The House on Crutches Museum - Town Room
The Town Room
The House on Crutches Museum | Kitchen | Town Room | Agricultural Room | Parlour | Local Artists
The Town Room is devoted to the history of local businesses. Here
you will find displays on the clog and shoe making industries,
the impact of drovers, local breweries, chemists and tailors
and other trades
in the town.
The House on Crutches may have started life as a simple single room dwelling some time in the twelfth century, but it certainly grew over the years. There are no certain details about the owners of the house. Whoever they were and whatever they did, they had become very affluent by the 1600s as this large, well-lit and airy room with its wide fireplace reveals. This may have been the Great Chamber, or Solar, of the extended medieval house, built for the private use of the master and mistress. It emphasised their social status and importance, moving them upstairs and away from the hustle and bustle of the household and the servants below. The original room with its extension over the jetty would probably not have been accessed by the staircase below the small window. It would have been entered by a set of stairs to the rear of the next room. Traces of its banisters can be seen above the modern staircase in the Agriculture Room.
The oak framing for the room was expensive. But the pride of the room would have been the windows, as glass was just as costly. The original room would have contained at least three large windows. The large window in the jetty would have given an unhindered view of the hills and woods beyond the town. The buildings that block this view today are all later 18th century infill. The large window to the left of the jetty looked up the cobbled way, over the Market Place and had a view of the castle. The third window, which had a similar view, may be a new piercing, but is more possibly an eighteenth century replacement, known as a Yorkshire sliding sash
There can only be speculation about the smallest window in the room and the staircase. This window was only discovered during the restoration of the building in 1985. When it was originally made, and why it was later blocked in, remains a mystery. But if window and staircase are connected, then both may have been installed during the Civil War (1642-1645) when this area of South West Shropshire was considerably harassed by both Royalist and Parliamentarian forces. The window may have been created as a convenient outlook for a watchman, the staircase being a later replacement for a ladder. Around 1665, during the last great outbreak of the plague or Black Death, the window may have been blocked in. The window faces south, and it was believed that the infection was carried on the warm, moist southerly winds. Whatever happened will probably remain one of the many secrets of this very old house.
Clogs were sold from the nearby Welsh town of Knighton by the grandfather
of the present shoemaker in the town. They had a regular contract
for the local gas factory where irons on the soles should have
been a distinct fire
hazard. Nevertheless, they were indeed sold with irons! Is this
what’s
known as Brave Soles? In earlier times, clogs met the need for
cheap and durable footwear. Wooden soles and leather uppers were
weatherproof and
most families did the repairs themselves with the aid of a last.
The irons and rubbers were easily obtainable and even the
loss of a strap button could be dealt with easily.
The
Bishop’s Castle Tannery was at the bottom of the town, conveniently
near a constant flow of water needed for the tanning pools. The brook also
provided drinking water for the cattle market which was held at the bottom
of Church Street outside the Six Bells. The tannery was perhaps, not so
conveniently situated for the nearby church. Tanning is one of the oldest
and smelliest of trades!
Leather making involved a great many processes one of which was carried out with a scudding knife. It was used to scrape the underside of the hide, removing the soft tissue. The hides would be soaked in pools as part of the tanning process. Oak bark, stripped from felled trees, was the source of tannin, crucial to the curing process. It was this ingredient that gave the profession its name.
Leather production encouraged the tradition of shoemaking in the town. However, the growth of factories in the North, making cheap mass produced footwear, meant that the production of bespoke boots and shoes was no longer economic. This shift in 'carriage' trade heralded a spate of shoe shops in the town. At one stage no fewer than seven shoe retailers could be found here.
This display reveals the considerable changes that have
taken place since the advent of patent medicines and the market domination
by international drug companies. At the beginning of the last century, the
local chemist made pills and potions, grinding the ingredients by hand,
carefully measuring liquids and powders. Many people sought the advice of
the chemist, which was free, rather than the doctor, who was not. And toothache,
was perhaps easier to bear than assault by the foot-powered drill!
 |
There were several outfitters, dressmakers, milliners and tailors in the town, many of them established in the mid 1800s. Several of them survived until well after World War Two. Broads and Pughs the Tailor were among them. Broads, which sold everything from a pin to the latest ladies' fashions, survived until the 1960s. Displayed are a variety of articles sold in the shop and a day-book kept by the assistants. You begin to get an idea of the robust business conducted in the town not only from the entries themselves but from the number of assistants employed on market day. The market has been held on a Friday for many centuries. By the late 1940s, Mr Leslie Pugh, the fifth generation of this tailoring family, had moved the business to the High street. The tailors, in traditional fashion, sat cross-legged on their benches in the workshop at the back of the front shop. Mr Pugh’s tailors shears are on display, as well as a ladies jacket, made at the High Street premises which finally closed in the 1950s. |
This display reveals something of the brewing industry in Bishop’s
castle – which has boasted many public houses in its long history.
Over the years there have been no fewer than
29 pubs and ale houses, though not all at once.
Today there
are six.
The Three Tuns at the top of the town in Salop Street has a Victorian tower brewery, and is still providing good real ales to the delight of many CAMRA aficionados. The town also has a recently established real ale brewery. The Six Bells at the bottom of the town is a thriving enterprise and has many awards under its belt already.
Until very recently, two of the public houses in the High Street, the Six Bells and the Boar’s Head, had apple orchards to the rear of their premises. These provided apples for the production of cider, the favourite tipple of the drovers, whose routes and history are outlined on a separate board display.
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