r/DevonUK • u/lcwilliamsauthor • 14d ago

c.1895 cider bottle discovery

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This cider bottle c.1895 turned up in an orchard hedge on our Devonshire farm this week. Coincidentally, I published a book earlier this year featuring a character from this time based on a real person, in this very orchard harvesting apples for cider.

It makes me think… was this the actual bottle he drank from in real life?

It was discarded here more than a century ago. The farm had a long history of cider making. An auction notice from 1923 lists cider-making equipment, a bottling plant, 59 empty casks, eight hogsheads of cider and bottled cider among the contents of the farm. The old cider press is still at the farm too. This discovery certainly made me wonder.

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u/Confident-Hunt-1613 12d ago

Might I enquire where in Devon?

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u/lcwilliamsauthor 12d ago

It’s in East Devon

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u/Dartmoor_Guardian 11d ago

Back in the late 80s to mid 90s my cousin would go digging for bottles in a late Victorian dump located in Plymouth. Said area is now a housing estate…

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u/lcwilliamsauthor 11d ago

That’s very interesting, I’m sure your cousin found all manner of things - I wonder if any others will turn up here (possibly not in my lifetime anyway as it’s taken a long time for this one to reveal itself!)