Gentlemen’s toilet, Bermondsey Square

On Abbey Street at Tower Bridge Road, look south to see the old-fashioned underground gents’ lavatory on the traffic island at Bermondsey Square. This was the ‘cottage’ in which playwright Joe Orton (Gary Oldman) celebrates collecting his Evening Standard writers’ award by removing the lightbulbs for an exquisitely balletic orgy in Stephen Frears’ excellent sixties-set biopic of the iconoclastic playwright.

Trivia: ‘Cottage’ was gay slang (‘polari’) for a gents’ toilet used for recreational purposes beyond its primary function.

Prick Up Your Ears (1987, dir: Stephen Frears)