Bars, Restaurants and Avante Garde: 5 Fashionable Former Public Toilets

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It’s safe to assume that most people don’t visit public toilets for recreational purposes.  But you may be surprised to hear that dozens of old lavatories are reused today for purposes other than answering a call of nature.  Who would have thought that, thanks to a little imagination, you might even end up fine dining in a dank Victorian loo!

The Temple of Convenience, Manchester

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Manchester is an exciting industrial northern city known for all kinds of innovation, including music – enter Joy Division, New Order, The Stone Roses, Oasis and so on.  (Check out ManchesterMusic.co.uk for a comprehensive list.)  It’s impossible not to feel the vibe just wandering through the streets – a grand Victorian town with a real 21st century kick.

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The Temple of Convenience on Great Bridgewater Street illustrates this perfectly. It brings a whole new meaning to the term hole-in-the-wall (think hole-in-the-floor).  The Temple is a dive, in the coolest possible way, and although it’s had a good clean since Victorian times, it makes no effort to disguise its past life.  More importantly, the beer’s great and the music’s very Mancunian.  Quite unassuming on the outside, keep your eyes peeled for the Temple of Convenience as you wander down Oxford Road past the junction of Great Bridgewater Street – it’s right in the middle of the road!

The Toilet Gallery, Kingston-upon-Thames

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/innac/ / CC BY-ND 2.0

On 9 October, 2003, Brit Art founders Gilbert & George marked the opening of their new venue by cutting the toilet paper ribbon to tumultuous applause from the assembled crowd of supporters, press, two film crews and the BBC’s “live outside broadcast unit”.  Today, the Toilet Gallery, operating out of a converted public loo in Kingston-upon-Thames, London, is known across the art world from France, Germany and Holland, to America, Canada and Japan.

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The mission is simple – provide free exhibition space to new artists, and an avante garde art venue for the local community to engage with modern art.  The venue is a work of creativity in itself!  With a little imagination, even those older members of the community can remember fondly the days when they used this old urinal to spend a penny when nowadays it’s free!  As for the velvet covered toilet (above), could that be an original?

For a mixed reaction and to see the history of the gallery/toilet, check out this documentary.

Cellar Door Bar, Covent Garden

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London abounds with old underground urinals built by the Victorians, Edwardians and no doubt others too.  Once open around the clock to anyone who needed them, local authorities have in more recent years locked their doors for good to prevent illicit activity like drug dealing – common place in such venues – as well as, no doubt, the need to shell out for their upkeep.

Image by Ewan-M

The result is hundreds of disused public toilets across British towns and cities, which probably don’t pose the same level of interest to history buffs and urban explorers as old subway tunnels and subterranean stations.  But thanks to some creative minds, many are now finding new uses as bars.  This trendy London nightspot, which has adopted Tolkein’s apparent favourite word combination – Cellar Door – can be found beneath One Aldwych Hotel in Covent Garden.  It even boasts the distinguished street address, Zero Aldwych.  Click here to read more.

Toulouse Restaurant, Westcliff-on-Sea

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Either the name is purely functional or the owners of this little seafront bistro have a sense of humour.  Whatever the case, the aptly named Toulouse Restaurant (pronounced Too-loos) at Westcliff-on-Sea, was once a ladies and gents public toilet.  No doubt back in its glory days it hosted many a holidaymaker eager to answer a call of nature while the sand castles went up outside.  Today its fare is more of the modern European seafood variety, and despite its once grubby past it’s now a place for fine dining!

Floral Display, near Taff’s Well, Wales

Image by Duncan and Gareth Alderson

Duncan and Gareth Alderson / CC BY-SA 2.0

Okay, so maybe not exactly “fashionable”.  But it does beg the question: When does going for a quick Jimmy Riddle border on indecent exposure?  This may not be the most private of former public conveniences, but at least the ground was well fertilised over the years!

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