Servants had no right to free time or to holidays. The
kitchen was in the basement or in a covered shed in the back. It
had an open fire and a tin oven. The cold water tap over the stone
sink could supply cold water from a cistern in the basement or
hand-pumped to a roof cistern through wooden pipes at very low
pressure at stated hours for a fee. There was a wash shed in back.
Water pumped from the Thames into underground pipes was thus
distributed to householders three times a week. Some water came
from a well or spring, rain, and street water sellers. Water
carriers were still employed at set fees. Water was kept in lead
cisterns. The wealthy had basement cisterns filled by a commercial
company. The free public conduits of water were out of use by
1750. The front door of the house had two strong bolts on the
inside and a heavy chain. The windows could be shuttered and
barred. There were sash windows with cords and brass pulleys. At
the back of the house was a garden and perhaps a coach house or
stables. The latrine was usually not in the house, but somewhere
in the back garden area. Under it was a brick drain leading to a
public sewer or to a cesspool. Smelly gases arose from it.
Sometimes people gathered such waste up to sell to farmers
returning home in an otherwise empty wagon. In 1760, patented
inside toilets began to be used. A watch-maker named Alexander
Cummings patented in 1775 the water-closet, which had a stink trap
u-bend behind which, after flushing, water resided and prevented
the back-flow of noxious sewer gas.
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