No supermarkets in Tudor times meant you had to visit shops to get your groceries. Bread from Bakers, Meat from butchers. No fridges or freezers to keep things fresh meant everything had to be ate quickly before it rotted.

 

Some towns had districts known as the Shambles, named after the benches butchers used for chopping up and selling meat on the street. A town might also have had a Pudding Lane, a Fish Street, a Shoemaker's Street and other streets where particular trades were carried out.

 

Many town houses would have a shop or showroom in the downstairs front room facing the street. Some had workshops at the back. Few people could read, so traders had to use signs to show what sort of work they did.

 

No running water or Gas and Electricity meant that you had to collect wood and take it home and collect water from a pump or direct from a river or stream that was usually badly polluted. Alehouses sold huge amounts of weak ale in Tudor times because of the water being too bad to drink.

 

Animals roamed through towns on the way to the butchers where they would be killed to provide fresh meat throught the year. - Sheep, Pigs Goats and Ducks were a common sights in most towns.