600-year-old shoe discovered in Newton Abbot excavations

Excavations in Newton Abbot, Davon, United Kingdom, conducted in the town centre revealed numerous Medieval everyday items, including a child’s shoe, that can date back to the 1400s.

Excavations at the site (by Daily Mail Online)
Excavations at the site (by Daily Mail Online)

The excavations are located in the Wolborough Street, which was the medieval town’s main thoroughfare. The trenches are located at the rear parts of former medieval burgage, or borough, plots which fronted onto the street. The clay soil at the site preserved numerous artefacts, including an iron spur from a child’s boot, three wooden barrel bases and a 70 cm-diameter Dartmoor granite millstone, used to grind wheat into flour.

The 600-year-old shoe (by Daily Mail Online)
The 600-year-old shoe (by Daily Mail Online)

Newton Abbot was essentially founded as a Medieval new town but there is some evidence for 6th-7th-century activity in the immediate vicinity of the site. The archaeologists expect to learn more about how the town developed and how it came to be the place that it is now.

Millstone (by Daily Mail Online)
Millstone (by Daily Mail Online)

The waterlogged conditions resulted in preserving organic materials such as leather and wood. In normal conditions, it would have rotted long ago. Another example of such artefacts is a number of well-preserved wooden barrels, that were excavated at the site.

(after Harald Express & Daily Mail Online)

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