Sanitation in Urban Britain, 1560-1700

Popular belief holds that throwing the contents of a chamber pot into the street was a common occurrence during the early modern period. This book challenges this deeply entrenched stereotypical image as the majority of urban inhabitants and their local governors alike valued clean outdoor public spaces, vesting interest in keeping the areas in which they lived and worked clean.

Taking an extensive tour of over thirty towns and cities across early modern Britain, focusing on Edinburgh and Y...