{"id":2745,"date":"2015-05-15T17:43:38","date_gmt":"2015-05-15T17:43:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.guyburch.co.uk\/?p=2745"},"modified":"2020-05-14T18:22:22","modified_gmt":"2020-05-14T18:22:22","slug":"bottle-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.guyburch.co.uk\/?p=2745","title":{"rendered":"Bottle story"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Bottle <\/a><\/p>\n

Not an area that most people think of when the subject of antiques comes up. It is a surprising one once you get hooked. I was aged 16 when I started to dig on a Victorian rubbish dump at the site of the old Crayford Brickworks.\u00a0Most people think digging on a rubbish dump must be like scavenging on a dump in India but the Victorian sites have long composted and in any case\u00a0are more likely to consist of compacted brick dust and ash than anything that is a health risk. Mind you, everything from elephant skeletons to bottles filled with dried poison might turn up on them.\u00a0The majority of items that interest collectors are the ’empties’ from a typical 18th, 19th or early Edwardian shop.\u00a0This might be a perfume bottle, a pot lid, clay pipes or shop display figures. It might be a sealed wine bottle or a quack medicine, a curiously patented poison or an enamel advertising sign.<\/p>\n