| Forum: | Castles In General & Medieval History |
| Topic: | garderobes |
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------------------Carolyn I need some information of garderobes for a story I am writing. Where were they generally located within a castle? What ventilation did they have? How were they cleaned out and how often was it necessary? Thanks to all who can help! C.
wurdsmiff Interesting topic for a story?
Despite being a garderobe cleaner by profession ( see Philip Davis' rhyme), I really can't tell you much about frequency- of cleaning, though many of the examples that I can think of were built within the thickness of an exterior wall close to bed chambers. From these a chute drained down to the exterior where the effluent was deposited in the ditch, moat, or at the wall base. I have no data on whether there were arrangements to clear this, but doubt it. If an attacker had any concern for his own health it would certainly have been a deterrant.
I can think of a few examples where chutes were absent, and can only imagine that some sort of recepticle was used for collection.
Ventilation seems to have been a more modern convenience (excuse the pun)and the examples I know of are dated with more modern facilities. On larger castles a separate latrine tower was common.Philip Davis As wurdsmiff suggests most of the castle garderobes I have seen empty fairly directly into castle ditches where the waste would have joined the droppings of the animals who grazed the ditches. There are a few important exceptions though. Dover Castle Keep has some large pits within it's walls where the garderobes emptied and these are accessible for cleaning out. I imagine that they were cleaned out when they were full, which might be a few weeks if the castle was full with a royal court of several hundred or several months if a small garrison were the only occupants (many castles were pretty empty most of the time). The 'nightsoil' was recycled and spread on the fields (most peasants would have more directly fertilised the fields, as peasants still do in many parts of the world).
Medieval ventilation is what we nowadays call draughts (drafts for US readers) and was rather a nuisance, particularly in garderobes where, at least in the early centuries of this millennium, the smell was considered to be beneficial in keeping moths away from clothes (hence the term garderobe. The ammonia of stale urine probable was of some benefit). By the thirteenth century garderobes tended to be put at the end of a corridor in larger houses and castles so that the bedchamber was a bit away from the smell. By the sixteenth century new garderobes were very rare and old garderobes were often being bricked up as people switched to using chamberpots which servants took away and emptied.
Finally many garderobes were little wooden porches hanging out of the side of buildings, these have almost all rotted away and been replaced by ordinary windows. There are reports of the garderobes rotting when they were still in use and of people falling through rotten boards into the cesspits below.
Neurotics build castles in the air, psychotics live in them,
Psychiatrists charge the rent, art therapists do the interior design
and nurses clean out the garderobes!
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