ABSTRACT
The shoes have a range of dates and sizes. The latest and most complete is a hob-nailed boot that can be dated by its elasticated gusset to the late nineteenth or early twentieth century. It was worn on the right foot, and the style of the boot suggests a female wearer. Of the other fragments, one is unidentifiable; another consists of a sole and a partially intact heel which has a seam at the mid heel with quarters rising up to a latchet tie. Another fragment consists of an upper and part of a sole connected by a rand or thin folded piece of leather. Both of these fragments were stitched using woven strands of hemp yarn of an auburn-brown colour; the discolouration may be the result of beeswax, which was commonly used by cordwainers in the early modern period. These two fragments may have formed a single shoe which, when complete, was approximately 15 cm in length and probably fitted a child or adolescent. In appearance and construction (a continuous rand that post-dates the medieval period) it resembles other surviving seventeenth-century shoes.
