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Shakespeare Connected - Shakespeare’s New Place: Artefacts and Inhabitants

Pins (Probably 17th century) (Various contexts and seasons

Rounded head dress pins. A huge amount of pins were recovered from the site. Pins were an essential part of Tudor, Elizabethan and Jacobean clothing. There was a thriving pin-making industry at the time, particularly in the Black Country and Birmingham. Pins were essential in securing the material which made up a ruff (a circular collar made from a pleated frill worn by both men and women). An elaborate ruff required hundreds of pins to hold it together.

 

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