There was a time that the bathroom was referred to as ‘the smallest room in the house.’ It was functional, obviously; but it most certainly wasn’t the showpiece it is now.

At least not since it first moved inside from being the outhouse.

In London for example, prior to late 1860s, having an indoor toilet was limited to the upper class few; given the cost and necessity for the house to have its own water supply. The majority of households relied on communal water pumps and cesspools. These small, usually poorly maintained outhouses often overflowed. Sewerage seeped into the ground and coursed its way not only into the Thames, but the smaller waterways like the Rivers Effra, Fleet, and Tyburn.

Poorly paid workers collected waste at night to distribute throughout the surrounding farmlands.

The first flush of flush toilets initially worsened, rather than improved the effluence issue.

Affluent households contaminated groundwater with raw waste from the installed ‘water closet’. It consisted of a toilet bowl with a water tank above; pulling a chain had gravity release the contents of the tank into the pan, and wash the waste into a household drain. Effectively, it simply stopped those in wealthier homes having to empty chamber pots and dig long-drops. The WC was just one stop before it ended up straight into the river system.

The cholera outbreaks that had occurred since the 1830s were not alleviated with the advent of indoor plumbing. Tens of thousands of the 2.3 million population from the urban core to the West End, Southwark and East End died between 1853 and 1854 from faecal contaminated water supplies.

The unseasonably dry weather with temperatures between 34˚ and 48˚C in 1858, had London immobilised by the unimaginable stench of raw human waste coming from the Thames. It brought about the government’s acceptance of civil engineer Joseph Bazalgette’s plan and execution of the city’s first sewer system.

Although a much-acclaimed scheme, it essentially just moved the untreated waste arriving into the Thames 10 miles down the river, and out of sight of Parliament. It took another two decades, and the deaths of 650 Princess Alice passengers thrown into the polluted waters after the steamer was sliced in two by a collier, for London’s Metropolitan Board of Works to start treating and purifying waste before it made its way into the river.

Although access to indoor plumbing from outdoor long-drops by the British middle class happened significantly earlier than in Australia, both carried their own inequalities. In 1967, one quarter of English and Welsh houses were without an indoor toilet, and either a shower, bath, or sink; and both running hot and cold water. In 1965, 45% of outer suburb Australians homes remained unconnected to a sewerage system.

It’s enough to flatten a dunny carter’s hat.

Over the past sixty years, the thunderbox has moved from outside, to inside near the back door, and then into the bathroom. Generally, a partition wall separated it from the basin and bath; which sometimes had a shower above. It wasn’t unusual for walls to be painted rather than fully tiled; and vinyl wallpaper was popular.

Until the 1970s having a bathtub was considered more important than a shower. Hair was washed once a week, kids were bathed together, the family shared the water, and everyone washed at night. Nobody had a separate shower – they were utilitarian and for the likes of post PE in high schools, and public sports clubs.

Baths took up most of the floorspace, and had strong associations with relaxation and warm comfort.

Even in the ’70s there were only about half-a-dozen soap brands, VO5 was a professional shampoo that translated into supermarkets, and personal care products had nowhere near the scope of 2025. Bubble bath, salts and oils were indeed to use in the bath.

As long as there was a mirrored medicine cabinet for dad’s butterfly razor, shaving brush and spare blades that also housed some Aspirin, Band-Aids, Dettol, Betadine and a can of hairspray for mum, it was all good. Being the smallest room in the house it wasn’t designed for storage. Cosmetics, cleansers and creams might have had a small cupboard space under the sink with a drawer or two; manual toothbrushes perched in a cup somewhere. Towels, bath mats and washers were kept in the linen press in the hall. Spare rolls of toilet paper usually amounted to a few in a lidded cane basket. Or, if you had a front lever flush rather than a pull chain, one roll, hidden under the ugly, quite elaborate crocheted dress of the small doll atop it, would sit slap-bang in the middle of the cistern.

It was unheard of to have more than one bathroom.

So the tub stayed. If it didn’t have a showerhead above, a plastic one with rubber tubing that attached to the taps was a nifty gadget that if nothing else, made hair washing easier. No more plastic jug for rinsing …

It was a few years after “greed, for lack of a better word, is good” was brought to the forefront by Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street” Gordon Gekko, that nobody seemed to have time for a leisurely bath. So hell bent were we on not wasting any time in which money could be made or a good time had, bathroom “renos” of the 1990s usually ripped out the bath and installed a spacious shower.

Unless it was a new build, the ‘smallest room in the house’ moniker still stood.

The late 1600s gave us the word ‘bathroom’ – descriptive of the room in a wealthy person’s house in which one could bathe in a wooden, copper or bronze tub. Filled with buckets of hot water brought from the kitchen fire by attendants, that’s how long we’ve liked the idea of soaking in one.

Deciding on a bath in your home was less debatable three hundred and fifty years ago, than it is today.

Back then, if you had the servants, the space and the cash to splash for the tub, it was a no-brainer. Right up until the 1990s, the only question really was length and depth. Now, space constraints and lifestyle, coupled with the types from which there are to choose, challenge this once simple inclusion.

That the family dwelling is more valued as an asset than a home is one of the saddest changes in Aussie culture. So much design and renovation is done for show now; and whether or not it will increase the market price, rather than for the comfort and enjoyment of the couples and families owning and living in them.

So the decision to retain, upgrade or install a bath is entirely up to you.

Not imaginary-future-other-purchasing-family you who may either love or detest the presence of a bath. It’s a scenario not yet lived, made up, and projected from the present into a place of which we have no reasonable concept of at all.

It’s stressful just thinking about what possible tomorrows we could have in store.

Want to just wash those shudderingly unnerving thoughts right out of your head? Maybe a long shower’s your thing.

So Why Did We Stop Putting A Bath In The Bathroom?

Need a warm, soothing bath to soak away those anxious ideas? Then a tub is for you. Not a stupid one that’s all form over function, with a ridiculous space under it or near it that’s exasperating to clean. Or one that takes a fortune in hot water to fill, so you’ll never use it as often as you’d like. Choose the one for you, not someone else. Certainly not someone else with buckets of money. And maybe an attendant or two.

You want to celebrate with bubbles in your bath, not air in your head.