Yo ho ho and a bottle of ……… something?

Bottle image courtesy of University of Lincoln

THE former grocers and newsagents store at 35-37 Sea View Street is the first property on the street to be part of the programme, with several others on Alexandra Road being renovated in the last few years.

CAG Developments Ltd have been restoring the front façade of the building including full reroofing, returning it to its former heritage glory. And the owners are undertaking a full internal refurbishment of the property.

During the early works to the property, excavations were being carried out at the rear of the building in preparation for building foundations of a new extension. Workers had to manually excavate an area, as it was too tight for a small digger to work in.

And it was during these works that a rather unique find was made – a glass bottle, similar in style to those produced several hundred years ago. That wasn’t all though – the bottle was still sealed and liquid contents still inside!

The bottle was retrieved from the property  during a visit to the site by Carol Heidschuster, who is the TH project manager. In agreement with the building owners, the bottle was transferred to the Conservation of Cultural Heritage department at the University of Lincoln for preservation.

Since being found, it has been kept in a temperature and humidity-controlled climate, awaiting treatment and further analysis.

Josephine Mckenzie, Senior Technician for the department, and Ph.D. Researcher, in the School of Humanities and Heritage at University of Lincoln said: “As soon as we found out about the bottle, we were more than happy to help. We have people contact us all the time to ask if we can conserve and analyse objects of a variety different materials – such as glass, metals, ceramics, and textiles, to name a few. In terms of glass objects, to find an intact bottle of this sort of age is unusual. To find one still sealed with the contents is extraordinary.”

As part of the Conservation of Cultural Heritage course, students are paired up with finds that have been taken in by the University for conservation and analysis.

Carol Heidschuster, project manager for the Townscape Heritage works said: “We’ll be following the analysis of this find over the coming year to find out more about the age and contents, and hopefully the reason for why it was buried. We don’t know whether it contains something like urine (it was common for sailors at that time to leave urine in a bottle and bury it at home as a superstition for a safe home coming ), or something like rum! It is known that sailors were given a tot of rum to ward off scurvy. Either way, it will be an extraordinary tale at the end to add to the history and heritage of the property.”

The building owners said: “We always intended to restore the building and the project is going really well. To have this special find is really the icing on the cake, and we can’t wait to see what it holds.”