watching a documentary on historical toilets, and there was a mention of toilets on hadrian's wall — the romans rly had a good handle on waste removal, and i was thinking abt lothering and specifically lothering as a village existing on a crossroads of the ruins of the tevinter imperial highway.
by the time origins starts, that highway is badly maintained and intermittently in ruins — even the parts that are walkable seem like they're missing a roof, maybe, or more complete walls.
but it does sort of abut the village, and tbh its position next to a river makes sense if we're thinking abt the imperial highway as analogous to the roman roads left behind in britain.
below is a picture of the latrines at the housesteads roman fort, a stop along hadrian's wall. the latrines would have had seats above the latrine ditch you can see several yards below. there are grooves for running water in front of where the seats would have been that would have been used to dampen the absorbent end of a toilet brush, which was for hygiene. this roman fort is unusual in that the sewage system relied on rainwater rather than the running water provided by a river, for example. interestingly, the name of the family that transferred ownership of the farm that was built on top of the roman ruins so that the site could become a museum was . . . trevelyan.
lothering would not have to rely on rainwater given the river that runs along and through the village. washing would be done in that river, both people and clothes, and that river also feeds the groundwater or underground aquifers that in turn feed the well.
the well is located where most of the housing seems to be, including dane's refuge. here's my proposition: i think that well is far enough away from the river that it would make sense to me that the flowing water could also be used for waste removal, esp since that section of the river is on its way out of town. let's say, for fun, that the ruins of hadrian's wall had workable models of sanitary toilets, and the ruins are not so degraded that the people of lothering wouldn't be able to replicate them.
not across the board — just the houses that are directly next to flowing water that have structures that already look as though they're right above that flowing water, anyway. in terms of other waste management, dane's refuge and the chantry could use compost toilets that provide manure for the field in the middle of town as well as maybe for any nearby farmers willing to haul shit away, quite literally. or maybe they use rainwater like the housesteads roman fort. i think both options are fun.
