SHOE

Post-medieval assortment of concealed items.This collection of concealed items was found within a section of cob-wall above the doorway of a Topsham townhouse. The collection includes three shoe fragments, shells and pebbles, pieces of clay pipe, bone, oyster shell, slag, coal, fragments of south Somerset Donyatt Ware, and a fragment of glass.

The practise of placing a shoe within the structure of the walls, particularly over doorways or inside chimneys, was common in 16th and 17th century house building. As was the practise of concealing elaborate artefacts, or multiple associated artefacts, as 'witch deposits'. The University of Southampton website: http://www.concealedgarments.org suggests: "These objects may have been concealed as a protective device to ward off evil and other maleficent forces or they may have been used as counter-magic to deflect a curse or other negative circumstance, such as illness or economic blight considered to be the consequence of malevolent spirits or witches, e.g. the use of witch bottles, charms and curses. The objects may also have been viewed as 'lucky things', perhaps heirlooms from an ancestor or from another person considered to be spiritually powerful and so they were perceived as lucky for the household. Or did builders constructing or altering a building or the householders themselves just want to leave their 'mark'?"