Toilet Of The Week (25)

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I went to Liverpool last week, not somewhere I have been for a long while, but it was a pleasure to reacquaint myself with the Victorian splendour of the Gents’ urinals in the Philaharmonic Dining Rooms.

Resplendent in rose-coloured marble, they are a work of art and are the icing on the cake of the cathedral of pubs, built between 1898 and 1900 by Walter W Thomas. Bill Bryson was in awe of them, writing that “there is no place in the world finer for a pee than the ornate gents’ room of the Philharmonic”.

I quite agree as do Historic England, who have just awarded the boozer Grade I listed status. The women’s toilets are nothing to write home about, I understand, a later addition. After all, pubs at the time were firmly men only.