As I’ve gotten further into the Carlton heartland (earliest houses in the suburbs: late 1800s / early 1900s, with a large number of 1920/1930s semi-detached) I was surprised to see a number of khazis. A few had been kept for their original purpose (very useful if you get caught short whilst gardening), but most had been converted into tool-sheds. I’m surveying now close to the heart of Carlton and came across a row of Worth Street khazis which could conveniently be photographed from Cavendish Road. This is the khazis close up (the pussycat is a bonus item):—

…whilst these two photos are the same buildings from a distance (in both cases the khazis are on the left, covered with greenery to hide their blushes):—

I knew that Victorian houses commonly came with outdoor khazis ‘cos my father was born & raised in such a house, but I was surprised to find that 1920s/30s houses could be built in the same way. One of the utter delights for my parents was in 1954 to be able to move from sharing his mother’s house into their own prefab (“pre-fabricated house”), complete with indoor toilet & bathroom plus constant hot water. All 3 of those were unknown items for many families in Britain & that remained common until the 1960s/70s.

My own house in Thorneywood has a start_date of 1883 & is similar to that Worth Street terrace. There is zero drainage at the front (the street is on a hill and both needs & has full drainage, but all the house gutters empty on to the pavement). All house sewers & drainage are at the rear, and the sewer is common to the entire terrace & empties into the side-street sewer.

Thus, it seems likely that my & my neighbour’s houses were also built with outside khazis; however, there was zero sign of any of them when I moved in in the 1980s.

My sense is that the Victorians (and later) were repelled by the idea of bringing toilet functions inside the home, and actively wanted them placed at the bottom of the garden (as far away from the house as possible). It was not a great many years previously that “bad odours” (miasma) were directly connected by their medical professionals with disease. In addition, very few people owned their own homes. Even the middle-class rented their homes, paying yearly on 100 year leases. In that situation the beneficial owner would have very little incentive to build up to a standard; anything that reduced the build cost would be embraced.

Coda

16 July: a note on prefabs: my birth town was Hull and my parents moved from Mayfield Street to Grange Road. Mayfield was close to the town centre, a nearby railway line & the West Docks, all of which were prime targets for the WWII bombing that laid much of Hull flat. Their prefab was a 2-bedroom bungalow with pre-cast concrete frame & asbestos roof; it had a design-life of 10 years & lasted 50. The bungalows that I surveyed yesterday on Foxhill Road Central & Rushcliffe Avenue are an identical design from the outside—if using different materials internally—to those prefabs.