Leather patchwork shoes, 1660s

What do these shoes tell us about John Bigg, executioner of Charles I?

This shoe belonged to John Biggs who probably executed Charles I. The shoe is very big and is made of hundreds of little scraps of leather all nailed together. Biggs made it himself. When a bit of leather wore out, he would simply nail another piece over the top, so it got bigger and bigger. Biggs spent the later part of his life as a hermit, living alone in a cave. He made his own clothes using bits of leather given to him by people in the local village of Dinton. Gallery 2: The Ashmolean Story

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