Where to find bottle dumps

Blindly searching for Victorian treasures is going to prove very difficult, so we are going to let you know where to look. One of the best places to start looking is on the outskirts of your town or village.

Many towns back in the day would dump all of their rubbish near the edge of the towns, where it would be out of the way. You should also have a look at the surroundings of farm fields. If you are searching in an area that is still being used, make sure to ask for permission first to avoid trespassing. Farms were a lot more popular years ago, so you may have some luck in these areas. Near to river beds and embankments is also a great place to look and is where most people seem to get lucky with their finds.

It was not unlikely for people in the Victorian era to throw all of their rubbish into rivers that were close by. It would then travel with the current of the river and either end up in the ocean, or become discarded in the nearby dry land.

You never know what you might find. Leading on from our last point, the sea or other coastal areas are other places that you should search in. This is because the rubbish that was thrown into the river could have been carried all the way to the sea. Another reason that you should look to the ocean is that Victorian glass bottle companies would often throw their waste over the sides of cliffs and into the sea.

This is how we end up with sea glass on some of our beaches. In some areas, you can find entire bottles and jars that are embedded into the sides of cliffs.

If you see any glass sticking out of a cliff, it is a clear sign that there could be some bottles lurking under the surface, just waiting to be dug out. One sure sign that you are nearing or have reached an old Victorian bottle dump is when you can see rusty metal.

It can be common to find rusted metal in and around bottle dump sites, as they are usually what remains of old barrels and appliances. If you come across this type of metal in large amounts, it can be worth having a dig around to see what you can find.

If nothing turns up, you can continue your search. Another sign that you are close to an old dump is if you can spot glass on the surface of the ground. Whether the surface is sand, mud, or something else, if you can see scattered glass around the ground, you have probably found a bottle dump.

You might only find bits of glass, which you could take home and tumble, but you can also find entire bottles and jars that are still intact. If you find one bottle, there are likely to be more nearby, so try to persevere in your search. One method that is highly recommended by bottle diggers everywhere is to look at Google Maps. If you pull up a site where you think there might be an old Victorian bottle dump, you can look at the area using Google Maps to look at places that may be more difficult to get to.

This could help to save you a difficult wasted journey only to find no signs of a dump nearby. You can look out for signs of debris and glass that could indicate that it is the location of a dump. You can also save the area to your account so that you can go back and look again, or search nearby. You can also try using old maps to pinpoint old bottle dump locations. This method is probably going to be more difficult as you will need to get hold of the maps, but it could be really beneficial in aiding your search.

You can try visiting your local library to see if they have any old maps of the area that you live in, most will, and you can look at the map to determine potential areas of interest. Sometimes, a dump site will be on undeveloped areas of land on the edge of the town, so this is something to look out for. These areas are usually darker on the map, or it could be completely blank.

While these Victorian dumps are often referred to as bottle dumps, bottles are not the only things that you might find. Anything that was dumped along with the rubbish that will not have decomposed over time will still be there.

This can include things like glass, pottery, and the remains of old toys. You never know what you might find there if you look closely enough. Some people have been known to find things like china doll heads and figures. Matt NH. Nice pics. I find the most by asking the old farmers in my area Originally Posted by sunrunner View post in this day and age most suffuse dumps have been dug up every body seems to be looking for a quick buck.

That water pump means there used to be a house there. Originally Posted by kingman mikey View post That water pump means there used to be a house there. Yeah, someone else would have taken it or it would have slowly rusted away.

Originally Posted by Dakotademon7 View post I want to see a pic of it. Originally Posted by amc rulz View post Interesting. All times are GMT The time now is AM. List all sponsors. User Name. Remember Me? Mark Forums Read. Page 1 of 2. Thread Tools. Here's what to look for to find bottle dumps in the woods OK all you bottle hunters, it is now time to hit the woods to look for those bottle dumps before the vegitation hides everything. Find all posts by steveFL.

Find all posts by bzbadger. Join Date: Jan Location: southern mich Posts: 5, Find all posts by amc rulz. Mick56 Senior Member. Find all posts by Mick Matt NH Senior Member.

I love digging old bottles!! Find all posts by Matt NH. IMShooter Elite Member. Another lovely find from a winter low tide is this stunning Schweppes bottle with Royal Coat of Arms Pictorial.

In the s, Hiram Codd invented the marble stopper closure for glass bottles, marking a change in the glass bottle trade. Many of these glass marble stoppers can still be found on the foreshore. Codd bottles also remain to be found on the foreshore in Victorian rubbish dumps, often broken with the neck missing, as kids used to smash Codd bottles to take the marble stopper to play with. Many glass finds from the Victorian period remind us of a darker age, the insecurity of the 19 th Century, the poor living conditions, the ever-present threat of sickness and the sometimes shameful diseases.

Found during monitoring a stretch of the Thames foreshore for Thames Discovery Programme. Medicine glass vial, late 19 th Century to early 20 th Century. It has the number 20 stamped at the bottom so this is a modern find, probably machine-made and mass manufactured locally in London.

It means a lot to me as it was my first almost intact glass find from my favourite muddy patch of the river. I kept it as I found it, uncleaned, because I love the obscure and gloomy feel to it. Sometimes on the Thames foreshore, you also find more obscure and unidentified glass containers recipients, such as the one below.

It is modern in the making, but I cannot specifically date or attribute this one. Over the years, I also came across fragments of quack and poison bottles. Not as many as I would like, I am guessing I would have had more luck if I had ventured to the Thames estuary or outside Central London more often.

Poison bottles often had a hexagonal shape, in a light green, brown or dark blue colour, containing toxic and dangerous chemicals. In addition to all the bottle finds described, you will come across glass waste from glassworks and industrial glass production. Other glass finds from the 19 th Century household were ink bottles, inkwells, kitchenalia items such as Victorian sauce bottles or fire grenades. Fire grenades are rare household items; I still hope I can find some significant fragments one day.

Of course, this article is based on my humble finds, and represents only a small percentage of what you can find on the Thames foreshore or other tidal rivers. Please respect the restrictions on your standard permit as many sites are restricted for searching and digging on standard permits as well.

Consult the foreshore maps prior to your visits. Please respect the archaeology on site and do not excavate, move and remove timbers, anchors, structures or stone features as these are listed and monitored regularly by archaeologists.