Clogs - research road trip to Northampton

 

Trying to find out more about children's clogs led me down the rabbit hole of 'concealed shoes' 

Since the 1300s there has been a tradition of hiding shoes in the chimneys and walls of buildings. These are often discovered many years later.

Northampton Museum holds the index for concealed shoe finds. I was fortunate to book a visit to their archive to look at the register and view the documents they hold about concealed shoes. 

June Swann who was the shoe curator at the museum wrote an article "shoes concelaed in buildings" for a journal article in 1996 whch proved a very useful source of information

The shoe galleries at the Northampton Museum are great - lots of information about the history or shoes, how they are made, and the people who made them

Some of the sewing machines used to stitch the leather uppers -including one adapted by Singer for this purpose

I love a bit of industrial heritage. 

Lasts.  If you are ever in Northampton I would highly recommend a visit to the museum.

But the highlight of my visit was being given access to the shoe archive - thousands of pairs of shoes, all catalogued and stored. 

The curator Rebecca Shawcross allowed me to handle (with gloves of course) some of the concealed shoes they have in the collection. 

Information about when made, the materials used, when donated, where found and sometimes who discovered the concealed shoes. 

Often these were builders whilst doing repair work to old buildings but it is the house owner who gets the named credit. 

But we NEVER know who were the original wearers - the shoes could have been there for several hundred years

 

Many concealed shoes are a single - what happened to the other one?

This is a clog with studs around the metal trim - like the ones I found. But a clasp fitting.

Some concealed shoes had laces. Most were in poor condition obviously been worn, repaired, and performing one last act to ward off evil spirits. 

Because shoes take on the shape of their wearers they are so symbolic of the human condition. This gives a poignancy I think.

Some concealed shoes are in very poor condition. Where they like tht when hidden? Or deteriorated through their period of concealment. Many were hidden in chimneys so could have been scorched or discoloured with smoke and soot. 

I feel quite protective of them, and their unknown wearers

Almost half of the concealed shoes found were children's shoes. Why?

Were these the shoes of a dead child? Placed in a building to protect the health of a sibling or future children? 

Infant and child mortality was high in working class families.  

My research has also revealed many superstitions about shoes and their link to not only good and bad luck but also to fertility - more of that in the next blog.

I am enjoying this research

Monoprint Magic workshop at The Cosy Cabin

 

Monoprint Magic Workshop

Spend the morning gathering foliage to print onto fabric using a gelliplate with acrylic paints and inks.

In the afternoon we will make these up into a semi-transparent doublesided panel using the contemporary machine stitched Pojagi technique. Each piece will be unique. Choice of colourways. Materials provided for £15.

Tutor: Mary McIntosh

Venue: The Cosy Cabin, Risby Barns, Bury St Edmunds IP28 6QU

Date: Saturday 21^st June 2025    10am – 4pm

Cost: £55            Please book with www.thecosycabin.co.uk   01284 811222

Textiles East Fair

Looking forward to Textiles East Fair this weekend 15th and 16th Feb 2025

Burgess Hall, St Ives, Cambs PE27 6WU

I will be demonstrating the Monoprint Magic technique on my stand in the main hall

 Plus I will be selling lots of packs for projects to try at home

Looking forward to seeing lots of textile friends

 

The ties that bind - more design work using clogs

Not wishing to use the actual laces from my clog in case it got damaged I instead 'liberated' a pair of laces from my husband's old walking boots and made some prints using a gelliplate with acrylic paint and inks. This worked surprisingly well giving a good impression, even picking up the woven texture from the laces. 

Cut out and applied to a tea stained ground

These 'ties that bind'could suggest a family link - maybe mother and child?

But it also made me think of my parents and their love of dancing. They were tied together through marriage, family, but also in a shared passion for Scottish country dancing. 

The Bluebell Polka by Jimmy Shand was their tune. 

My mother can still connect to music. I fear her dancing days are over.

The words to the songs are disappearing too.

    

'Ties that fade' 

The very last gelliprint - only the last residue of the image can be seen

Could this be a series of work?

Design work using my clogs

 

'Object and Memory' is the working title for the next series of work to be made for exhibition with the E.A.S.T. group. My found clogs will be my 'object'

The 'memory' part may be linked to my Mother's dementia and almost total memory loss. The shoes, something from the past, becoming a symbol of what has been lost - yet remain part of a life well lived. Jean Famelton left her mark on the world.

Alongside the reading and research I have started to do some design work to try and capture that feeling. I will keep one of the clogs as found. The other I will play with. 

I used the irons on the bottom of the clog to print, and then made a stamp from the print.

Lots of paper media were stamped and these papers used for some design work.

There is an inferred link to what happens to the brain with dementia. I must do some research on this too....... 

This simple little stamp yielded a whole series of designs. some of these will now be replicated on different fabrics - some opaque, some transparent. There will probably be layers involved to obscure and reveal.

I need to think about my colour palette. The colours of the clogs suggest the brown leather, sepia faded laces, black irons, and the verdigris from the degraded metal. But is to obvious? Too safe? 

Lots to think about.

Clogs research

 

Since discovering these little clogs when clearing out my Mother's house in Northumberland I have been trying to find out more about them. 

 

These two books have yielded lots of useful information about the history of clogs, how they were made, what materials were used, who wore them, and the industrial and social history of the time. Shoes of the working class. 

There is a great quote in the Bob Dobson book "Clogs have souls as well as souls" 

One of the shoe collection cases at Northampton 

I have also contacted several museums who hold shoes as part of their collections to try and date my clogs.

Rebecca Shawcross from the Northampton Museum service, and an expert in shoes, has been most helpful and dates my shoes to around 1900. They could have been worn by either a boy or a girl. Or maybe both in their lifetime

The laces make them more unusual as clasp fittings were more common. They are in good condition. But it has led me no closer to knowing why they were kept and in the back of a wardrobe stuffed with pages from the Newcastle Journal from 1970. 

One theory which emerged from my reading is that they may have been found concealed in a building rather than kept as a family memory. We did move into a Nothumberland farm house around that time with building work carried out in 1970.

Are they 'concealed shoes' - this has led me down a whole new aveue of enquiry.  Lots more research required. I am enjoying this journey of discovery. 

Embroidery Holiday to India October 2025

 

Here is just a taster of some of the delights you will experience if you join me on the Aahilya Embroidery of India holiday in October 2025

There are still spaces available. For more information and to book please visit www.aahilyaholidays.com