Rectangular aqua bottle, with tooled lip. ‘Chivers & Sons Ltd, Histon, Cambridge’. The Cambridge Lemonade’. Transported to Castle Rising by rail. The powder made up to 2 gallons (32 glasses) of lemonade.
Lemonade Powder
Food and Drink, Transport
Rectangular aqua bottle, with tooled lip. ‘Chivers & Sons Ltd, Histon, Cambridge’. The Cambridge Lemonade’. Transported to Castle Rising by rail. The powder made up to 2 gallons (32 glasses) of lemonade.
We found a bottle like this buried in our old shed. Does anyone know how old it is?
These bottles from Chivers date from the 1910s. By the 1920s they were made in an automatic bottling machine, and so the mould seam of later bottles runs all the way up the side and through the lip, to the top of the bottle.
Have just uncovered one of these bottles in Rode, Somerset. (May 2018). It was with many other broken bottles used as fill around a clay drain. This land was owned by the local brewery and we have found many broken bottles but also two complete ones which are now in Frome Museum, I have also found two glass balls used as stoppers in that type of bottle.
Hello Roger, thanks for sending this information. It’s useful for plotting the spread of packaged products around the country. When we dug a site in Diss, Norfolk, in 2015, we also found glass and ceramic waste used as packing around a drain – or at least tipped on top of it in the hole. In this context it may have had a soak-away function. We have excavated a few soak-aways of this sort in flower beds, which were meant to assist drainage. Tom.
Found two of these off the beaten track in Hillhouse Woods, Colchester, Essex!
Think they must have been unearthed during yesterday’s storm.
we were exploring a nearby river and found 3 bottles, one of which had the similarities of this bottle. The river is located in Herefordshire. we were wondering if you had any more info about how and when it got here.
Hello Anita, thanks for getting in touch. People have always thrown empty bottles into rivers. It may have been discarded by someone having a picnic. Beer bottles were often thrown in rivers when men came home from the pub. Sometimes, however, rivers were used for large-scale refuse dumping, which sometimes occurred along their banks to fill in old clay pits or help build up flood defences. Backwaters could become sites of unofficial tipping. In the age before regular rural waste collection (often not until the 1950s), people in the countryside had to get rid of their rubbish however they could. Tom.
Found one of these bottles yesterday at East Clayton Farm, Washington, West Sussex. It was poking out of the bank of George’s Lane that runs north off the Storrington Road.
My husband just found one of these bottles behind our garden whilst rescuing our fence that had fallen down. There’s a steep drop behind our garden into what was in the 1900s a gravel pit. (Now woodland)
Ive just unearthed one in Barnham West Sussex. it is complete somehow, as i was digging with a Mattock.. Early 20th Century Red Bull then was it??
I like the analogy. People do seem to have taken this product everywhere and used it as a pick-me-up.
Just found one in our garden. We live in the Highlands (about 4 miles west of Loch Ness and Drumnadrochit) – have previously found others here. Interested to find out a little more about the original product via this website.
While living in my first marital home we had to have the septic tank replaced. All around it were dozens of intact vintage bottles Inc one of these older ones without seam to the lip. Lots of venos cough tincture bottles,pan Yan pickle jars with lids, daddies sauce glass stoppers with bottles,Justin Brooke little milk bottles (he was a local fruit farmer and more recently arable,and pigs), loads of Eiffel tower lemonade bottles Inc one embossed Maidstone. Dozens of green glass stoppers, scrubbs vintage ammonia bottles,Fletcher’s sauce which is embossed Selby. Venos lightning cough cure in a lovely blue bottle,unless & viret mineral waters codd embossed Halstead & haverhill, moss & po otters pure aerated waters embossed Thetford & Brandon, wooton & Reece codd bossed haverhill this is a ginger beer bottle. Loads of Avon vintage perfume bottles and glass ink bottles. These were all packex round the septic tank and after I heard breaking glass I rushed out to see the digger destroying hundreds in one swoop. I rescued the best and easier ones to get too,sadly the rest were smashed!
Thanks for sharing the story, Sylvia. The material you describe sounds like it dates from the 1920s. We have come across other examples of rubbish being used to fill in old drains and cesspits and to create soak-aways. Glad you salvaged some of the material.
Just dug one up in my garden in Stoke by Nayland, Suffolk!
I forgot to add to that little list my lovely square shaped bottle with its original label attached. Tincture of myrrh. W.k.harrison ltd. Qualified chemist. 25 Hyde park rd. Leeds 6.
Several of my bottles and stone jars have a northern connection to them.
came across one side of small stream in pleasley vale.,in mansfield woodhouse ,notts. now we know they packed bottles around old drains,will have another look as we found quite a lot of broken brown drains too. 10,7,20.
We just found one in tongham surrey in tact aswell on our building site found 100s of bottles in tact
I have a bottle which has the seam all the way up so after 1920 then I guess and it has a ‘losenge’ on the bottom with U G B 6 stamped on it. The Cambridge Lemonade stamped on one side and Chiver’s & Sons Histon Cambridge on the other side. I found the bottle amongst several that had been disgarded into an old bottle dump in Ingatestone, Essex … There is also another bottle found close to it but only has UGB C 11 stamped on the bottom. From this I deduce that UGB were bottle manufacturers.
I have just found this little bottle in my backyard whilst digging to level the ground. It’s got U C B 2 at the bottom. We’re in south Lincolnshire
Just found one of these in our garden in Cornwall, and a few others, namely a bovril bottle !
found one at a local car boot in Bedford for 20p…….minus stopper but unbroken
My son and I found one of these bottles today in a dried up pond near my house! We live in hedsor bucks
We have just found one of these in a local field which is apparently an old dump site in
Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire.
Amazed it is still complete.
I’ve had one on my windowsill for years. I thought it just had a tiny amount of lemonade in it, never occurred it was powder ! From my garden in Thaxted. Pat.
Just dug up a Chivers and Sons lemonade bottle, with no seam, in our back garden. We bought our house in June 2021 and it is a former pub, we’re the first inhabitants to own it as a house.Property dates from the 17th century so here’s hoping for some more finds…