From the article: Best Free London Public Toilets
This is where you can add your recommendations for the best free London public toilets. Your Recommendations
West Smithfield, EC1
- Underground toilets outside St. Barts Hospital and near the meat market
- —Guest Tilly
Don't forget RBKC
- Whole Foods on High St Ken have lush loos with Dyson dryers too...hidden upstairs but massively worth the trek when you're too bursting to wait for M&S down the street a bit...
- —Guest Holz
Near Tower of London and Tower Hill
- Fenchurch Street mainline station, unusually, has a free toilet just inside the main entrance, to the left of the stairs up to the platforms. It is very basic but welcome in a barren area. Cup of tea just up the stairs.
- —Guest Ian
Clerkenwell Green, Farringdon Road
- North from Farringdon station via a diversionary pint of St Peter's ale from Suffolk at the tiny but phenomenal Jerusalem Tavern in Britton Street or perhaps an amazingly inexpensive cuppa and Roll at Scotti's Caff right on the Green, stroll round to the north, past the great church, along the old Clerkenwell village street, past the foodie entrance to the Clerkenwell Workshops and turn left into into the far entrance, down the old warehouse corridor, veer round to the left for a doorway leading to the toilets. Good quality. Cafe is a bit trendy and expensive but very good food. The whole area is getting trendified but there are still many historical and original corners, odd shops, caffs and pubs.
- —Guest Ian
Holborn and Kingsway
- Conway Hall – enter from the north-east corner of Red Lion Square for an ethical pee. Well hidden away, yet conveniently close to Holborn station. Chancery Lane station is 10 minutes' walk yet still on Holborn. Through the Hall's doors, go straight along the corridor past the desks, picking up a list of lectures and concerts on the way, and there's a small stairway lurking on the right towards the far exit. The loo is up on the first floor. Occasionally there's a second-hand book sale to add to the excitement. Escape via the door at the end of the corridor opening into Theobalds Road, right next to a handy bus stop.
- —Guest Ian
Piccadilly
- Waterstones bookshop, in the preserved 1936 Art Deco Simpsons menswear shop with curved windows. On the south side of Piccadilly, not far down, east from the Circus and a station exit. Go in and head for the stairs half way down the shop, on the right. Toilet doors on stair landings. Busy but quite good. Cafe and travel agent in basement. Architecture a delight.
- —Guest Ian
Liverpool Street and Spitalfields
- Bishopsgate Institute. Cross Bishopsgate from Liverpool Street mainline concourse platform 18 end (use the subway in the corner of station) and proceed north a couple of hundred steps towards the weird-looking pinnacles for your socialist or humanist wee and a good library with current magazines such as the Economist and New Scientist freely available for a quiet read. Enter the glass doors in the Art Nouveau arch frontage and proceed just past the enquiry desk to the loos on the right. The gents has quaint individual weeing alcoves and old-fashioned décor and fittings, antique but of adequate quality. Lists of courses and lectures at the door.
- —Guest Ian
St Paul's Cathedral
- Yes, you are allowed to wee for free in St Paul's, so long as you do so in the toilet in the crypt cafe area. Expensive cafe and only very moderate quality toilet but it is in a barren area and is hard to miss if you are navigating from the city or east Strand areas. In fact it must be the most dominant loo sign in the whole of London, as it has a huge dome and is on the top of a hill. Enter the crypt by going around to the north side of the church, near its west end and descend into the bowels. Keep going through the eating area, veering left to proceed east along the crypt. Toilets on your left. You can avoid the huge prices by picnic-ing here. Except when it's full of incredibly noisy schoolkids. That is, all schoolkids are incredibly noisy. Especially in St Paul's crypt.
- —Guest Ian
Southwark: London Bridge, etc
- Southwark Cathedral tea room, courtyard entrance is next to Montague Close and quickly reached from the SW side of the bridge approach by descending Nancy's Steps, next to an arch in an original part of the old Rennie London bridge and immortalised in Oliver Twist. See http://www.fidnet.com/~dap1955/dickens/london_bridge.html From the mainline station you can navigate through this arch. Continue a little way along the tiny street and go left into the tea room courtyard. Into the cafe, turn left through its courtyard door and down the steps to the good quality toilet. If the cafe is closed you will have to wade through tourists to find a pub loo along the waterfront to the west. The Anchor is big enough for you not to be noticed. Pepys watched the Great Fire from here and now you can pretend to put out the flames. Or go along to Blackfriars station and visit the Black Friar pub to see the most amazing pub pub interior in London, then up Ludgate Hill to pee in St Paul's.
- —Guest Ian
Waterloo and South Bank
- National Film Theatre tearoom, go to the glass door entrance adjacent to the river and the steps on the east side of the south end of the bridge. Go to the right, near to the sitting areas and veer left to the warm and good quality toilet at ground level. Good cuppa at counter nearby. Plenty of second-hand paperback books on stalls under the bridge outside. Waterloo station is a labyrinthine search from here – test your navigational skills and then go on to search for Lower Marsh with its second-hand and Ian Allen bookshops. Well done if you make it. There's also a strange cafe there with motor scooters in it.
- —Guest Ian
Embankment and Strand
- Embankment and Strand east of Waterloo Bridge Somerset House. There are various cafes in this collection of collections, with toilets nearby. From the riverside there is, or was, a handy toilet just next to the Gilbert Collection shop inside the Embankment entrance of Somerset House. Since the Gilbert's closure I shall have to renew acquaintance with this Thames-side de-watering spot. Otherwise it's a search elsewhere in Somerset House complex or even a cross-legged hop over Waterloo Bridge to the South Bank.
- —Guest Ian
Covent Garden Market area and mid-Strand
- I need to check out the public loo by the front of St Paul's church on the west side of the market square, behind where jugglers are juggling. It is open 24 hours. Previously I have sampled a public toilet in the alleyway alongside the transport museum - fairly grotty though. Forget trying the loo in the Museum as it's through the cafe barrier at the top of the bookshop. Nearer Leicester Square, before 6pm any day or 7.30 some days, go to Stanford's travel bookshop, west from Covent Garden station along Long Acre or, before you struggle through the whole of the damn crowd to the station; go some way along Floral street and look out for glass doors into the bookstore's coffee shop, with a lift just a little way in. Can't remember which floor the toilet is on, or what it's like, or even if it still exists. You can buy a map of Venice here but despite the handy canals it doesn't show where the nearest loo is.
- —Guest Ian
Leicester Square / Trafalgar Square
- The True Centre of London, where relief awaits in at least 3 convenient spots: the National Gallery's modern Sainsbury Wing by the NW corner of Trafalgar Square – go through baggage check and down just one flight of stairs to the quiet, good quality toilet. Just around the NE corner is the National Portrait Gallery if you are caught short nearer Leicester square, a quick whizz into the main entrance, pop down the stairs in front of you, veer right to the toilet. Can be crowded. Or venture across the road and up the steps of St Martin's-in-the-Fields church – go through the big door and immediately turn down the ancient stairs (if these stairs are closed go to the right of the church and enter into the strange new circular cupola) to descend to the crypt. Go through the cafe to the crypt's far south side (have you still got your compass with you?) for the large and and reasonable quality toilet. And it's open till quite late. Large cafe has popular wholesome 'school' meals.
- —Guest Ian
North Bloomsbury, Gower Street, Euston
- Euston and Euston Square stations The Wellcome Collection is in a large building on the north side of the dual-carriageway Euston Road and east of Euston Square tube station, and west of Euston mainline rail and bus station which is over on the north side of the road. Go to the more easterly entrance, in the older-looking bit, stop to show your rucksack at security, then up the steps and straight ahead and round to the right before the cloakroom to the very good toilet. Then back to the excellent bookshop and maybe expensive tea and cakes. Exhibitions include gruesome bits, so visit the loo first.
- —Guest Ian
British Museum
- Tottenham Court Road to Museum Street and Bloomsbury area British Museum: In this otherwise barren area, run up the steps into the main entrance and fast straight ahead until you bounce into the circular wall of the former reading room, under the amazing geodesic glass roof. No time to stare upwards, go either left or right, round the circle, until you quickly come to a hole in the wall, where you enter and descend to large and good quality toilets. Ahhhh, at last... The Rosetta Stone is nearby, so you can read all about it in three ancient languages. There's also a back way into the Museum where you can get properly confused by the floor levels and stairs in your haste.
- —Guest Ian
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