An Old Bottle

This is an old Patterson's Camp Coffee bottle, pre the invention of a screw top... filled with a little bit of reddery! Very often when beating we find ourselves having to hang around in places where old cottages had their middens. I'm not an avid bottle collector or my house would be full, but I know people that have collected many hundreds, some of which are now very valuable.

Before the days of bin collections, everyone still had to dispose of their own household rubbish. Middens were simply dumps, often near houses where everything that could no longer be used or recycled together with the family's biological waste was collected.
As you can imagine this practice goes far further back than just recent history. Men have always rejoiced on finding an old midden to search through for discarded articles that become valuable with time. Many finds solve the mysteries of our past history. There are those that seek out the middens of the Pharaohs, those who search for Victoriana, and those that content themselves by skip shopping at the local tip.

This area has been inhabited since very early history and there is even a neolithic camp nearby. From their flints and axes through to early coins, pottery, pipes and of course the first bottles it is really incredible what can be found if you keep your eyes open.

Of course, nobody will object to your keeping a flint from a field but many artefacts have to be declared and rightly so. This bottle is a common object and doesn't fit within the laws of treasure... yet! Give it another couple of hundred years!

Thank you all for the wonderful comments, stars and hearts for my tartan skies yesterday. I wasn't expecting the reaction.