caught me by surprise. i visited this place in 1980. what memories.
on 08/16/2015 at 08:00 AM
1000 steps up, and 80,000 visitors a year? If the place is open 6 days a week, that’s about 257 visitors a day. I’d say about the only thing you’re going to do is clean the toilet, all day, every day.
Worse, since it’s a castle ... they have that 10 story poop chute called a garderobe, right? Extra fun getting that one spiffy.
Not on a bet.
And the current guy has pretty low expectations of what a Best Job is.
A lot of older and always draughty castles emptied outside the wall and down into the moat,if they had a moat. Actually a very interesting subject, as covered by BBC history series, on the topic of toilets. Surprised to learn that someone, I forgot who, invented a sort of flush indoor loo for Queen Elizabeth 1st.
The old joke is that the inventor was a guy named Thomas Crapper. Turns out to be true. Sort of.
It also turns out that the idea of indoor hydraulic waste removal goes back many centuries. Rome maybe, perhaps Egypt or ancient China? Anywhere you’ve got a cold seat on a winter’s morning is my guess. The S-trap (inverted P-trap) cast into the ceramic is what makes a modern toilet work. Well, it’s what keeps the smells in the runoff pipe where they belong actually. That part goes to Scotsman Alex Cumming, 1775. A plain old hole with a water rinser would do the basic job, but the fumes would stink up the house.
I’ve also heard John Harrington for Lizzie I. If true, wouldn’t that loo be in the British Museum?
In keeping with the subject discussed above - note that pass with stairs leading up to the castle, shown to the left in the first photo:
It should be called Butt Pass. Or Visitor’s Crack.
08/16/2015 at 08:43 AM
