Pickers!

The beach was littered with glass pickers, making the most of the last sunny day of the week no doubt.  It's true, there's not as much glass as there used to be but we still found a respectable amount of small coloured glass bits including a new - to us - bright orange piece.

The biggest surprise of the day we found when we were having a sandwich below the cliffs.  See extra.  This black glass, hand made/mouth blown bottle base was all that remained of one that was probably made around 1750-1800.  The style is typical of the time, the Seaham Bottle Company and Sunderland Ayres Quay Glass Company didn't start mechanised production until 1850's. The deep pontil marked base - but no seam - confirms the production method and the lack of any manufacturers embossed lettering tends to confirm it.  There are no seam marks anywhere so it was a rolled piece.  The narrow shape and black glass would suggest a beer bottle.  It hasn't been in the sea so it must have fallen onto the beach from a rubbish tip at the top of the cliffs.  Sunderland Corporation tipped the towns rubbish in pits along the coast between there and Seaham.  It is also likely that the discarded bottle was accidentally broken in use as early bottles were expensive and would be returned to the publican to be refilled.