ANCIENT WINE

Waikato Independent, Volume XXXV, Issue 3265, 5 February 1935, Page 3

ANCIENT WINE

BOTTLE 25.0 YEAES OLD INTERESTING DISCOVERY AT COLCHESTER. A 'bottle of wine, upwards of 250 years old, was recently unearthed in Colchester at a depth of about three feet, and' is now in possession of the Colchester Museum. The discovery (says the Wine Trade Review) is of distinct importance from several points of view—it provides the museum with a choice and very well preserved specimen of a glass wine vessel of the iStuart period (When such vessels first came into extensive use); it is, so far as is known, the only bottle of such antiquity to be found complete with contents, and is, moreover, an interesting link with a family of tradespeople of Flemish refugee origin, who were prominent in the affairs of the town for two centuries or more. The bottle dates from about 16501700. It is of Benedictine shape, and, in common with all such 'bottles of the Stuart period, is of pale green glass, which has turned iridescent owing to devitrification. Stuart wine bottles often bore the monogram of a tradesman or an inn-sign. In this case the bottle bears the trade mark of the "Twisted posts and pots," surrounded by the words, "Thomas Great of Colchester."

Thomas Great, who died in. 1772, carried on. a long-established apothecary's business at premises in High Street, near the Red Lion Hotel. His grandfather, Samuel Great, a son of Samuel de Groot, of Colchester, a brewer, was apprenticed to Robert Buxton, one of the original holders of the business, who 'became an alderman and Mayor of the borough, and was noted for his support of the Royalist cause. Samuel Great, who died in 1701, succeeded to the business, which he willed to his son Thomas, to whom the bottle relates, the latter being succeeded <by his son Charles. The sign of the Great family—two posts with the Jacobean twist, surmounted by pots —formerly stood on the sidewalk outside their shop. Members of the Great family were also noted as vendors of candied eringo root, an expensive delicacy reputed to possess considerable medicinal and! aphrodisiac qualities. Colchester was for several centuries celebrated for the manufacture of this commodity. The 'bottle, which had a wooden stopper, contained a greenish liquid, which is thought to be sloe wine, which was a .popular beverage at the period in question. The liquid- is to be analysed. The bottle is accompanied by a black glazed drinking- mug of Stock ware, dating from about 16G0, and is therefore, the type- of vessel into which the contents of such a bottle would be poured .before being consumed. This- ware was manufactured at the village of Stock, near Chelmsford.

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