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The Grampound Times
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Edition 50

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A Different Harvest

For many years I have been aware that a mound of soil  that occupied a corner of my garden, up against the eastern boundary, could, perhaps contain something of interest.   The land belonging to the property must have been cultivated for at least a couple of hundred years and because in the normal process of digging and planting during my time very little in the way of artefacts had come to light  -  just the occasional broken clay pipe and pieces of broken glass and china  -  it occurred to me that the mound could contain domestic rubbish.   There were originally four cottages on the property (now three) and their occupants must have had somewhere to deposit anything of an unwanted nature before the local authority organised regular rubbish collection.

I started on the mound in late Autumn of last year by first removing a tangle of ivy, rusted wire netting, and hawthorn seedlings that covered it, and then started to dig a trench through the middle, searching carefully through the excavated soil, a time consuming business as every spadeful could, potentially harbour something of interest.   What was revealed, right from the start, was the quantity of broken glass and china that suggested that domestic bliss was not always in evidence in one or more of the households.   The pieces of china and earthenware were easy to find but small shards of glass had to be picked out painstakenly as the soil, once cleared of any hazard, could be used elsewhere in the garden.

In no particular order the contents of the mound so far can be listed as follows:  glass and china, animal bones (probably pig and sheep), tins so rusted that they crumble to the touch, leather boots and shoes in various states of decay, rocks in many different sizes, pieces of rusted iron of an indeterminate nature, cooking pots and tea pots, earthenware containers, sauce bottles, Camp Coffee bottles, medicine bottles, scent bottles.   The bottles are in great number and the surprising thing is that so few of them are broken, though packed tight in the soil and other debris.   Many of them, especially the smaller ones, once cleaned up, are of quite considerable decorative value.   Besides the glass bottles there are a number of small clay beakers with a very attractive cream-coloured glaze, and ink pots roughly made in red clay.

Up to the present (mid-February) I have investigated perhaps half of the mound.   It has been a very useful activity during the winter months when the weather has prevented any meaningful work in the garden.   Once Spring comes I shall have to do other things and resist the temptation to continue my investigations, strong though the temptation is to continue.   As I dig deeper I hope to find a few clues that may determine the age of what is there;   so far there is nothing of any great age that has come to light – my guess is the period 1900 to 1930 but it is only a guess.   If anyone who reads this has any knowledge of, or interest in, social history, then they are very welcome to come and see what I have been up to.

JOHN ANDERSON
No. 1 Broadhurst, Fore Street, Grampound