In 1910 shop rent was £40 a year in Stratford

FORTY pounds a per year to rent a shop in High Street, Stratford sounds ideal…but you would need to travel back to 1910 to secure the deal.

It’s another one of those historic gems the StratFire Project is discovering during its investigation of buildings in the town centre which have been around for centuries but only now giving up their secrets thanks to an ongoing tree-ring dating of timber frames (dendrochronology) to see how old the structures are and whether or not they were ravaged by fires in the Tudor era.

In High Street ECCO shoes – as it is now known – has three floors,