Whittington's Longhouse (or Whittington's Longhouse and Almshouse) was a

public toilet A public toilet, restroom, bathroom or washroom is a room or small building with toilets (or urinals) and sinks for use by the general public. The facilities are available to customers, travelers, employees of a business, school pupils or pris ...

Cheapside Cheapside is a street in the City of London, the historic and modern financial centre of London, England, which forms part of the A40 road, A40 London to Fishguard road. It links St Martin's Le Grand with Poultry, London, Poultry. Near its eas ...

, London, constructed with money given or bequeathed by

Richard Whittington Richard Whittington ( March 1423) of the parish of St Michael Paternoster Royal,Will of Richard Whittington: " I leave to my executors named below the entire tenement in which I live in the parish of St. Michael Paternoster Royal, Londo/ ...

Lord Mayor of London The Lord Mayor of London is the Mayors in England, mayor of the City of London, England, and the Leader of the council, leader of the City of London Corporation. Within the City, the Lord Mayor is accorded Order of precedence, precedence over a ...

. The toilet had 128 seats: 64 for men and 64 for women. It operated from around 1 May 1421, until the seventeenth century. The Longhouse, though it was not London's first public toilet, was the first public toilet in the capital with separate provision for the sexes. The Longhouse, and the similarly financed

almshouse An almshouse (also known as a bede-house, poorhouse, or hospital) is charitable housing provided to people in a particular community, especially during the Middle Ages. They were often built for the poor of a locality, for those who had held ce ...

for five or six parishioners constructed above it, was built by the parish of

St Martin Vintry St Martin Vintry was a parish church in the Vintry ward of the City of London, England. It was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666 and never rebuilt. History The church stood at what is now the junction of Queen Street and Upper Thame ...

, on a long dock over the Thames. It was on Walbrook Street, at the time an actual brook, approximately where the modern Bell Wharf Lane is, and was "flushed by the Thames". The waste was deposited in a

gully A gully is a landform A landform is a land feature on the solid surface of the Earth or other planetary body. They may be natural or may be anthropogenic (caused or influenced by human activity). Landforms together make up a given ter ...

which was washed by the tides twice a day – the Thames being tidal there. Rexroth in his 2007 book ''Deviance and Power in Late Medieval London'' argues that with the construction of the almshouse above the privies: "''pauperes'' were assigned new households" where shame had been banished (due to the gender segregation). By the seventeenth century the almshouse was being let on a commercial basis, possibly even as warehousing. The Longhouse was destroyed in the

Great Fire of London The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through central London from Sunday 2 September to Wednesday 5 September 1666, gutting the medieval City of London inside the old London Wall, Roman city wall, while also extendi ...

and rebuilt on a more modest scale. The new building had six male and six female seats, and, apart from a period where the lessees kept it locked, continued in use until at least 1851, as it is mentioned in an 80-year lease that commenced that year. In a 1935 lease, however, no mention is made, and it is assumed the facilities were by that time closed. After the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, the site was rebuilt in 1953 as part of "Redevelopment unit number 10". There is, however, as of 2015, a Bell Wharf Lane public toilet. The Longhouse and the other gifts to London, notably improvements to the water supply and a more substantial almshouse as well as schools and hospitals, are credited with raising the profile of Dick Whittington among Londoners, and for leading to the legends that surround his name. Longhouse became a byword for privy, presumably derived from Whittington's Longhouse.P. E. Jones ''Whittington's Longhouse'', London Topographical Record, 23, 1972. Pages 27–34.

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