Digging up Wrexham's bottling history

What started out as a fun activity with his granddad as a youngster, is now a hobby for Adam Mercer.

The 28-year-old now collects and documents antique bottles of the town, mostly from the Victorian and Edwardian era, when bottles were mouth-blown into moulds.

Drinking bottles from this era would have their lips manually applied to the mouth-blown bottle.

Finishing techniques used on cheap bottles, typically consumables, such as sauces and inks would be left unfinished, exhibiting a rough/jagged finish from being burst, sheared or cracked from the blowpipe.

Tooled finishing techniques were also used to smooth or form the lips of bottles, commonly found on bottles for pharmaceutical products and the like.

Manufacturing techniques used to produce machined-made bottles became more popular throughout 1920s.

Here he explains more about the beautiful bottles and the original processes of creating them...

Popular types of mineral water bottles, from left to right: a flat-bottomed cylinder (crown cork top), codd bottle, standard half-pint blob top beer bottle, stone ginger beer bottle, dumpy blob top seltzer bottle, bullet bottle (with internal bullet-

My fascination with the Victorian/Edwardian period started when I was at primary school, but it wasn't until my granddad took me 'bottle hunting' on Thursdays, after school, that my interest in bottles began.

We used to look around the local park banks and a couple of local spots where the soil had been turned over, to try and spot old bottles sticking out of the ground. We'd pull out anything that we spotted and take it home to clean.

It was at this time that I found my first full 'codd bottle' along with a few Wrexham beer bottles, stone ink pots and clay pipes.

The codd bottle was the smaller 6oz size (standard sizes were 6oz and 10oz), and was embossed with 'The Dee Mineral Water Co., Chester'.

Since then, it was lost, and so, over a decade later, I became interested in the hobby again and set out to find another one.

The codd bottle is one of my favourite types to collect. It's a type of bottle which typically used a glass marble, captivated inside a chamber, to seal the bottle.

These bottles were used to contain carbonated/aerated beverages. The internal pressure of the beverage would seal the bottle by pushing the marble into the neck of the bottle, against a rubber seal, which would sit in a groove in the lip.

This can be seen on the J.F Edisbury & Co. example below (third from the right), where the seal is still in place.

Wrexham's 10oz codd bottles of Adam Mercer, including the J.F Edisbury & Co. (third from the right).

These seals dry up over time and shrink, so they are often found at the bottom of the bottle.

The marble chambers have a horizontal pitch (indented from the front and rear side) to prevent the marble dropping to the very bottom, they also have pinches part way up the chamber (also indented from the front and read side) which held the marble clear of the neck, while the drink was being poured.

The Eagle Brewery codd pictured above (centre), has a Dobson's patent, which is characterised by the double pinches (four indentations in total, two front and two rear), which are more circular in shape compared with the regular tear drop shape.

Codd bottles have a multitude of patented designs. The codd bottle was invented by Mr. Hiram Codd, who received a number of British and US patents for his bottle between 1870 and 1873.

The codd bottle was in popular use by aerated mineral water manufacturers for the following 50+ years. Some countries, such as India and Japan, still use them to this day.

They were opened by pushing the marble down into the bottle by hand, or with a codd bottle opener. Children would often break these bottles to get the marble out, which is why a lot of them that are unearthed, have the marble chamber smashed, which is often referred to as the bottle being "necked".

In the winter of 2020, I got the opportunity to dig a friend's field, whom I'd met through the hobby. The field was the site of an old mineral works bottle dump.

Here, I dug over 200 broken codds, a handful of intact codds, a few stone ginger beers bottles and fair few ceramic tops from swing top bottles.

It was the bottle dump of the George Thomas Mineral Works. The codds all appeared to have been purposely broken by the works, as the dump was full of the marbles, of which, I took home about 600.

Picture of each type of bottle that Adam Mercer recovered at the George Thomas Mineral Works dump, including three of the different ceramic tops found.

This hobby has introduced me to many new friends, most of which I've come to know though Facebook groups for the bottle digging and collecting community, which have thousands of members across the country.

There are several dedicated bottle shows across the country throughout the year, where diggers and collectors gather to sell/trade their finds or collections.

My favourite find is a Soames stone ginger beer bottle, which is pictured below along with a selection of other local bottles that I've found myself.

Local finds by Adam Mercer, including one of his favourites, a Soames stone ginger beer bottle.

The Soames ginger beer bottle is stamped "Bourne, Denby, 1". Unlike stamps used by some other pottery works, the number on the Bourne, Denby stamps relate to the date, and so, this bottle dates to the year 1901.

Soames Brewery was situated at the Nag's head and surrounding buildings. Their chimney, built in 1894, is now an iconic Wrexham landmark.

Some of my personal favourite glass mineral water bottles in my collection are pictured below.

Some of Adam Mercer's favourite glass mineral water bottles from his collection.

Included are seltzers, bullets and codds, which are my favourite types of bottle to collect, as well as early patents and stone ginger beers.

This year I decided to make my own website, dedicated to photographing and documenting Wrexham's antique bottles.

On the site, there are photos of local bottles of all varieties, from breweries, mineral water works, wine & spirit merchants and chemists.

I also have a want list section for my personal collection and a trade list.

Not everything pictured on the site belongs to me; many I have photographed from other collections.

Bottles at the top of my personal want list include Thompson & Co. codds (10oz and 6oz), Eagle Brewery Co. codd (6oz), The Botanic & Mineral Water Co. stone ginger beers (five know types), and any patent or early bottles, seltzers or stone ginger beers from the Eagle Brewery Co., R. Evans & Co. and Wallis & Co.

Anyone is welcome to make a contribution to the site, or get in touch if you have any old bottles. I'm always interested, as I never know what I might find.

To get in touch visit www.wrexhamantiquebottles.co.uk or the Facebook page - Wrexham Antique Bottles.