Concealed Shoes revealed
Woman's leather lace ankle boot, 1880-90s. Found under the floor in a farmhouse in Shepton Mallet, Somerset.
The practice of concealing shoes has been intriguing people for many years, but what are concealed shoes? Concealed shoes are those boots and shoes that have been deliberately hidden in buildings for no obvious practical purpose and no obvious intention of retrieval.
In the 1950s Miss June Swann, former Keeper of the Boot and Shoe Collection at Northampton Museum and Art Gallery noticed that footwear was regularly being brought in for both identification and donation that had been found in odd locations within a wide variety of buildings. Locations included up chimneys, within roof spaces and walls, above windows and doors and under floorboards. It was happening too frequently for it to be ignored so in order to try to explain why shoes should be found in non-accidental locations she began to record all finds to gather the data to attempt at some point to explain this phenomenon.
By 1969 Miss Swann had recorded 129 separate finds which had totalled 700 by 1986. Miss Swann retired in 1988, but the museum continued to keep the Concealed Shoe Find Register and we continue to keep it today with on average 2-3 finds reported each month. Currently it stands at just over 2,000 individual find locations with nearly 3,000 individual shoes listed. The finds can consist of one shoe, pairs, or multiple single shoes. These groups of shoes can be from the same date or differ quite widely in date, suggesting several concealments over time. The shoes can also be found with other items such as bottles, bones, coins, marbles, combs and textiles and scraps of newspaper.
As well as keeping the Concealed Shoe Index the museum also has a small collection of around 200 concealed shoes that form part of the 15,000 shoes we have in the collection. The earliest shoe in the concealed collection dates to the 1530s and we have examples right up to the end of the nineteenth century. Date wise in the UK the cut-off point was for a long time 1900, but recently we have had reports detailing the finds of a couple of later examples – a child’s T bar sandal from the 1950s and most recently a woman’s shoe from the 1940s. It is difficult to tell whether these have been deliberately concealed, simply lost, or discarded rubbish.
A good percentage of the finds represent ‘ordinary’ men, women, and children’s styles though not exclusively, as this lovely example demonstrates.
Pair of men’s black buff leather latchet tie shoes dated 1675-1699.
This shows one of a pair of men’s black buff leather latchet tie shoes. They have a high flaring tongue. They are welted construction with rand and have a square toe and a high wooden leather covered heel. They have a pegged leather sole and heel top piece. Short latchets have a split to take the shoelace and the remains of a leather lace threaded through one slit. There is also a slit in the leather on the outside of each shoe near the quarter seam. Were these slits for comfort or perhaps another purpose? They are dated 1675-1699.
They were found concealed in the cavity of a chimney breast after a fire in the building in 1988. The fire started in a lintel beam and smouldered for three days before it was discovered. Heath Manor, Bedfordshire was probably built c. 1500. It has been altered many times and now appears eighteenth century. Alterations were carried out in the room where the shoes were found in the early eighteenth century - panelling was installed as well as display shelves in an alcove by the fireplace.
Our physical collection hasn’t grown for many years, with only two to three examples donated over a long period of time. Very few people now want to give up their find. Usually if the shoes do find their way into the collection it is because the building in which they were found is no longer standing or the finder has no real interest in the shoe or the practice. Most people put them back in the same place or if this is not possible put them back somewhere in the house. Occasionally people make a feature of them for example in a nook by the fire. Many people say that although they don’t believe in such stuff, they’ll keep it and put it back just in case!
During 2016-2017 we collaborated with the University of Hertfordshire to digitise the concealed shoe index. Up until this point the find information was kept in a variety of ways which made accessing and collating the information on the practice difficult. Up until the late 1990s the information was recorded on handwritten index cards. Information can now be easily crunched producing statistics such as 26.2% of shoes are found in chimneys, usually on a ledge within the chimney. 11.3% are pairs of shoes - most are odd. 40% of shoes belonged to children. Rest assured we still have all the cards as a primary archive.
In terms of information recorded, very little has changed since the index began, but the degree of detail that is recorded does rely on what people remember and record about a find. Current finders are usually able to provide far more information than historical finds. Nothing much has changed in terms of the information we try to capture, it still follows Miss Swann’s card system, so we record if known:
Address of building
Date of the building if known and date of any alterations or building work
What the building was or is such as a private house, pub or farm
Where it was found within the building
What if anything else was found with it
Description of the footwear
Date of the footwear
The index reveals that it was a widespread practice, recording finds from across the UK with a heavy emphasis on finds from Northamptonshire – probably because the index was here at the museum and Miss Swann would talk about it to local individuals and groups. It also highlights finds from further afield including North America, Australia and several North European countries. The earliest known concealment dates to the fourteenth century but it wasn’t until the seventeenth, eighteenth and most prominently the nineteenth century when it gained most momentum. It is also possible that the group of 17 shoes found in three jars from the Ptolemaic period 332-30 BCE in Ahmenhotep II Temple in Luxor are perhaps the oldest known examples.
Aside from what they may or may not symbolise, concealed shoes are a good way of discovering what ‘ordinary’ people wore, which in most cases was the same styles, but in hard wearing materials and showing signs of repair, patching and customisation to fit for a new purpose or a new wearer.
As common as this practice appears to have been, the reason why people concealed shoes remains a mystery. To date there has been no contemporaneous written evidence found to pinpoint a specific reason – perhaps no written records were made because the act of not recording the practice was part of the ritual act - keeping quiet about the practice – both when doing it and knowing about it- was a way of keeping the ritual effective, making sure it worked and was not diluted.
The earliest reference to the use of shoes as spirit trap comes from the 14th century. It regards one of England’s unofficial saints, John Schorn from Buckinghamshire, who was rector of North Marston 1290-1314. His claim to fame is that he is reputed to have performed the remarkable feat of casting the devil out of a woman who was possessed and into a boot. The oldest concealed shoes date back to roughly the same time as Schorn but there are very few examples from that period - he may have begun the tradition, or it may simply be that his legend records a pre-existing practice.
In response to this uncertainty many reasons have been put forward to explain the practice. For many years the most common theory was that as the shoes are always highly worn, often patched and repaired they act as apotropaic devices to protect the house and its occupants from malicious evil forces. Shoes have always been potent and powerful symbols. They can tell us about who we are, what we do, where we are from, what groups we belong to and how we want others to see us. They are very personal and emotional items and can amongst other things express our status, power, sexuality, wealth, identity, cultural and religious backgrounds and be a heady statement of personal expression. It seems quite plausible to believe that the good human spirit of the wearer enters the shoe (most concealed shoes are very well worn) and was kept there as the shoe is container shaped. This ‘good’ spirit would help protect the house and its occupants.
The find locations seem to support this in the sense that where they are found can be perceived as points of weakness in a building, points where spirits could and can enter – down chimneys, though the roof, under floorboards and through windows and doors.
Other ideas include the belief that evil spirits did not like the smell of leather and that shoes were a lucky charm. Children’s shoes are found possibly with the view that as children were believed to be unsullied and pure their spirit was stronger and therefore more powerful at warding off malevolent spirits. Alternatively, the shoe could be that of a dead child kept but hidden or if they were found located in the master bedroom a symbol of fertility to bestow on the -, one assumes - married couple many healthy children. We are all aware of the old woman in the shoe who had so many children she didn’t know what to do.
The idea that they are protecting the house and occupants was the view for a long time and could still be a reason. But shoes were expensive items and in trying to give them as much wearable life as possible were more likely to be handed down, repaired and altered until they were no longer able to be worn. They were then discarded in the easiest way possible.
Jean-Louis François Pinet - 1880s
This beautiful shoe was found on a ledge up a chimney. The finder felt that its pair was with it but could not quite reach it to get it out. It is from the 1880s and made by Jean-Louis François Pinet a well-known French designer. Not only is it in a good condition, but it would have been a very expensive pair of shoes. Why would someone hide them? Perhaps the pair were stolen and hidden until the thief could retrieve them, but never did.
As mentioned, it is not only shoes that have been deliberately hidden. This group was found in a house in Brackley, Northamptonshire. If we think we can explain the shoes, how can we explain the other items including bottles, a thimble, and a leather purse that date to the 1860s-80s.
Items including a pair of shoes, bottles, a thimble, and a leather purse found in a house in Brackley, Northamptonshire - 1860s-80s.
In most cases the house is older than the shoes found. I have had many a conversation with the finder who believes that as their house is seventeenth century the shoes must be the same age. When I’ve told them are much later for example from the 1850s, they say this is impossible as no alterations or building activity has taken place in that area since the house was built, but it clearly has been accessed at some point to explain the presence of the shoes. It is thought that it is unlikely that the occupants of the house hid the shoes but a practice that builders might do this during renovations to bring good luck in their work. It also raises the interesting question of what has happened to the shoe.
The research undertaken by The University of Hertfordshire in particularly Professor Owen Davies and Dr Ceri Houlbrook, currently suggests less and less that they were specifically apotropaic items, ones that have the power to avert evil influences or bad luck – and that they were connected to notions of good luck and hope.
The popularity of the subject and the questions it raises that still cannot be fully answered make it such an intriguing subject open to different interpretation.
The concealed shoe index is kept at the Northampton Museum and Art Gallery. If you find a concealed shoe or know about the discovery of one, then we would like to hear from you. All information provided will help us to explore this phenomenon further. Please email museums@westnorthants.gov.uk or click the link below:
This article was originally delivered as part of the lunchtime talk series The Stories behind the Objects at the Northampton Museum and Art Gallery (2 September 2020). All images courtesy of Northampton Museum and Art Gallery
