Shop talk
I regularly give a talk about the history of shops and shopfronts and I’ve taken to using this image to explain what late-Medieval shops could look like and how they sometimes functioned. In the 15th century, glass was still an expensive commodity, restricted mainly to churches and high-status houses, so there were no shop windows like those of today. So, if you had a shop, you had unglazed openings, closed by shutters. This example has pairs of shutters, upper and lower, and in the ‘closed’ position the lower shutter would hinge upwards and the upper one downwards, to seal the opening. During business hours you could open the shutters as shown, or the lower one could be propped with a trestle and act as a counter or stall. The shopkeeper could put goods on it and stand inside.
In this period, of course, a lot of business was not done in shops at all, but on market stalls. But a few trades – those who needed work space, for example, from carpenters to butchers, had workshops and could sell from there. This sort of shutter arrangement worked for them, allowing them to maske things and sell things in the same space, and live above the shop. It’s very unusual to find this kind of shop front today. This one, part of the Guildhall at Lavenham, is notable survivor and a useful visual aid when I'm giving my talk.
When the shutters were open in winter, did the shop not become a bit chilly? But then I suppose the alternatives, market stalls, were just as cold in winter.
ReplyDeleteOh yes, Hels. It was cold all right! People must have got used to rather different temperature levels to the ones we're used to today. Even on a market stall, though, you keep warm somehow. When I was young I occasionally helped out on an English market stall, and some of these sessions were in the winter. Somehow, you wrapped up, keep moving around, made yourself busy, and the cold just didn't seem as bad.
ReplyDeleteThere is a fishmongers in Market Harborough which is open fronted with the fish displayed on a marble slab in the winter months. In summer the fish is kept in the fridge.
ReplyDeleteAs I have given talks on shops and shopfronts in Market Harborough I was interested to seeing this surviving example of an early shop.
In old photos taken perhaps 100 years ago, there are so many shop fronts like this around, but they've almost disappeared. I do remember fishmongers being like this years ago, as Anonymous above mentions.
ReplyDeleteAnon: Thank you. Yes, that style of fishmonger is quite rare now. Butchers also used to have open shop windows sometimes.
ReplyDeleteJenny: Thanks for the link. I have not been to Halesworth, and am kicking myself, as Inhave been to places very near it! At first glance the carving looks integrated , not something brought in from another building like my Clare example.
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