a statue of Cerberus, which originally had eyes made of red glass. Crook calls it; "a picturesque convenience, dedicated to a

cloaca In animal anatomy, a cloaca ( ), plural cloacae ( or ), is the posterior orifice that serves as the only opening for the digestive, reproductive, and urinary tracts (if present) of many vertebrate animals. All amphibians, reptiles and birds, a ...

demon A demon is a malevolent supernatural entity. Historically, belief in demons, or stories about demons, occurs in religion, occultism, literature, fiction, mythology, and folklore; as well as in media such as comics, video games, movies, ani ...

with

billiard ball A billiard ball is a small, hard ball used in cue sports, such as carom billiards, pool, and snooker. The number, type, diameter, color, and pattern of the balls differ depending upon the specific game being played. Various particular ball p ...

eyes, for a patron with

plumbing Plumbing is any system that conveys fluids for a wide range of applications. Plumbing uses pipes, valves, plumbing fixtures, tanks, and other apparatuses to convey fluids. Heating and cooling (HVAC), waste removal, and potable water delivery ...

on the brain". The Cerberus Privy is a Grade II* listed building.

Notes

References

Sources

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External links

{{William Burges Gothic Revival architecture in Buckinghamshire Grade II* listed buildings in Buckinghamshire Milton Keynes William Burges buildings