Visitors to Caerphilly Castle will read an information notice in the north garderobe on the first floor of of the Inner East Gatehouse stating that the waste produced would empty into the moat. As the lower exit is over 2 metres from the moat, this would have been impossible. In practice, garderobes such as this, opening on the outside of the wall would have been cleaned each night. Initially the men responsible for this work were know as nightmen as they were only allowed to operated between the hours of 9pm and 5am, as no-one wanted to meet a cartload of human excrement during the daytime. By the Tudor period their responsibilities had expanded to include emptying the cesspits in towns and cities and their name changed to “gongfermour” or “gong farmer” from the old English and Scots word “gan” or “gang” meaning to go.

Castle garderobes sometimes opened into an adjacent moat or river, but more frequently would empty into a cesspit, whose walls were semi-permeable to allow the liquid waste to seep away, leaving the more solid excrement for collection. This was done by teams of 3-4 men – the “holesman” who would enter the cesspit and shovel the muck into buckets, which would be lifted out by the “ropeman”, then carried to a cart by one or two “tubmen” to be transported out of town to a larger cesspit or “laystall”. In large cities, such as London, the siting of such laystalls could be contentious as they were both noisy and malodorous, due to cattle also being kept on the site. Laystall Street and Court still exist near Mount Pleasant in London, the former site of the largest such laystall in London. With increasing urbanisation in the 16th & 17th centuries, gong farmers also gained the responsibility for clearing excrement from the streets of towns and cities, becoming known as “Scavengers”. Some of this was from horses or cattle using the streets, but much came from chamber pots emptied from upstairs windows. In 1615, Manchester employed 19 under scavengers supervised by 2 scavengers. While working in castles nightmen had additional roles of cleaning and washing the chutes leading from the garderobes and of defending against thieves of attackers trying to gain access to the castle via these chutes. On occasion they would need to climb up the chute to remove the corpse of one of these intruders. Before cleaning the chutes the gong farmer would beat a drum to announce the “hour of no Shyting”.

Gong farmers were not popular and were required to live in special districts apart from other people, even I medieval and Tudor times when tolerance for bad smells was much greater than today. However, they were well paid (2 shillings a ton in the 15th century or a daily rate of 6d under Queen Elizabeth) and could take home one and a half times what a medieval craftsmen earned. In addition they had the right to keep any valuables such as coins or jewellery found among the “nightsoil” and would rake and sieve the dirt before disposing of it – leading to another sobriquet of “Raker”. They could also be paid in candles or, in the case of a gong farmer working in Hampton Court under Elizabeth I, in brandy. Gong farmers would also sell the waste to farmers for use as fertiliser, so getting paid twice – once for the removal of the waste and again for its use.

On the other hand, they had to meet exacting standards in their work. Work was only permitted by law to be carried out at night, and transport and disposal of waste occurred out of public view. Disposal of waste, necessary to prevent fouling of streets and waterways by the ordure, was also regulated and improper disposal was usually penalised by a heavy fine or a period in the stocks. One London scavenger who disposed of the waste by pouring it down a public drain was sentenced to be buried up to his neck in waste and a sign was put up outlining his crime.

Gong farming could be a hazardous occupation. As well as being exposed to infectious diseases such as cholera and typhoid, there was risk of asphyxiation from methane and ammonia gases when working in poorly ventilated cesspits. In addition, these gases made the roof and sides of the pits unstable and prone to collapse, burying or drowning the unwitting holesman. In 1326 Richard the Raker, while visiting a “house of easement” fell into a cesspit whose ceiling had rotted and drowned in his own excrement. In addition gong farmers worked at night with candles as the only form of illumination and were prone to accidents and falls.

Although the first flush toilets were developed in 1596, these still emptied into cesspits and gong farming remained an essential, if unpleasant, occupation until the second half of the 19^th century and the development of the Victorian sewer systems, many of which are still in use, when scavengers were slowly replaced by modern sewage workers. Today, when using our toilets, we pay little thought to what happens to our waste after flushing unless there is a blockage in the system and the excrement backs up into the toilet. There is increasing concern over sewage release into streams and rivers, with water companies pleading that such releases would become commonplace if such discharges were not permitted.