Garderobes

I wondered why the toilets in the walls of Tonbridge castle were described by the information board with a fancy French name.   Then I thought - of course the castle is Norman and the Normans were French.  In modern French a garderobe is a wardrobe. How did the word evolve from toilet to wardrobe. One theory is that the ammonia smell from a latrine would protect your clothes from fleas.  Gradually the latrines in the walls were enclosed in a cubicle in the bedroom, perhaps people hung their clothes in there for protection from fleas.   Now it's  just is a small room in which you hang your clothes.  

In Tonbridge Castle the garderobes emptied into the moat- must have been lovely!