Early Sewage Arrangements
"Gong" is derived from the Old English gang, which means "to go", and since the 11th century has been used to refer to a privy or its contents. Towns usually provided public latrines, known as houses of easement, but in London towards the end of the 14th century, for instance, there were only 16 for a population of 30,000. Local regulations were introduced to control the placement of private latrines, and how they should be constructed. Cesspits were often placed under cellar floors, or in the yard of a house, some of which had wooden chutes to carry the excrement from the upper floors into the cesspit, sometimes flushed by rainwater. Cesspits were not watertight, allowing the liquid waste to drain away and leaving only the solids to be collected.
The foul odour from cesspits was a continual problem, and the accumulation of solid waste meant that they had to be cleaned out every two years or so. It was the job of the gong farmers to dig them out and remove the excrement, for which in the late 15th century they charged two shillings per ton of waste removed.
Read more about this topic: Gong Farmer
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