As regular readers will know, we recently took ourselves off on a jaunt to the Shrewsbury Steampunk Spectacular.
Now Shrewsbury is a delightful town and, the weather being very pleasant, we spent the day after the Spectacular exploring its nooks and crannies.
Imagine our delight at discovering an ancient gateway which – in a surprising way – links two of our sales outlets together.
In a garden known as The Quarry, we found a gate with this sign.
On closer inspection, we noticed that the ironwork on the gate was decorated with the shapes of shoes.
By an amazing coincidence, as well as taking Steampunk-Shrunk stalls to Shrewsbury and other steampunk venues, we also trade from a shop called The Crispin Emporium, in the Somerset town of Street. This town is the home of Clarks Shoes and the name Crispin pops up everywhere there.
Now it all made sense and we decided to commemorate the patron saints of shoemakers (who rather appropriately come as a pair!) in one of our miniature books, so that the good people of Street and visitors to the town can learn about Crispin and his brother.
For those of you who are interested, the text of the book appears below.
Crispin and Crispian
| Allow me to introduce Crispin and his brother (or some say best friend) Crispian. Whether you are a local or a visitor to the town of Street in Somerset, you will probably have noticed that the name Crispin abounds in the town. There is a Crispin School, a Crispin Hall and of course the notable and quite excellent Crispin Emporium. You may even have wondered why.
These gentlemen lived in Rome, in the 3rd century AD. They were Christians, which was not an entirely safe thing to be at that time. Realising that they were likely to end up as a star attraction in the Colloseum, but not in a good way, they decided to flee the city and headed off to Gaul (modern day France). Once there, they decided to preach to the locals. Of course, they needed to sustain themselves, and hit upon the idea of making shoes by night in order to fund their daytime preaching. Now, perhaps, you are beginning to see why Crispin is connected to Street. Let’s finish their story first, though. Crispin and Crispian became highly successful shoemakers. They made enough money for their own food and lodging, and found they had a surplus, which they used to help the poor. Soon word spread and increasing numbers of people came to listen to the Christian cobblers. They finally came to the attention of the Roman governor of Gaul. He had them thrown into a river, with millstones tied around their necks. That would be enough to finish most people off, but our heroes miraculously survived. Sadly, the Emporor was not put off so easily. He had them beheaded, which not even Crispin and Crispian could survive. They became the patron saints of shoemakers and leatherworkers. Of course, Street is the home of Clarks shoes and has its own shoe museum. It is hardly surprising, then, that one of the brothers is commemorated in this town. St Crispin’s Day is 25th October, the day on which the Battle of Agincourt was fought. Illustrated copies of the little book will soon be on sale at The Crispin Emporium, Street, Somerset, in our usual 12th scale.
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There are still pieces of rust and the contraptions need to be handled with care, but a precious few have been tested and are for sale in the 
Our latest sales venture is hiring a glass cabinet in a beautiful craft emporium in the Somerset town of Street.
Greetings to all from the grey, damp and murky land of Avalon, where life, myth and mystery combine curiously amongst the swirling mists (well, actually thundering hail storms at the moment, but that’s a temporary glitch, I’m sure).
Messrs Crackington and Balsover are busily creating an emporium filled with a host of cunning contrivances and devious devices, which will be available for purchase at our forthcoming sales.
Over the next few weeks, we will be highlighting more of the delights you can expect to discover on the Steampunk-Shrunk stalls which will be appearing around the land.
Steampunk - Shrunk! 