What was the high street like before?

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We keep hearing bad news about retail, and how online shopping is going to result in ‘the death of the high street’. That has made me wonder what was the average high street like in the ‘old days’ – and I’m talking hundreds of years ago now, say Elizabethan times (16th century). Five or six hundred years ago there wouldn’t be any clothes shops, most people made their own clothes or, if they could afford it, had someone else make them for them. There wouldn’t be any book shops as few people could read. Certainly no music shops as music was provided only by live musicians. Obviously no mobile ’phone shops or other electronic gadgets. No electrical goods. Virtually nothing in the way of cosmetics. Stationary was quite hard to come by – not sure where people would have obtained paper, pens and ink. Things like pots and pans often came from peddlars, and were repaired repeatedly by travelling tinkers. So did fabrics. Food was generally bought at weekly markets where farmers brought their produce to sell (and of course the big landowners had their own produce grown for them). Banking hadn’t really been developed in northern Europe at that time. There wouldn’t have been any high street opticians, locksmiths or cobblers – those sort of tradespeople travelled around with their wares. So that leaves a few possibilities – perhaps a pharmacist or an ironmonger? There would undoubtedly have been a blacksmith somewhere, though maybe not on the main street. We know for sure there would have been several taverns to cater to travellers, and of course they each would have needed considerable buildings to house the horses and carriages, mule trains or whatever the travellers came with, as well as rooms for sleeping and dining. Other than that, our local high street was home to England’s first coffee house in 1650 (and it’s still there). The high street of five hundred years ago must have been a very different place to nowadays, what do you think it was like? All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2019.