A gardening expert shared his excitement over a series of unexpected discoveries made while landscaping the garden of his newly-acquired 450-year old property.
Known for dispensing horticultural wisdom on social media, Mark’s recent video took an intriguing turn as he unearthed the variety of mysterious items from his back garden. Speaking on TikTok in front of his historic cottage, an enthusiastic Mark (@markshouseandgardenuk) mused: “Just imagine the lives that have passed through this space over 450 years.”
He added: “I’ve only lived here two-and-a-half years, but when you buy a property like this, you have to realise you’re also buying a 450-year history.” The unusual finds were discovered as Mark was busy with various gardening tasks, including digging out a wildlife pond.
He noted: “What you have to remember is 450 years ago they didn’t have refuse collection – nobody used to turn up on a Monday morning to empty your bin,” and “so a lot of that rubbish just got thrown into a pit in the garden”.
Pointing to his discoveries, Mark said: “In the process of digging several of my holes I have unearthed these unusual and interesting objects. I’ve got no idea what some of these are.”
Holding them aloft, he elaborated: “These are little clay pots which are remarkably intact considering their potential age and time under the ground. What are they for?” Mark then turned his attention to a collection of glass bottles of various shapes, sizes and colours. “These have a few more visual clues,” he observed.
“This one has Hankinson’s Alterine written on the side,” he said, before displaying further examples that appeared to list volumes in millilitres embossed on the side. Other bottles bore the inscriptions ‘Hall’s Wine and Tonic’ and ‘G. F. and A. Brown and Sons, Nantwich and Crewe’.
Concluding his clip, Mark commented: “I hope you found that interesting,” as he set off to conduct some research of his own. And it seems the gardener has unearthed a bit of treasure – a very similar piece matching the Hankinson’s Alterine bottle is currently listed for £75 on eBay and dates back to the 1920s. An identical bottle to Mark’s Hall’s Wine and Tonic is also listed on the same platform for around £40, dating back to 1910.
Several G. F. and A. Brown and Sons bottles are also listed on eBay, meanwhile, more moderately priced despite being around a century old.
Bottle digging is actually an increasingly popular hobby in the UK, with many history enthusiasts eager to dig up a piece of the past themselves. According to Discover the Outdoors, the pastime, also known as dump digging, involves researching old maps to locate historical rubbish dumps and then digging in the area to uncover items buried in the ground.
“You can find a wide variety of things, including Victorian bottles, antiques, and even collectibles,” the website adds. “Sometimes on bottle digging sites you can find antique bottles on the surface, but other times you may have to dig several feet down before you find anything.
“These bottle digging sites can be up to centuries old, but usually they date back to the Victorian era and the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The main target of bottle digging is the search for antique bottles and other forgotten objects from the past.”
“Early 1900s, jam/preserve pots,” one TikTok user told Mark, positive he’d identified the purpose of the clay pots. Another responded: “Green beer bottles and others are mainly medicine. Dig deeper for hopefully older items.”
A third explained: “The Hankinson’s Alterine bottle would’ve been from around the early 1900s and it was a veterinary medicine often used on cattle.” While a fourth encouraged: “You need a metal detector. You don’t need to spend a lot on one, nice place to find things. “Just imagine the lives that have passed through this space over 450 years.”
