The text is illustrated by black-and-white photography taken by Sue Chapman. Colour illustrated laminated boards with black coloured titles to the front panel and backstrip. The author and her collaborator decided to document the surviving outside lavatories / privies (toilets) in the Oxfordshire region of England in the 1980s, before the outside loo became extinct. The book is full of ancient lore, anecdotes, outlandish information – some of it gruesome, along with black-and-white photography to show what an outside toilet could be made of, and, its internal fittings.