England: The Village Shop

After a few wrong turns (yeah, I know most people plan to go to Stonehenge yet we managed to end up passing it . . . twice . . . and it wasn't on the itinerary), we safely arrived at Morwellham Quay, a Victorian living history village. Today's lesson: the village shop.

Fancy a new hat?

The village shop, a common staple of every Victorian small town, sold everything from tea to lamp oil to rope.

I'll take a pound of chocolate, please.

This particular shop was unusual in that it was leased and operated by a woman. A single woman. How scandalous, eh? Her name was Jane Martin and by the late 1860s she was so successful that she purchased shares in the barges that carried goods up and down the river.

Apparently Amazon didn't deliver. You had to pick up your own packages.

Customers generally ordered the goods they wanted from the shopkeeper and came back later for the supplies. The shopkeeper had to pull the goods from the back room or measure or weigh the items. There was no self-serve or individual packaging. Unlike this:

Umm . . . dude, in my part of the world, flapjacks are pancakes. Stay tuned for more culture shock tomorrow here at Writer Off the Leash.