Spring Cleaning Fifteenth Century Style

The incredible run of sunny weather we have experienced recently, coinciding with so much beautiful blossom, has definitely heralded spring.

Renovations and fresh starts are nothing new. The Clerk William Porlond offers an insight into spring cleaning in 1423 ‘after the coming of crafts and fraternities to our hall’ in the midst of ongoing repairs. The payments included:

• First to a labourer for cleansing of our hall and gathering of chips out of the said hall and also of dust, with strewing of rushes and setting of tables - 5½d
• to the same labourer, and to a woman, for the cleansing of the hall after the Barbers and against the work of the carpenters - 2d
• for making clean the hall and the kitchen with water after the Cooks - 5d
• for carriage of dung after the Armourers, Glaziers and Clerks - 1d
• to John Smyth for cleansing of our place, with carriage of timber, tiles and tile shards, for 2 days - 4d
• to 2 women for their travail in helping to make clean the hall against our feast day, with their meat - 6d
• given to Olde Stephene for making clean of the place with washing gutters and for carriage of timber and other things into the great cellar - 6d
• to a labourer for 1 day against the feast of All Saints, after the working of masonry, in making clean of the place - 5½d

The total for all the cleaning and preparation work was 4s 7d, around £147 today.

The publication last year of the transcription of the first part of Porlond’s Book has allowed us to discover so much more about daily life at the Brewers in the early fifteenth century. We are delighted that Part 2 has just been sent to the publishers and we hope to see it in print by next spring.