Clogs are footwear made partly or completely from wood and include shoes with wooden uppers, wooden soles or overshoes. Their precise origin uncertain, they were possibly used by the Ancient Greeks, Romans and Celts. Archaeological evidence is scarce: in the past, well-worn clogs may have been burnt as firewood and many wooden shoes have rotted over time. The oldest surviving European wooden footwear, from the Netherlands, dates to the 13th century and is remarkably similar to modern clogs made there today.
Worn widely throughout Europe, regional and local clog styles are extraordinarily diverse, although those of a given area or culture have often remained unchanged for centuries. In Britain clogs may have evolved from medieval pattens, slats of wood secured with straps and worn underneath leather or fabric shoes to raise the wearer’s foot above dirty, unmade roads. Poorer people who could not afford regular shoes wore hard-wearing protective wooden clogs next to their skin or stockings and so clogs became associated with manual labourers.
British clogs grew more significant with the Industrial Revolution, when thousands of mill and factory workers needed affordable, sturdy footwear. Laced and brass- or steel-clasped clogs were worn respectively by males and females and typically these featured clog irons called calkers or cokers nailed onto the sole at toe and heel.
Clog-wearing in Britain peaked between the 1840s and 1920s and traditionally clogs are particularly linked with Lancashire: certainly, they were common in the industrial north, but were also worn elsewhere, for example by Kent miners and in London fish docks and fruit markets. Clogs were sometimes gifted to paupers as part of poor relief and they were worn in many workhouses and ragged schools.
Intriguing article?
Subscribe to our newsletter, filled with more captivating articles, expert tips, and special offers.
In 1941, when clothes rationing was introduced, wooden-soled clogs were promoted as a substitute for scarce leather, but were unpopular due to their historical connection to poverty. Certain types of clog are still used in some industries and clogging or clog dancing, which reputedly developed in the Lancashire textile mills, is kept alive as a folk tradition in parts of northern England and Wales.
