One, two, buckle my shoe
Metal detectorist PATRICK ETHERIDGE reveals more of his historical finds
SHOE buckles have been used as a means of fastening for hundreds of years but to the dandy of the 18th century, along with the dandy button, they were the height of fashion, replacing the ribbons and rosettes used since the Elizabethan era.
Early shoe buckles were very plain, some having light engraving, and were made in copper, pewter, brass, Sheffield plate and pinchbeck. The back plates and pin, being made of iron, have usually rotted away when I dig them up.
As the dandy fashion was at its height during the 18th century, shoe buckle manufacture along with the knee, hat, cravat, and glove buckles, some of which were made of precious metal, had become an important part of the economy employing thousands of people, and in 1770 almost every Birmingham silversmith was also a bucklesmith, producing on average two and a half million buckles per year. Many were for export, and almost every town had a shop producing buckles. A gentleman’s position in society could be judged by his buckles being made of gold, silver or base metal.
The majority of the shoe buckles I find are from the early part of the 18th century, being rectangular in shape and measuring on average 2” x 1¼” and are from farm fields that I have permission to search, in and around Birmingham, Coventry, and Wolverhampton. I have not been lucky enough yet to find a gold or silver buckle.
The shoe buckle finally fell out of fashion towards the end of the 18th century, being replaced by the shoe string that we mainly use today, resulting in mass unemployment and stocks of millions of buckles without any practical use ending up in the melting pot. Luckily for the metal detectorist such as myself, they are little gems of our history just waiting in farm fields for me to walk over with my metal detector.
THIS picture from the Bugle collection shows an array of rather grand ladies lined up at a railway station awaiting their train.
Sadly, we only have a few details of who they were. These ladies belonged to Old Hill Conservative Club, which used to be in Mace Street, and they were at Old Hill Station in 1911.
They are clearly dressed in their best with many sporting rather spectacular hats, but where were they going?
Platform
The only clue we have is that they were standing on the Birmingham-bound platform of the station. 1911 was coronation year – George V and Queen Mary were crowned on June 22 – so perhaps they were attending some festivity as part of the
national celebrations.
Old Hill Station first opened in 1866. The line from Stourbridge Junction to Old Hill and then on to Smethwick was built
by the Stourbridge Railway, which was taken over by the Great Western Railway in 1870. The Bumble Hole line between Old Hill and
Dudley opened in March 1878 and the line from Old Hill to Halesowen opened at the same time.
Old Hill Station originally had wooden buildings but these were badly damaged by fire in 1967 and the station was refurbished with the platform buildings that we have today.