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The History of the Shop

The History of the Shop

Trade is one of the foundation stones of human civilisation. Spreading everything from new technologies and religions to political ideologies, even human DNA!  Trade has opened up the world.  Clearly, long gone are the days of caravan routes across the deserts of the east, although famous trade routes such as the Silk Road are still used and very much in action, a testament to human will against some serious terrain over thousands of miles!

This week we delve into a brief history of the shop.  A recent blog has discussed the evolving balance between shopping online and shopping on the High Street - but how did the high street as we refer to commercial premises get there in the first place?   There isn't enough space here to explore the idea that for countless millennia the shop wren't required due to the fact that trade and bartering was the mode of exchange and this took place in gathering places and by the hearth. But what of the humble shop?  How did we get from the office of a Sumerian grain store to Harrods?

Ancient Sumer

According to traditional historical timeline Sumeria was the first well established civilisation.  In brief, the Sumerians utilised agriculture and had a wide array of highly skilled artisans and craftsmen that sold a wide variety of goods from markets and shops.

Consumerism was not even remotely a notion of course, but the  Sumerians had a complex and well-developed system of monetary exchange. their rapidly growing, successful economic expansion contributed to the need for a new “technology” (writing) that would eventually make the exchange of goods practical for large-scale transactions (source). To the left here you can see a clay receipt from a grain merchant in its own envelope.  Quire different from the email confirmation you get when you order from us!

As archaeology developed, particularly in the early twentieth century, it became evident that everyday life in ancient Sumer would be recognizable to us from a shopping point of view with the remains of shops and associated artifacts being found in ancient cities such as Ur.

The Greek Agora

The Agora was a public space that was very similar to the famous Roman Forum, but of course, preceded it. It was a large space at teh heart of Athens and other Greek cities as their influence expanded through the Mediterranean and even into Asia. It would have been  place full of life and indeed, business. Traders and merchants would have sold wares among themselves,  and certainly direct to customers. Although there is evidence that there were ancient Greek shops, the agora was certainly the hub of activity, with people bartering for goods, food and animals.  A cross between a shop, market place and trading hall.  The rich would carry their money in purses as you might expect - the poor kept coins in their mouths!

Roman Take-Away

Caesar Fried Chicken anyone?  The romans were really fond of fast food, just as you'd find in any busy town or city these days. In 2020 a incredibly well-preserved fast food shop or thermopolium was discovered by archaeologists. This discovery allow experts to analyse the contents of the hot-jars and discover the shopping tastes of the every-day romans - and yes chicken was very popular! IT also included snails  duck bone fragments as well as the remains of pigs, goats, fish and snails.  Some of the ingredients had been cooked together rather than prepared separately; a kind of Roman-era paella!  Aside from the incredible information given about every day life in ancient Rome, the sheer colourful beauty of the frescoes.

Ancient British Shops: The Merchants House

A flat above a shop is the way many of us started out, and if we're lucky we rise up the property ladder in time.  However,  a house above the shop was very definitely the height of achievement for a merchant in the thirteenth century. The merchants house in Southampton, Hampshire is the prime example here.  It is certainly the one of the oldest shops in Britain, having only been revealed by a stray German bomb during World War II.

It was built in about 1290 by the merchant John Fortin,  the house having survived many centuries of domestic and commercial use largely intact.  The merchant would have sold his wares, mainly clothes and woven commodities that would have been very high value  - the Chanel of the day! Following the bomb the layers of outer building revealed the medieval core.  In the 1980's it was restored in total,  revealing it's medieval glory - just as people would have seen it seven hundred years ago. John Fortin might  have been surprised to know that his esteemed establishment went through a colourful history, being divided into three houses and even became a  brothel at one point.

Boxford Stores

If you were one of Henry V's subjects you would have known Boxford Stores in Boxford, Suffolk as, well, pretty much Boxford stores!  It is well noted as one of the UK's oldest shops, and has been a merchants hall or warehouse for teh sale of Woollen goods since the fifteenth century. In a long and illustrious life it has been an ironmongers, a drapers, an for very many years a butchers before settling into being as a grocers for the last century or more.  It was sold a few years ago and teh village of Boxford held its breath as they  waited to see what would become of its much-treasure village shop and Post Office. Like so many small towns and villages they were concerned about loosing an important village institution.  However, in 2015 it opened it's doors again as....Boxford Stores (and Post Office) much to the relief and joy of the whole village. Some traditions die hard, sometimes its a case of people understanding what it is they have taken on. They are still trading to day.

The Rise of the Department Store

ParkerBrand are based in Louth, Lincolnshire.  We happen to have one of the oldest shops in England right in the centre of our much loved town.  Founded by Adam Eve in 1781 as a specialist in Linens, cloth and general groceries.  After partnering with a certain Thomas Ranshaw, who had started as a 13 year old apprentice, the business also encompassed high-class tailoring and fashions, as well as a broad array of home furnishing products and associated services.

ParkerBrand are proud to follow such long established merchants, although our products are inspired by the farmland that surrounds it.  It was principally the effect of the economy moving from being predominantly agricultural to  feeling the full effect of the industrial revolution; It allowed for mass production of goods and simultaneously created the wealth and leisure time for a certain strata of society to shop.

From Arcade to Mall

It seemed that keeping customers well covered and in comfort was key to getting and keeping high-end business.  One very early arcade was in London,  close to the very grand home of the Duke of Devonshire's brother, Burlington House.

Known as Burlington Arcade, it is a very early example of a style that became common place across Europe. It very rapidly became one of the elegant and exclusive haunts of the wealthy, very much as it is today, with boutiques and specialists in fine clothes, jewellery and bespoke makers and artisans of many kinds.  The refined and comfortable surroundings certainly served to elevate the noble and gentile customers from being exposed to London's filthy, crime-ridden streets of the time.

The notion of  became very popular, as you can imagine, and was perhaps most beautifully expressed in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan, Italy.  It is still an incredible sights even today, even one hundred and fifty years after its construction.  Across Europe the arcade as a shopping destination for the wealthy and well-to-do was well established, but we need to look across the Atlantic for how it evolved,  but this time accessible to many more less wealthy people.

The Shopping Mall

The shopping mall - citied to so often in so many American films. The hang-out of youths, the one stop shop for a million items, was first conceived and developed in the United States.  No doubt influenced by European trends there were places similar to arcades or groups of shops surrounding a large store,  the first enclosed 'true' mall was developed in a suburb of Minneapolis in 1956.  Much like their 19th Century forebears, the Mall provided a perpetually safe and relatively serene environment for consumption of goods, insulating customers equally from the weather and all the vagaries of the street.  The post-war boom and the increasing use of new materials and manufacturing capabilities meant that an ever increasing variety of goods were available at accessible prices to ever greater numbers of Americans.

Ideas bounce back and forth - it wasn't too long before the idea of shopping Malls was imported back to us.  The first UK mall was Brent Cross Shopping Centre, north-west London.  Built in 1976 it offered all of the convenience of Shopping as we now now it, but at the time felt like something very new indeed.  These days huge malls such as the Trafford Centre near Manchester or Merry Hill in the West Midlands offer hundreds of shops and serve millions of customers each year. It's quite an evolution from the pungent streets of Yorvik or even the more rarefied air of Burlington arcade,  that's for sure.

Online to Blended Experience

We all know that there has been a big upsurge in e-commerce and internet based shopping given the situation over the last 18 months. Certainly it will be the case that this upward trend will continue - but does tis mean that shops are a thing of the past? We certainly hope not, and it seems that thousands of years of tradition won't disappear.  We're humans and we like the hustle and bustle of being among the crowd and in the thick of it - it is natural to us.  Small independent businesses and artisans will still have shops and national chains still know the value  of a physical presence, especially for tangible items like fashion and gifts.

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