This pottery bottle was discovered over 50 years ago in a bell pit from which coal had been mined on farmland in Wrenthorpe. Its owner must have been a miner who left it behind after drinking the contents with his lunch. It probably contained beer or ale.

The miner could have been a woman or a child, as the bottle dates from long before the law forbade women and children to be employed underground. The bottle was made nearby at the potteries in Wrenthorpe, so perhaps bottles like this were cheap and easy to get hold off.

The bottle probably dates from between the late 1600s and 1785, by which time the potteries had ceased production. There is nothing like this in the Wrenthope pottery left behind by Royalist soldiers at Sandal Castle during the Civil War in the 1640s, so it is almost certainly later. This was found in a bell pit, which is unusual at this date. Usually miners had gone on to mine coal by the ‘pillar and stall’ method before the 1600s. Perhaps the coal was so near the surface at this spot, that it was still easier to use the old method.

The owner of this pot wasn’t the only careless miner round here. Another similar bottle made at Wrenthorpe potteries was found in 1958 in 17th century mine workings at Sharlston Common.  Another miner left a boot behind in the 16th century, which was found in 1957 when opencast mining destroyed ‘pillar and stall’ mine workings at Birkwood Hill, Altofts.