CHRISTLETON
Curios and Curioser
BY PHILIP HARLAND
Thunder Pots, Guzunders and Gardyloo
I probably shouldn’t admit this but I really love Victorian chamber pots. At first glance simply decorative bowls—floral sprays, delicate borders even narrative scenes – and then I remember their purpose, and suddenly I’m drawn into a more intimate history of everyday life.
Chamber pots have been with us in one form or another since medieval times, long before indoor plumbing civilised (and concealed) our daily routines. Early examples were plain and practical—metal or coarse earthenware, built for necessity rather than display. But by the 18th and 19th centuries, particularly in Victorian Britain, they began to mirror the wider world of ceramics: transfer prints, chinoiserie motifs, and thoughtfully shaped handles (one of these, made in ironstone by the famous company Mason’s has a handle in the form of a snake!) transforming the purely functional into something faintly refined.
‘Gardyloo!’ was a street cry that must have felt inextricably linked, for some with morning ablutions: the chamber pot, having served its purpose had to be emptied and where else but into the street below? ‘Gardyloo’ appears to be a corruption of the French ‘Garde! De l’eau!’ (Look out! Water coming!); it was an especially common warning in the tenement areas of Edinburgh. Not surprisingly euphemistic and humorous descriptions of the chamber pot were plentiful: jerry, jordan, po, thunder pot and my favourite, guzunder. Today, in 21st-century Britain, the original purpose of the chamber pot has, of course largely vanished, replaced by unnoticed plumbing. Yet the objects endure—repurposed as planters, curiosities, or conversation pieces. And perhaps that’s the quiet pleasure here: something once discreetly out of sight now sits in plain view, a brilliant talking piece and really very attractive.