Bathroom & Toilet Facilities

Many houses in the North East still had an outside toilet and no bathroom until the 1960's when grants were available to extend the properties into the backyard to provide a bathroom and W.C.

As here, in Wesley Street & Dean Street, Low Fell..
(some, R.H. pic for example, before the extension was built, had a tiny inside bathroom but outside toilet)

Before then, a tin bath hanging on the wall, as seen above, was a common sight.

In Gateshead, there were many families where the men folk all worked in the pits (coal mining) and until the early 1940's pits did not have washing facilities so the workers returned home, black with coal dust and wet with sweat. They had to bathe in a tin bath

This is the famous Westoe Netty painting by Bob Olley. The actual netty is at Beamish and will be installed with plumbing. Meanwhile, it is in storage

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WC's were in the backyard and in some cases, one WC was shared by two families

A netty door, donated to Beamish

Also in the yard was the Coal House

Close the Coalhouse Door
Alex Glasgow


Bathroom & Toilet Facilities Photographs brought to you by



The Felling Heritage Group