Zara Yeates BA (Hons) Conservation of Cultural Heritage
Zara Yeates is a a third-year student on the Conservation of Cultural Heritage programme at the University of Lincoln. As a part of their third year students have the opportunity to choose objects to work on for practical experience. This post describes Zara’s work on her object of choice choice for the first semester.
Ralph Weir, Senior Lecturer, Lincoln School of Humanities and Heritage
On a street in Cleethorpes, earlier this year, a remarkable object was found. It was during excavations of 35-37 Seaview street for a renovation project that builders came across an object in the walls of the building. The object was first thought to be an unexploded bomb, but after careful extraction it was discovered to be a glass bottle. Dating from as early as 1790, this bottle proved to be remarkable in two ways, the first being the position in which it was found, upside down, and the second, the bottle was filled to the brim with liquid! Incredibly, the condition of the soil in which it was found has preserved the cork within the bottle, meaning the liquid that was inside when it was buried is still there. As a third year student at the University of Lincoln, studying Conservation of Cultural Heritage, it is my job to conserve the bottle and try to identify the liquid inside.
Figure 1: 18th Century glass bottle Photo by Zara Yeates
Initial research confirmed the bottle was likely made between 1790 and 1849, because the shape of the bottle wasn’t in use until 1790[1]. The bubbles in the glass and the lack of any joining seam show that the bottle was hand-blown without using a mould. This distinguishes it from the overwhelming majority of bottles of this shape, which exhibit seams from a two-part mould first seen in illustrations in 1849[2]. This makes it likely that our bottle was made before this time.
Figure 2: Two piece bottle mould from Lindsey, 2024
As for how long it’s been in the wall, we aren’t certain at the moment, nor are we certain what the liquid is. This is the biggest mystery surrounding the bottle. There are theories as to what the liquid may be, some have suggested alcohol, which would make sense given the shape and type of bottle it is. Others have suggested it may be urine. It was a known practice for people who believed themselves to be the victim of witchcraft to place a “witch’s bottle” within the walls of building to protect against the witch’s magic. The most common ingredient was urine, belonging to the victim, then other personal items that came from the victim such as toe- or fingernails and hair. This would ward against the magic and confuse it if the witch tried to cast a spell on the house or its’ inhabitants. The bottle was normally placed by the hearth or entrance to the house where the magic would try to enter[3]. It may turn out to be neither, but either way if the liquid can be identified, it will tell us something about the people who lived and work in these buildings over 200 years ago.
Figure 3: Example of a witches bottle with nails inside from Historic England, 2016
That’s the wonderful thing about objects from history, they can tell us all about the people who lived at that time and provide us with a link to our past. We can see with our own eyes were we came from and that is an incredible thing.
[1] Jones, Olive.R. (1986). Cylindrical English Wine and Beer Bottles 1735 – 1850. [online] Society for Historical Archaeology. Ottawa: The Minister of the Environment. Available at: https://sha.org/assets/documents/Cylindrical%20English%20Wine%20and%20Beer%20Bottles%20-%20English.pdf [Accessed 23 Sep. 2024].
[2] Dungworth, D. (2012). Three and a Half Centuries of Bottle Manufacture. Industrial Archaeology Review, [online] 34(1), pp.37–50. doi:https://doi.org/10.1179/0309072812z.0000000002.
[3]Merrifield, R. (1955). Witch Bottles and Magical Jugs. Folklore, [online] 66(1), pp.195–207. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1257932 [Accessed 16 Oct. 2024].
Lindsey, B. (2024). Bottle Bases Page. [online] sha.org. Available at: https://sha.org/bottle/bases.htm.
Historic England (2016). The Mysterious Case of the Witch Bottle. [online] The Historic England Blog. Available at: https://heritagecalling.com/2016/10/31/the-mysterious-case-of-the-witch-bottle/ [Accessed 21 Oct. 2024].