Loo Tours Presents: At Your Convenience- A Lavatorial Walking Tour
Performed by the Loo Lady
Sponsored by Thomas Crapper & Company

Have you ever stopped to think about a simple question and fo...

Are the steps of the bridge to your right? Well done! You’ve passed the first test

Turn left and start walking along the side of the Royal Festival Hall.

The building is not only a world-cla...

Keep walking down the stairs.

Routh goes on to describe all the other 6 floors of loos. My pro tip here, especially for the Ladies, is to head down to the cloakroom on the basement where there ...

See the bridge on your right? Turn towards it and start walking.

The Great Exhibition of 1851 was a chance for Britain to show off its splendors to the rest of the world. Architects, Manufacture...

Turn right into the garden and follow the winding path. Take every right turn and fork available to you, and you’ll soon see what we’re after.

This garden was done up to Celebrate Queen Elizabet...

See the Green building on your right? Stop in front of it.

This is the Jubiloo. It was erected in 2012 for the Diamond Jubilee. It is run by Healthmatic, a private company, and receives no publ...

We’re going to step back in time.

Start walking up the steps.

Have you ever thought about why we need toilets? In the forest animals go happily out in the open, yet you don’t step in it whi...

Water is vital to life, and many early civilizations sprung up around rivers. They soon figured out that doing their business in the river meant it could be washed away without the need to touch it...

The 1300’s: Richard Whitington, Mayor of London, financed a toilet on the banks of the Thames which is flushed by the tides. Today Brits know him best as the lovable Pantomime character of Dick Whi...

1541: Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries. These storehouses for classical knowledge disappeared, and along with them the last vestiges of the flush toilet were gone for a time.

1596: Sir John Harrington, the saucy godson of Queen Elizabeth I invented the first mechanized flush toilet, which he names the Ajax.

He only ever built two in his lifetime… one for himself and ...

1775: A Scottish Watchmaker named Alexander Cummings filed for the first patent for a water closet… the S trap.

1778: Joseph Bramah improved the design, inventing a hinged valve and an improved ...

1851: The Crystal Palace exhibition… remember George Jennings and his monkey closets? This put waterclosets in the public eye more than ever before, and the toilet as we know it today had its glori...

Stop. Look out over the Thames again on your left.

Imagine we have come through the “lavatorial dark ages” into the 1800’s. At the turn of the century there were just under a million people in L...

At the bottom of the bridge down here you’re going to make a sort of a Ubend to your right and walk back parallel to the bridge.

If you look across the street at that concrete plinth you’ll see...

This is the pigeon toilet part of the experience.

You’re usually safe, so don’t worry about it too much. Besides, bird poo is meant to be good luck!

I always wondered where this idea came fr...

Stop outside the gates and look at the sign on the right of the entrance.

You’ll notice, these are Award Winning Toilets. The Loo of the Year Awards have been held in Britain since 1987 to enco...

Turn Right into the garden gate and walk straight on.

See that stone arch on the far side of the garden? That’s where we’re headed.

This garden that you’re walking through was once part of t...

Stop in front of the gate.

This gate was once a river gate belonging to George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. It was landlocked in the building of the sewer, and they never got round to moving it...

You are currently standing on a Urilift: one of London’s nocturnal pop-up urinals. At night they rise from the ground and stand approximately 7 feet high… a silver column with three open air urinal...

Pause for a moment here at the end of John Adam Street.

Down at the far end you can just make out the headquarters of the Royal Society of Arts, who have been so involved in the advancement of ...

Head down into the underground.

Now you’re at the bottom of the stairs turn left. You’re in Charring Cross station. There are 30p toilets upstairs in the mainline station, but nothing in the Un...

As you come out the exit, to your left you’ll see a butterfly urinal… so called because the designers believe that when it is open it looks like a graceful butterfly spreading its wings to shelter ...

St. Martin in the Fields is the self-proclaimed “Church of Ever Open Toilet Doors”… if you don’t believe me pop into the ladies toilets which are down the glass entrance to the crypt and through th...

Before you cross look up the street to your left. See the big round ticket booth there? That was once a ladies toilet.

On the final leg of our journey we’re going to fill in that gap between the...

Once you’re across turn right and cross the street again

Turn left immediately before you pass the Chandos pub and start walking up the street.

Keep an eye out for a gap in the wall on your...

Stop when you get to the gap in the wall, barely big enough to squeeze into.

This is Brydges Place is the Second Narrowest Alley in London, at least according to the internet. It’s also describe...

At the end of the alley cross the street again and keep walking towards The Lady Magazine which should be looming up in front of you.

This is the site of another early public toilet. In 1852, t...

Stop! Look across the street to your right. The Blue Plaque on the side of the building that is now TGI Friday’s marks where a young Charles Dickens once worked.

Here’s his great great great g...

Cross the street again and turn right.

We’re heading into Covent Garden now.

You won’t be able to see it yet, but on your left behind these building’s is St. Paul’s Church, not to be confus...

Turn left into Covent Garden. Find the portico next to St. Paul’s Church. You’ll see Ladies toilets on the right and Gentlemen on the Left.

Jennings petitioned to be allowed build underground t...

As you come out of the market you’ll pass a stall selling hats, scarves and socks. This is one of my most regular shopping places… the signature striped stockings of the Loo Lady all came from here...

You’ll see Covent Garden’s accessible toilets here on your right. They require a radar key. The radar key scheme started in 1981 so that people with disabilities could "go in peace, and quickly, wi...

Follow the curve of the road around Burleigh Street.

[Sam] "Perhaps the first to write about deviant behavior was the grandfather of toilet academia Alexandra Kira. In his raunchy 1976 study “T...

Turn Left onto Exeter street. The curb here is quite steep, so take care stepping down as you cross.

[Sam] “Of course, ‘off bound spaces’ occur all over the city and often extend further than ...

Turn right and head down Wellington Street.

[Sam] “In fact cottaging not only provide interesting anecdotes of deviant behavior in off-bounds spaces, but also helped in the revolution and libera...

This was once the most infamous gents in theatre land! This former toilet alleges to have been the former haunt of the likes of Oscar Wilde, Jo Orton and John Guilgud… and other male theatricals wh...