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Stomacher from the Nether Wallop cache |
ARE THERE DARK secrets beneath your floorboards, or underneath the doorstep? If your house dates from the sixteenth or seventeenth century there may well be, according to researchers at Southampton University. The team is exploring the UK’s secret spaces in search of bizarre relics, the remnants of a superstitious, fearful age.
The research project is recording evidence of the practice of concealing garments and other objects in the structure of buildings. This little-documented tradition is known to have been prevalent in Britain and the upper Rhine region of central Europe for several centuries, and often seems to relate to folklore and superstition. Items are typically hidden in places that will remain undisturbed, such as in a space behind a wall that is subsequently sealed up. The cache may also include other folklore-related objects, the best-known being ‘witch-bottles’ and most disturbingly mummified cats.
Charlotte Dew is project development officer at the Deliberately Concealed Garments Project. She explains that the caches are generally discovered when changes are being made to a building: “The most common locations are near the entrance and exit points of buildings, particularly windows or chimneys.
“There are a variety of reasons why garments and other objects were concealed in this way, one of the most common being for protection against perceived malevolent forces such as witchcraft, especially in the seventeenth century. And although it is not widely known, the tradition of concealing various objects in buildings still continues today.”
A new website launched by the team details a number of finds scattered across the UK, and includes unusual items such as tricorn hats, stomachers (a panel of stiff material worn on the front) and antique shoes. The images of these items show them to be in various conditions, with some well preserved, while others have disintegrated in their dark resting places. Typically, the garments have been worn indicating a personal attachment to their original owner before they have been hidden. |
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Witchproof: concealed waistcoat, found in Nether Wallop |
Whilst it is sometimes unclear as to why garments might have been regarded as having spiritually protective qualities, other concealed items have relatively well-documented histories. Witch-bottles are stoneware or glass receptacles that have been found to date mainly from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The contents are variable and not always identifiable, but according the Folk Magic in Britain website (since relaunched as Apotropaios.co.uk), 95 percent contain iron pins or nails, with the next commonest ingredients being human hair (25 percent) and urine. The bottles were generally hidden under the hearth or threshold, to prevent trespass by evil spirits that might try to use those entry points into the home.
In a macabre variation on this spiritual defence, mummified cats have also been found, secreted for their ability to see things beyond the realm of human perception. Apart from cats that have apparently become accidentally trapped in building spaces, examples exist of deliberately concealed animals frozen in ‘hunting’ poses, which were presumably intended to protect their owners from the afterlife. Similar explanations have been posited for another widespread practice across England, Wales and Ireland: horse skulls incorporated into the foundations of buildings, apparently in order to exploit their protective ‘sixth sense’.
The Deliberately Concealed Garments project is run by the Textile Conservation Centre, which is part of the University of Southampton. Visitors will be able to view a ‘virtual collection’ of concealed garments, and also log their own finds via a specially designed report form.
Charlotte Dew hopes that the launch of the website will transform the centre’s ability to record discoveries of hidden items and generally raise awareness of their role in history. The project is funded by the L J Skaggs and Mary C Skaggs Foundation and the Arts and Humanities Research Board, and is expected to attract interest from enthusiasts across several disciplines, including students of dress and textile history, folklore, and the history and archaeology of buildings. |
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