Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
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Toilet, latrine, etc.
House of office: mention’d 25 times in diaries so far on search internal:
here typical rooms within from
URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=6877#s2-50
6ft by 4 ft area near the stairs
along with buttery and cellars etc..
A popular ref. to the privy be jakes, a term used by the betters centuries later.
“…stretching W to a jakes standing there. The viewers say that above the same jakes, the party [sic] ought to have 8 ft. 8 in. E and W and 2 ft. N and S for the fall of his jakes in a vault lying there between the parties as it was at the time of his purchase…..”
more for the enquiring mind.
From: ‘Misc. MSS Box 91 [C]: 1550-51 (nos 267-316)’, London viewers and their certificates, 1508-1558: Certificates of the sworn viewers of the City of London (1989), pp. 104-18. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=36060&strquery=gate. Date accessed: 11 August 2005.
lifted from the OED
1652 in Rec. Early Hist. Boston (1877) II. 109 It is ordered that noe house of Office..shall stand within twentie foot of any high way.