I am shocked! I have had no cause to use a public convenience for sme years. In motorway services… wasn’t it free? Certainly here in Scotland, the ones we used only a few years ago were free. But i had never really taken in the rise from 1d (old penny) so, less than half a current penny! There were multi-seaters in tenements, but mainly one privy for about 6 houses! Those were free for use of resedents. Our tŷ bach out back was fitted with a wooden board with a hole in it as a seat. We had proper plumbing with a chain to pull. Many did have cess pits and some of those were not emptied often i believe!
p.s. the arrangements for the quarrymen rob bruce mentions were almost certainly exactly as he describes!
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Yes, some seaside loos etc have always attracted a charge, hence “spending a penny”, as mentioned above. Anyway, Glenda, my wife, confirms that her outside toilet had a double seat.
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Rob Bruce’s version is pretty well what I had heard, but i suspect we’ll never get to the bottom of this - as it were 
For people like me who enjoy toilet humour, I recommend an excellent monograph called “The Speciialist” by a Californian called Charles Sale which is a delightful, almost philosophical, treatise on the art and science of building privies.
I also loved “Clochemerle” by Gabriel Chevalier. It’s available in English and has been made into a TV series.
The best place to read either of these is in the Lle chwech. 
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Yes I remember the TV series of Clochemerle, when we were kids. I remember my parents advising us that it wasn’t the most wholesome programme on the box, but we were allowed to watch, whilst they checked it out to make sure that it didn’t get too dodgy. It must have been ok as this went on for the entire series.
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I’ve just had a thought: I wonder if it’s a taboo deformation (i.e. like Golly for God, sugar for…well…you know…poo, but the S- word), of lle cach(u).
I think this brainwave is so brilliant that I may rush into print with it…
Very common among my Gog friends.
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I did read somewhere that chwech could have been a corruption of rhech…
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Little did I know what my innocent question would cause to happen…
The joys of this Forum 
Diolch yn fawr i bawb! Thanks to everyone!
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Not really about lle chwech, but i am watching BBC Wales Hidden Cardiff and was amazed to hear that folk “wouldn’t have any idea what the old gasometer was”. Is that true? How old do you have to be to remember gas works producing gas from coal? I know i had my cooker converted by the gas board in Harrogate in about 1970., but I hadn’t realised gasometers where gas was stored were now ancient monuments!
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If you are talking about the UK, apparently the last coal (Town) gasworks in NI were closed in the 80s. On the mainland, I think most were closed in the late 70s. After that the gasometers became redundant, but many have only just been removed. Some still remain as monuments, as you said. I am fairly certain that one was being kept on a site in Cheltenham, where I worked. There is one overlooking The Oval cricket ground in London, which is now a listed building.
Edit: Sorry, Ive just checked your “reply”, so regarding gas production -
The Port Talbot Steelworks still produces coke as a fuel, so there is some gas produced as a by product. However, I’m fairly sure that this is just “flared-off”.
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That’s plausible too!
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just read that wedi chwech is too late - maybe thats one for not making it in time lle wedi chwech!!!
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I’ve heard farm outhouses tended to have multiple seats for labourers, and the same for quarries…
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I have seen a three-seater at a farm museum. Two adult seats and a little child seat in between.
Sue
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Thnking about it, for centuries, ordinary people lived in tiny cottages with many sharing sleeping accommodation sp privacy was unknown! Think of life below decks in RN! Even quite recently! And in Nelson’s navy men’s wives were smuggled aboard!!! I think personal space for anyone but the very rich is probably a post WW2 phenomenon!
Eric Partridge’s Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English has just this to say, a little puzzlingly and unhelpfully:
“six: A privy: Oxford University: ca.1870-1915. ? origin”
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just for interest - this is an ancient lle trideg chwech
My parents each had 6 siblings, and this was not uncommon in their generation. Some families were much larger, of course.
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Me want!
On a related note, my Mother likes to regail me with the story of when she was in her Welsh class as a girl (she’s English, but grew up in Wales for a time) and everyone laughed at her for saying she lived in a “ty bach”. I can see why “little house” would be a euphemism for toilet, but what should she have said to convey the idea of living in an actual “little house” as she intended to say?
She’s fuzzy on details, so is it likely she said “yn y ty bach” rather than “mewn ty bach” or something? Or is there a better was of saying “little house”?
Tŷ bychan would be the way to say ‘small house’ without it being mistaken. Alternatively, she probably would have got away with “tŷ bach twt”.
PS - she will by no means be the only one to have gone through that experience! 
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