The town of Thornbury is located about a 90-minute walk inland from the Severn River. Bristol was the closest major port town in the 15th century, about a half-day walk to the southwest. The towns of Bath to the south-east or Gloucester to the north-east were also a half-day walk from Thornbury (Verey and Brooks, 2002: 44).[1] Thornbury is noted in the Domesday Book of 1086 as having a market as did the nearby towns of Vale, Berkeley and Tewkesbury, and trade connections between them were well established by the end of the 15th century (Verey and Brooks, 2002: 44).

England and Wales combined had a population of some two million inhabitants by 1500 which doubled by the end of the century under Tudor rule, following a period of exceptional growth and inflation (Broadberry, 2015: 20-29). London was by far the largest city in the land, with a population of around 50,000 in 1500; the next largest cities were Exeter, Bristol, Salisbury, Norwich, York and Newcastle which had around 7,000 inhabitants. Oxford, Gloucester, Colchester, Worcester, Coventry, Lynn, Yarmouth and Shrewsbury followed at around 4,000 inhabitants. Farmland and small towns focussed on food production and harvest filled in this network of centers across the country.

Master masons, journeymen and apprentices had to travel across the country to find work, normally on foot, taking their tools along with them. A career for a builder involved travelling both the physical pathways between construction sites and the temporal pathway of skill acquisition from apprentice to journeyman to master mason.[2] If a master were in charge of more than one project, they would have needed to walk between projects regularly to advise on work and carry out work on the difficult parts. Towns developed at intervals of a full-day’s walk, providing shelter and food for people on the move. The space between towns would have been filled with the cadence of walking, the rhythm of breathing and the beating of the heart – a corporeal measuring system that could influence one’s thoughts and imagination along the way.

[1] One day’s walk is equivalent to a seven- to eight-hour walk (or 20 to 30 miles per day) in good conditions. Walking distances have been calculated using Google Maps walking distance tool which would vary from the 15th century walking times and routes. Nonetheless, the space between towns and routes joining them would have roughly fit walking times, with a full day being a critical dimension as it allowed a person to sleep within a town at either end rather than sleeping in the open between towns.

[2] “Career, n.,” in OED Online, accessed June 21, 2020, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/27911. Career meaning a life’s work derives from the Latin “carrus” or wheeled vehicle, and by extension to (French “carrière”), the course over which the vehicle or person traveled in the 16th century. By the 19th century it is used in the contemporary sense. Sennett in The Craftsman (p.265) remarks that the word refers to a well-laid road.