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The merchant’s courtyard also has a “heart chamber”.

Filthy and unpleasant


Manure heap and privy

In the courtyard behind the merchant’s home and shop, the smell from the manure heap could be overpowering. In the opposite corner of the yard stood the privy, with the water pump placed between the two. Leakage from both the manure heap and the privy easily contaminated the drinking water, which is why both children and adults often preferred beer, coffee or tea when quenching their thirst.


Public health regulations

Widespread contamination of groundwater came from urban manure heaps, industry and human waste. Poor water quality also caused illness and death. Following a series of cholera epidemics in the 1850s, city councils in many places introduced measures to prevent seepage from manure heaps and privies.

Public health regulations required, among other things, that cesspits be completely watertight. In the beginning, however, enforcement was poor, and townspeople largely did as they pleased. As a result, the regulations had little immediate effect.

 

The Merchant's house

Today, the manure heap in the Merchant’s Courtyard mainly consists of horse manure.

Did you know?

Did you know that in the nineteenth century, lavatory rooms were sometimes called “heart chambers” because of the carved heart in the door, which provided both light and ventilation?

Did you know that in the countryside, people rarely used a privy in the nineteenth century? Instead, they used the gutter behind the animals in the stable, known as the manure channel. The stable boy at the Merchant’s House likely did the same. This practice continued in several places well into the second half of the twentieth century.

Did you know that manure heaps were the only form of “rubbish bin” in most towns right up until the end of the nineteenth century? In 1893, fewer than half of Danish towns had introduced portable waste bins.

 

Seepage from both the manure heap and the privy into the well beneath the water pump made the pumped water highly hazardous to health.