Earth Closets

The earth closet at Low Nest is based on half of a glazed earthenware pipe about 3 feet in diameter and 7 feet long.
Above it is a pine seat about six feet long with two holes cut in it, mounted on a brick plinth. The half-pipe is about ground level at the back (about two feet lower than ground level at the front) and open to the air so that it is ventilated and easily emptied. The east wind would blow straight into the opening which made it very chilly in the winter.

Sadly, the two seats are to make use of the full length of the pipe rather than for reasons of sociability.
The old Cumbrians were much too strait-laced for that. However in other cultures  e.g. in  ancient Rome and Pompeii communal lavatories were the norm.

This earth closet. might originally have been a  WC.  There is a spring on the back yard,  the water from which runs in a drain towards the lavatory then diverts round it, runs through a cess pit, under the lane and into a stream in the front field. It seems quite likely the water from the spring would originally have run straight through the lavatory, carrying any effluvium to the cess pit where, hopefully, most of the solids would have remained until the pit was emptied.

Properly, an earth closet has the means to add a layer of earth to cover each deposit which effectively eliminates any smell.
E.C.s on farms tend to eschew this refinement - the slight pong which emanates is barely noticeable in the ambience of a farmyard.

Matt used to empty the half-pipe using a cowl rake, mix the raw effluvium with ashes and remove it to the midden.

Carl always refused this chore. He used to recount how his uncles worked as servants for the nobility in Germany. They were desperately poor and came up with the wheeze of removing  the paper from the lavatories. When the aristocrats came to relieve themselves they would have to resort to using paper money* to wipe their bums. The servants, when emptying the EC, would extract the 'used' notes and clean them.
On hearing this Carl had probably resolved that he would never have anything to do with the underparts of ECs.
* this is entirely plausible, it would have been about the time of the Weimar inflation when even large denomination notes were worth very little.

Earth closets are much more environmentally friendly than WCs if the manure is returned to the land rather than ending up at the sewage works mixed with industrial and chemical effluent before being dumped at sea. Of course the proper furnishing of an EC, for reasons of both respect for tradition and concern for the environment, is torn up newspaper rather than processed and chlorinated toilet paper.
The Rev Henry Moule had a few words to say on the superiority of earth closets

Even without the proper admixture of earth,  ECs do not smell too bad, not as bad as many public WCs, as long as the content is fairly dry. There is this caveat - you must not pee in them. In the absence of earth as a moderator the liquid content of urine releases the smell from the dry solid effluent as well as adding its own ammoniacal aroma to produce an phenomenally astringent pong. You have to piss al fresco.

Town-dwellers of a genteel disposition may be dismayed to learn that al fresco urination is normal in rural areas. The urban constraints of modesty and decorum on the one hand and hygiene on the other are largely inapplicable in the countryside. Modesty is preserved simply by retiring behind a bush* - someone using binoculars  might spot you from afar but then the Churchill maxim applies**. As for hygiene, human urine is absorbed by the soil without without leaving any smell and is positively beneficial to the vegetation (although repeated application in the same place will kill the grass through the excess of nitrogen). By contrast dog urine will kill grass in a single application and the urine of a tom cat is purposefully smelly. Obviously in paved urban areas al fresco urination is just anti social.

* in the days of voluminous skirts before the invention of underwear even the bush  was optional - ladies could pee outdoors in company, with complete propriety, merely by executing a demure curtsy. (For an illustration of this see Mingozzi's 1986 film L'iniziazione)

** Sir Winston  to his protesting batman when skinny-dipping  - 'If people will look through binoculars it's their own fault what they see'.
    More churchill quotes.