The WI Hall was full for Leigh Alston’s talk
on ‘Shops in the Middle Ages’. Leigh is an architectural
historian who has studied many timber framed buildings in the course
of his research. Many of these buildings, in the ‘boom towns’
of the heyday of the woollen cloth trade, still have signs today
of a typical shop. This is shown by two arched windows and a narrow
‘coffin’ door opening on to the street. Lavenham, Long
Melford and Kersey, for instance, have so many of these that Leigh
has concluded that they were actually workshops where shoes, gloves
and other household goods were made as well as sold, rather than
the retail outlets we think of as shops today. In his usual relaxed
style, Leigh made the Middle Ages come alive for his listeners.
There is no meeting as such in December. 50 members have booked
for the Christmas meal at The Red Lion, Kirtling on the 7th. If
you require a lift on that evening, please ring Dorothy or Gillian.
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