A Short Tour Back in Time through the Merchant’s House

By Gwilym Roberts

I arrive at the John Moore Museum. After a quick look around at the Natural History Collection within the museum, I then advance towards the Merchant’s House, which has been restored to how it looked in the late 16th century. The Benedictine monks of Tewkesbury Abbey originally built the timber-framed terrace. The misshaped roof looms above me, elegantly designed and so beautiful and stunning. I then approach the entrance at the back of the house. A small wooden door with iron bolts and a rounded iron handle. I take a hold of the handle, twist and push, to open the old door. Stepping over and across the threshold, I’m suddenly met with a captivating flash of light that takes me to a different time, to the late 1500s, to the Tudor era . . .

I’m now standing in a small room; a storeroom or workshop. Timber walls and a high ceiling also greet me. The fresh air that has entered the room with me, adds some freshness to the dry, musky air. Sounds from outside are drowned out as a tap, tap, tapping sound comes from the middle of the room. A small figure of a middle-aged man dressed in trousers and a jerkin over the top of a white linen shirt, hunches over using a small tool to tap new or repaired soles into the bottom of shoes that looked like they had seen better days. Above his head were hanging some recently hunted pheasants. Dinner, for a few days, I guess. He is hard at work, as I notice more sounds coming from above him. A cry of a baby, and of footsteps answering the shrill, demanding call for attention.

The sounds were coming from behind a window-frame with two wooden mullions in the middle in the opposite wall. I look through it and could see a staircase with high wooden steps leading upwards. The origin of the footsteps belong to a small lady whom is dressed in a white and green gown, with a plain apron tied about her waist. I took this to be the busy merchant’s wife, tending to their baby upstairs.

Merchant’s House Stairs

Daylight shines through the open shutter besides the doorway, as well as through the entrance itself. A smell of smoke and roasted meat fill my nostrils as I head for the next room. The smell was accompanied by a crackling and spitting sound, as light danced and flickered, lighting up the darkened interior of the innermost part of the house. I step across the threshold, leading from the small workshop into a kitchen.

I see the embers glowing from burnt wood in the middle of the cooking fire, as flames reach above to lick and touch the pot. Just above the pot, an almost-cooked pheasant is roasting on a spit, with a young girl slowly turning the spit to cook the meat evenly. Smoke trails upwards, and following it with my eyes, I could see it was gathering in a smoky cloud above, up by the rafters, as if it was undecided as to where it should go next. No smoke hole, no chimney, just a small bay or smoke void which, with the timber structure above, allows the smoke to gather and eventually escape through the rafters.

Merchant’s House Smoke Void

Cooking utensils and different spices lined one wall upon a table. Dotted around the room there are a few wooden stools and a single table, presumably used during eating times. At least the family will be eating well tonight, the roasting pheasant smells delicious, making my stomach grumble in reply.

I could hear laughter drifting down from upstairs. Laughter that had thankfully replaced the baby’s cries. I decided to head in that direction next. Up the stairs – up the wooden hill; for the timbered steps were quite steep. I knelt down to touch them; they felt smooth and rough in places, but strong and sturdy. The echo and creak of the steps sounded around me as I reached the upper floor. I enter a bedroom. I see the lady again, she’s playing with the baby that had been crying, and was now joyfully laughing in a small cot.

Looking around the small bedroom, I see a high ceiling. Also the outer part of the smoke void, which made up one of the walls. On the opposite side of the room, a strong wind howled against the shutters, trying to seek a way in. Chamber pots sat in one corner, they were different shapes, one for the women in the house and the other, more rounded one for the men. A small four-poster bed sat in the centre of the room with the bright curtains pulled tightly in each corner. A small bed on wheels was peeking out from underneath the master bed. This child’s bed only has a single rough mattress made of hessian and filled with scratchy straw.

Living History Re-enactor Adam

There are cracks between the floorboards, so that you can see down into a room below. I decided to leave the mother and child alone and headed back down the stairs. Going past the kitchen area, I came to a short hallway that led to the front door and a room just off it to the left. This room was the shop. A young man in a tunic and rough-spun trousers was tending to the shop front. The shutters were down and wares were laid out on the counter to attract people passing by the shop front. The young man was serving a gentleman with a newly acquired pair of boots. Using a reckoning cloth and jettons as counters, he was able to calculate how much change he would need to give to the customer. The loud hawking and haggling reverberated up and down the street, as other merchants and their customers sought out deals. It was market day. A busy day for the town of Tewkesbury.

After walking back through the house leaving the occupants to get on with their busy day, I stepped back across the threshold of the door I had entered through, a sudden bright flash and I was back in the modern day, the twenty-first century. I had experienced a trip back through time. I wonder if I will be able to take another step back in time if I opened the door once again…