Let’s set the scene. The husband and I went detecting in a friends garden. (We had permission to be there) the house was built in 1659, is grade 1 listed and is next door to a Saxon church. ‘This could be interesting’ I thought to myself.
So we arrived and the lawn is immaculate. We announced we were there and the owner said to carry on, and we did. A few holes later and I had accumulated the following objects. Can anyone tell me what the silvery thing is?? The ring is also unusual. It has very find line details all along the outer edge and has a subtle but distinct design to the shape.
Anyway, I got an unusual signal, so, naturally, I dug it. I got very excited at what I thought was a bronze bowl. I was wrong....I still don’t know what it was, but either way it’s now in the trash. What surprised me was that once I removed the bronze bowl imposter, I saw the neck of a bottle beneath it. I extended the hole and dug it out......
I then saw another, and another....bottles just appearing in this non-descript hole in the middle of the garden. With the owner’s permission we extended the hole again.
Iron was coming out left right and centre. Some iron objects, but mainly whole sections of a containers. What we realised is that the bottles and these iron objects had all been buried in several large iron boxes 8” beneath the grass.....a collection of Victorian bottles, iron tankards/oval boxes and the odd figurine and a very odd black brick with a makers stamp??.....what was happening??
3 hours later and the hole was around 2.5ft square.
I made it my mission to fully excavate this burial (with enthusiasm from the owner who kept taking pictures for the newsletter
) and after removing all the outer shells of the iron as I went, I finally reached the outer soil walls and had retrieved all the items within. I did not start my day expecting to find a bottle burial while a searched a perfectly ordinary garden, and I doubt it’ll happen again, but since I asked Easylife on his post ‘how can you accidentally come across a bottle dump’, I can now eat my own words.
I am still welcome to go back to the garden at any time.
Crikey that's a good haul from one hole. 
Seriously though the bottle dump must have been fun. Love the codd bottle. Is the silver thin actually silver or a white metal? It’s hard to tell in photos.
