A volunteer who was working in the Museum of Oxford said that when he was younger he remembered that there were boot scrapers everywhere.....

 

"There were boot scrapers everywhere, a common utility in the social landscape. They were situated in convenient places where people could use them. There were many types of horse drawn vehicles, there was usually a boot scraper near the steps where you climbed onto the vehicle, whether it was a cart of gig. There was a metal component affixed to the wooden infrastructure of the vehicle.

​

There were ways of doing things, for instance, where ever you went, to church, or to the pub, there were hat racks, places to hang coats and jackets, umbrella stands in houses and public buildings. There were particular ways of doing everything, putting on and taking off boots for instance, leather boots had a tongue at the top to pull on, a boot jack to help you take them off.  I put leather dubbing on my leather shoes now and as soon as I take them off, they they are still warm, I put them in a stretcher. You would check, inspect the instep of the boot that you hadn't mud stuck on the underneath of your boots before you entered a house. You would expect to see a boot scraper, always part of your life. You would clean your boots or shoes properly on the scraper before you entered a house or public building. There were no vacuum cleaners, the floors were wooden or stone flags.  Keeping the floors clean was difficult. Everything in those days was done properly. Each task was thought about. An activity meant exercising a learnt skill, a practical life enhancing activity was carried out with pleasure. Even the most mundane, ordinary every day tasks. You don't do it badly, you learnt how to do it. Things were used to their maximum advantage and continually used, cared for and kept. You didn't waste things."