A small addition will be made this week to England's treasury of listed buildings: a tiny oak weatherboarded structure that speaks of a rural past ignored by costume dramas, a time when parents and child could sit down peacefully together and let nature take its course.
The little shed is planned to be declared a Grade II listed building this week, and it is far rarer than the handsome Georgian farmhouse in whose pretty garden it stands.
The official report by English Heritage for the Department of Culture declares it "a rare surviving example of a late 18th century privy, even rarer because it is a three-seater."
"It is the most glorious little building," its proud owner, Mary Kellett, said.
"It faces towards the evening sun, and it is the most delightful place to sit in the evening with a glass of wine and the door open, and just be peaceful and think," she said.
She adds hastily that it is no longer in practical use, though she suspects it was in her father-in-law's day, as luxuries such as a bathroom were only installed in the main house in the 1960s.
It has been listed because she realized its rarity and, though she has no intention of selling, that any future owner would probably flatten it immediately.
There's also a measure of village one-upmanship in its new status -- an even older farmhouse in the same village, Benenden in Kent, has a mere two-seater privy, which is already listed.
The privy is believed to date from 1775, when the main house was rebuilt after a fire.
Although dozens of other privies have been listed, most are Victorian.
Outhouses with three seats are very rare.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS