Professor Paul Salveson is a historian and writer and lives in Bolton. He is visiting professor in ‘Worktown Studies’ at the University of Bolton and author of several books on Lancashire history.

Here he celebrates an interesting piece of footwear from our history nationally and locally...clogs.

‘Two things, you’ll find, browt Lancashire fame.

One were cotton and t’cotton frame.

An’ as fer to’other, well there’s nobbut one name.

An’ that’s – clogs.’

Harvey Kershaw, ‘Clogs’, 1958

They’re the most ‘Lancashire’ of footwear, but little seen nowadays except in ‘ceremonial’ use by folk dancers. Before the Second World War they were worn in factories and mills across Lancashire, by both women and men. How did they differ from ‘normal’ shoes?

The ‘modern’ clog of the twentieth century had a wooden sole with a leather upper. Most would have a ring of iron fixed to the wooden sole, though in later years rubber came into use. The National Coal Board banned the use of iron-ringed clogs in the mines in the 1950s for safety reasons – though generations of Lancashire children loved to make clogs ‘spark’ by hitting the irons against stone pavements.

Dorothy Snelson of Westhoughton remembers getting into difficulties when trying to make her clogs spark.

She recalls: “I was playing with a friend in the yard of the Cross Guns pub on Bolton Road. I was kicking a wall and got my clog fast in a nick - men drinking in the pub in their dinner hour had to come and get me out as my clog was stuck fast!”

It has been suggested that clogs were first introduced into Lancashire by Flemish clothiers in the fourteenth century. However, it seems likely that people were already wearing ‘wooden shoon’ (shoes’) before the small group of refugees arrived in Bolton in 1337.

The hey-day of the Lancashire clog was roughly between 1840 and 1940 according to Bob Dobson in his book ‘Concerning Clogs’.

Herbert Kirtlan, writing in 1952, bemoaned their decline: “If I were asked to make a list of the most significant changes during the last 30 years of Lancashire history, I would place high up on that list the decline and fall of the clog as an item of outdoor footwear,” he said.

During the Second World War a stray German bomb landed on Deane Road, close to Stopforth’s clog shop. Jack Barlow, the clogger, was furious about this attempt by Hitler to destroy his clog shop!

Kirtlan mentions the social gatherings at the local cloggers’ shop, where men and women would sit around in their stockinged feet while their ‘clog irons’ were replaced.

The Bolton area had many cloggers, or clog shops, which acted as informal social centres.

Alan Holden said: “I wore clogs in my early years up to age of six or seven. My dad wore clogs to work in the bleach mill in the valley below Entwistle, less liable to slip, and he walked three miles each way to work, around the Wayoh Reservoir. We used a clog shop in Farnworth, as the Bolton one had closed.

“We arranged for the shop to send clogs to my uncle in Los Angeles. He worked in a slaughterhouse and said clogs were great as non-slip footwear and never had cold feet.

“I’ve still got my dad’s shoe last which he used when fitting new irons.”

Linda Carroll-Bentley said: “I remember having red clogs made for me up to about the age of four. Stopped wearing them once I went to school. I remember being taught, by an older child, how to get sparks off the pavement with them!

“Many of my relatives and friends wore them at that time. I remember a lot of the mill workers wearing them.”

Denise Hamer recalls that “My mum wore clogs in the mill and I had a pair when I was young, my husband had a pair to strengthen his ankle when he was young. They had clogs for work and a different style of clog for best.”

Liz Coburn mentions the tradition of informal clog dancing.

She said: “Edwin Lee was a shoemaker at 17 Church Bank, Bolton. Clogs were worn by the workers in the cotton mills to keep their feet warm and dry. To alleviate boredom and to warm up, the workers started ‘clog dancing’ which involved heavy steps which kept time and along with striking one shoe with the other, created rhythms and sounds to imitate those made by the milling machinery!”

Karen Martindale wore clogs to school in the mid-60s: “No one else did! My mum was a good Lancashire girl and took us to get them at a little stall in a market….I think it may have been Bury. Mine were black with bright yellow eyelets they laced-up, smaller children had red leather ones. They make you walk with a rocking motion because of the rigid sole. The men on the fish market always wore them right up until I left Bolton for university.”

Rodney Mollo remembers: “I was born in 1946, wore clogs until about seven, when schools started insisting on pumps in school. My clogs had red rubber diamonds on the bottom saying they were ‘Empire Made’. Rubber clog irons were less noisy, but had the disadvantage of not sparking. All the cobblers’ shops repaired clogs but most families had a last and did their own.”

Other clog shops which readers remember included Edward Lee’s on Church Bank and Jack Whittaker’s whose workshop was on St Georges Road and then Deansgate.

Babs Bradley moved to Bolton in the 1960s and soon found that the local clog-wearing tradition had ended.

She said: “I was a weaver in Burnley and always wore my clogs - I never had cold or sore feet. When I came to Bolton after getting married I got a job weaving in one of the local mills and I was asked ‘had I come from the dark ages?’ Nobody wore them here!”

Clogs feature in Lancashire literature – both poetry and prose. John Ackworth’s collection of short stories, Clog Shop Chronicles, is said to have been based on a clog shop in Stoneclough, Kearsley.

Clogs haven’t died out yet. Walkley’s in Mytholmroyd (West Yorkshire) still make clogs for a national and international market. Bolton’s last surviving clog-maker, John Fox, features in Dave Burnham’s recently-published book ‘A-Z Bolton’, which notes that Bolton once had 70 clog shops. Perhaps they’ll make a comeback.

Paul Salveson is Bolton and bred and has a PhD in Lancashire dialect literature from the University of Salford. He persuaded his mum to buy him a pair of clogs at the age of eight but only wore them twice. He is a visiting professor at the Universities of Huddersfield and Bolton. His books include a biography of Bolton dialect writer Allen Clarke and ‘Moorlands, Memories and Reflections’, a celebration of Allen Clarke’s moorland classic. For details see www.lancashireloominary.co.uk.