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Village Shops

A few of the shops one might encounter in a village or market town in the Georgian era

Do you enjoy shopping scenes with our heroes and heroines?


What shops they would have encountered would vary not only place to place but especially city vs town vs village. Obviously, cities would have more shops, especially when it came to fashion and confectioneries. Towns, namely market towns, offered more in the way of food goods. Village shops were limited, sometimes only offering a haberdashery at most, the focus being on providing material for villagers to make their own goods rather than purchase them.


The most common shops:

Butcher

Baker

Fishmonger

Poulterer

Confectioner

Perfumer

Chandler

Bookseller/Stationer

Cordwainer

Saddler

Tobacconist

Cabinet Maker

Draper

Wigmaker

Milliner

Haberdasher

Shoemaker

 

Bonus Trivia: our storybook heroes and heroines would not have paid for their goods at the time of purchase. Money would not have been carried or exchanged. The charge would have gone onto their account and been billed later, typically sent to whoever paid the bills, be it husband, guardian, steward, or otherwise.


This isn’t a complete list of shops. What others can you think of to add to the list?

 

Not to be missed is this article from the British Library: https://blog.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/2021/12/22/shopping-in-the-eighteenth-century/

 


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