Features / things you probably didn't know
Bristol’s three listed Victorian urinals
The steel around an award-winning house in St Werburgh’s was chosen to relate to the listed circular cast-iron urinal just a few yards away in Mina Road Park.
This urinal is one of three similar green buildings in Bristol, with an almost identical circular structure on Horfield Common and a larger rectangular version at the top of Blackboy Hill.
There is also a close relative of this trio on display next to the SS Great Britain.
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The cast-iron urinal on Horfield Common is made of decorative cast-iron panels, with a filigree dome on top – photo: Martin Booth
The urinal on Mina Road Park in St Werburgh’s is almost identical on the outside, described by Historic England as “a fine and ornate example of its type” – photo: Martin Booth
The larger urinal on Blackboy Hill is close to the former St John’s Parochial School, now flats – photo: Martin Booth
Built in the 1880s at the MacFarlane foundry in Glasgow, the round racing green Grade II-listed urinals have a curved entrance screen, decorative pierced panels and a Moorish-style dome on top, known as a filigree dome.
Each one is a rare surviving example of a once common type of structure among Bristol’s streetscape but none of them are currently in use.
The boxier urinal on Blackboy Hill even has four faces of what look like lionesses’ heads looking down on passers-by – photo: Martin Booth
In its description by English Heritage, the Blackboy Hill urinal is said to “illustrate the growth of the Bristol suburbs in the late-C19 and the facilities provided by the local authorities in order to foster the genteel middle-class environment to which they aspired”.
A spider makes herself at home inside the Horfield Common urinal – photo: Martin Booth
Tagging inside the Mina Road Park urinal – photo: Martin Booth
Things were slightly roomier for gentlemen relieving themselves on Blackboy Hill – photo: Martin Booth
Main photo: Martin Booth
Read more: Once you see these across Bristol, you will start seeing them everywhere
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