Hidden treasures and secret stashes among the stones

The boom time was from 1760 and 1845 during the Enclosures Acts. Many of the fields created then derived from poor, stony grazing land and improvement involved moving the surface stone to the edge of the new “field”.

This hard labour reaped two major advantages – it cleared the land and delivered the raw material for the boundary wall. Away from the rocky uplands in the fertile valleys the boundaries of choice were either ditches or hedges – neither of which were really an option on the uneven, windswept hillsides.

The result was some 180,000 miles of dry stone walls and it was quite common during construction for the wallers to leave mementos in their completed walls and occasionally these are rediscovered when repairing gaps or during rebuilds. I have come across remnants of clay pipes in walls – in one case maybe ten or a dozen in a 30 yard stretch. It seems dry stone walls have become the rubbish bins of the local populations throughout the ages, but sometimes I come across items of greater interest. Last week I found a wide-necked half-pint milk bottle with an illegible name and address and a three digit telephone number which must date it at about 50 years old at least. Apart from discarded bits of agricultural machinery, bottles are the most common find in farm walls. Surprisingly most of these did not contain alcohol but are in the main medicine bottles and are graduated on the sides often with the word “Poison” embossed on the front.

A couple of months ago I came across a bottle, maybe half a pint, unsealed but full of smelly rainwater and wool.

Embossed on it was “Osmond’s Oxygas” and by a small amount of research I discovered an advert this newspaper adverts from October 1916.

“OSMONDS OXYGAS is made up from new drugs which were unknown a few years ago. OXYGAS is delivered internally, it goes straight to the udder bag, kills the disease germs and eradicates the fever and inflammation. OSMONDS OXYGAS cures MAMMITIS and all udder troubles. OXYGAS is most effective because it works from the inside.”

It was priced at 33 shillings a gallon – £1.65 in today’s currency but a tidy sum in the Great War. I took the bottle up to Geoff with his bill (which he always moans about). “I always knew this was a wealthy farm Geoff – your forebears could afford to spend two bob on a bottle of udder drench for mastitic cows. There must be a good living here!” Geoff’s reply is not printable, as small dairy farmers are being heavily leaned on by the large supermarkets and dairies.

The most exciting bottle I found was one hiding under a large through stone in a wall I was rebuilding. It was a Codd-neck bottle – specially designed for fizzy drinks incorporating a captured glass ball in the neck to prevent the escape of the gas. Apparently most of these bottles were broken by children so they could rescue the glass ball (known as Ali Bops) for games of marbles.

A few years ago a walling friend of mine noticed a stone had been loosened from the wall close to the gateway of his outbarn. On investigation he found the stone could be easily lifted out and a plastic bag of suspicious white powder was hidden behind.

He was slightly shocked and taken aback at this find but not half as much as the drug dealers were when, returning to claim their hoard one night, they were greeted by the local constabulary waiting behind the wall.

billytopstone@hotmail.com