The practice of placing shoes under the floor or within the wall of a house was apparently common in French Nova Scotia. I recall this from the CNEHA conference held at the Fortress of Louisbourg in 1995. While touring one of the oldest homes on the island, we were shown a very well-preserved shoe recovered from within the wall or floor and told this was a custom designed to bring good luck. You may want to contact someone up at Parks Canada in Nova Scotia and ask about the practice. Good Luck
Randy Lichtenberger
Jefferson's Poplar Forest
>From:
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>Reply-To: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY <
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>To:
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>Subject: Shoes in Bricks
>Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2001 19:48:58 -0500
>
>This was recently posted on the Utah Historic listserve from the Utah SHPO. I
>was asked to post it on HISTARCH for any responses. Send to:
>
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>Subj: Shoes in Bricks
>Date: 12/11/2001 4:02:00 PM Mountain Standard Time
>From:
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>Sender:
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>Reply-to:
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>To:
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>Recently a woman came into our office with an adobe brick taken from an
>interior wall of her c.1905 house in west Salt Lake City. Adobe bricks
>aren't in and of themselves that unique in Utah; but what was unique about
>this brick was the child's shoe encased therein.
>
>Her question to us here at the preservation office was, "why is there a shoe
>in my brick?" To be honest we had no idea and asked around but found no
>solid answers, so we left it as either a child's prank or the fact that
>someone's shoe got stuck in the clay and was pulled off.
>
>Then we chanced upon a web site in England that explains such interesting
>finds (primarily in centuries old English dwellings), including shoes, clay
>vessels, dead cats, etc. The link is: http://www.folkmagic.co.uk/index.html
>
>What is interesting is that this ancient custom persisted to the twentieth
>century to various places outside the British Isles, including Utah.
>Unfortunately, we do not have the ownership history of this particular house,
>but it would be interesting to see if the original owners came here from
>England.
>
>If any of you have, or know of someone who has found a shoe in a wall, a
>dried cat, horse skull, or bottle hidden somewhere in the walls, or under the
>ceiling or floor of their house we would be interested in hearing about it!
>
>J. Cory Jensen
>Architectural Historian/National Register Coordinator
>Utah State Historic Preservation Office
>300 Rio Grande
>Salt Lake City, Utah 84101
>801/533-3559
>FAX 801/533-3503
>
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