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Vegetable plot dig unearths crop of vintage bottles

Eben Leonard
BBC News
Zoe Brown Rows and rows of bottles stacked on wood planks in a garden. Some of the bottles are large and reddy brown, others are more like jars. In another row there are green and clear glass bottles. Zoe Brown
A family unearthed more than a thousand vintage bottles in their back garden

Scratching the surface of a planned vegetable plot in a back garden has been a journey of discovery for one family.

Underneath a mound of earth and nestled away for decades on a property in Pontypool, Torfaen, were more than 1,000 vintage bottles.

Some beer bottles and medicinal glass jars have been brought to the surface - but their existence in just one spot is "puzzling", said mum-of-two Zoe Brown.

"We started digging and found there's loads of rubbish - we went a metre down and found a whole bottle and thought this is really cool - maybe there's more stuff.

"It got absolutely out of hand."

Zoe said after they moved the family decided to "do the house up a bit at first" but there was a nice outdoor space to decided to work on that, and "maybe grow some veg".

Upon finding the bottles she said she emailed a lady who told her that before the war people had to get rid of their own rubbish, and said "if you go any deeper you will find out more".

Zoe Brown The entire pile of bottles with two children standing behind them. A little girl with blonde hair and a white dress is holding her arms above her head and the little boy in a white t-shirt is holding something in his hands. There are rows and rows of clear, green and brown bottles of different shapes and sizes in front of them. Zoe Brown
Zoe Brown found out there used to be a rubbish tip in the area

"There's quite a lot all over the place, we found an old wall there as well. Glasses were popping up we were picking them out, there's over 1,000 bottles altogether - we picked loads out but some of them are still in the garden."

After using a mechanical digger and finding more than they anticipated - Zoe decided to call it a day.

"I washed hundreds of them out and my boy Reg and my little girl Tilly chose the ones they liked."

Zoe Brown Close up on the clear end green bottles Zoe Brown
The Brown family found more than 1,000 vintage bottles after they started digging up their garden

As well brewery bottles from Abersychan, Rhymney, Newport and Cardiff there were also vintage bottles featuring Abergavenny's Morgans and Evans.

"There's loads of brewery ones - and little jars like the ones from Boots the Chemist with little tablespoon marks on the side, and one find was like a bottle of hair gel with a comb marking on it - where you dip the comb in and wash your hair.

"I emailed some auction places but there's too much to go through. We wheeled them up to the back of the garden - some of them had liquids in them so we had to be careful."

Zoe added: "We've got loads of flowers there now- rather than grow veg because of the liquids we found. We knew the area had glass in it because when it rains glass keeps on popping up.

"Part of you wants to keep going but where do you cut off? It got to the point where it's level and that's enough.

"There's easy 1000 little jars and bottles which have come out."