Rights Holder: Surrey County Council
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SHOE
Unique ID: SUR-C78410
Object type certainty: Certain
Workflow
status: Awaiting validation 
A child's leather shoe with a sole 52mm wide at the ball of the foot and around 17cm in length. There are two lines of small nails around the edge of the underside of the sole which secure it to the other parts of the shoe. The heel is made of five stacked layers of leather, held together by small nails. The uppers come up to ankle height and are stitched to the insole, with ten lace holes with small copper alloy eyelets. The shoe is in very poor condition and likely well worn at the point of deposition. It is approximately a UK child size 10, suggesting that the owner would have been around 5 years of age. Circa early 19th century.
Notes:
The shoe was found within a wall in a 16th century grade II listed building in Nutfield, Surrey (Doggetts, https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1377559) along with a child's toy (SUR-C7C19E). A tally stick (SUR-C7FF15) was found in a different part of the same building.
See also SUR-B4C651 for another example of a child's shoe found in a similar context in a building in Surrey. The practise of placing a shoe within the structure of the walls, particularly over doorways or inside chimneys, was common from the 16th and 17th century onwards, and seems to have died out by about 1900. It was believed to bring luck to the house and to protect it from evil and a child's shoe was commonly used for this purpose. The association with a toy is more unusual (although associated objects such as bones and utensils are relatively common) and it seems reasonable to suggest that both items may have once belonged to the same child.
Subsequent actions
Subsequent action after recording: Returned to finder
Chronology
Broad period: POST MEDIEVAL
Period from: POST MEDIEVAL
Period to: POST MEDIEVAL
Date from: Circa AD 1800
Date to: Circa AD 1900
Dimensions and weight
Quantity: 1
Length: 173 mm
Height: 70 mm
Width: 52 mm
Weight: 110.82 g
Personal details
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Materials and construction
Primary material: Leather
Secondary material: Iron
Completeness: Complete
Spatial metadata
Region: South East (European Region)County or Unitary authority: Surrey (County)
District: Tandridge (District)
Parish or ward: Nutfield (Civil Parish)
Spatial coordinates
4 Figure: TQ3148
Four figure Latitude: 51.21618143
Four figure longitude: -0.12573038
1:25K map: TQ3148
1:10K map: TQ34NW
Grid reference source: From finder
Unmasked grid reference accurate to a 1 metre square.
References cited
No references cited so far.
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Timeline of associated dates
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