Feet of Lead; Ships of Lead

Abstract

The commonest images were the outlines ofshoes, hands and sailing ships. A seemingly odd combination of imagery but onethat, when looked at in detail, throws significant light on to the life andtimes in the 18th and 19th centuries in a Yorkshire coastal town. This paperwill examine in more detail some of the information that can be obtained from alarge collection of post-medieval graffiti of shoe and ship outlines that canbe related to a specific time and place. Although the tower of St Oswald's contained examples of awide range of graffiti including hands, fish, peel notations, love hearts andeven a possible 'plague doctor' the focus of this paper is primarily on theshoe outlines and ship images as there would simply not be space to discuss allthe examples in detail.