Capturing Time in Lambton Archaeological Excavation at the WW1 Memorial Gates Lambton Park - 26 September 2018

7am Under the watchful eyes of the palm trees

8am The gate is off

Gouging out the lime mortar

Tools of trade

9am Securing the lifting straps

Lifted up a bit

Moved to the side

A thin bed of mortar?

Sadly, no Common practice in the day was to place the bottle into a cavity in the foundation, and pack sand around it. However, when this mortar was tapped with a hammer, it was clear that this was very solid concrete.

10am Cutting grooves across the concrete surface, to make small blocks

Chiselling out the small blocks

Cutting more grooves across the surface We didn’t know how deep the glass bottle would be.

More chiselling

And more cutting

Lambton Residents Group members watch on

Deeper and deeper into solid concrete It became apparent that the bottle had been packed into a dry mix of sand and cement, but over time groundwater had turned it into very hard concrete.

What’s this?

Part of a glass stopper!

Collecting glass fragments

More careful chiselling Although we could see the stopper, we didn’t know how wide the bottle might be.

12noon Still more careful cutting

11am Excavating into solid concrete takes time You can see aggregate in the top 75mm layer of concrete. Below that, the sand/cement was finer., but still rock hard.

Removing the other half of the glass stopper

What’s this?

A fragment of waxed newspaper! The glass stopper had been sealed around with newspaper soaked in a waxy substance.

1pm Time to try the hammer drill

Drilling at a safe distance from the glass

1pm A surprise visit from the great grandson of Mary Ott, the Ladies Committee leader in 1917-1918

Even drilling more holes, the bottle would still be tightly bound to the concrete under its base We could all see that the glass was going to keep breaking now matter how carefully we proceeded. So the decision was made to focus on the contents of the bottle, rather than the bottle itself.

Clearing a wider area around the bottle

Depth about 200mm

Brush loose dust away

2pm Fragments of paper!

What’s this?

A rolled up newspaper, damp but not saturated

Chipping away the glass The concrete wasn’t going to peel cleanly away from the glass

Fortunately, the bottle was not full of water The waxy paper had done its job well.

Got it! Seeing the light of day after 100 years!

And a coin There was no parchment with names, however the rolled newspaper felt like it had more in it than just paper.

What was left of the bottle

3pm A modern coin placed in the bottle, a layer of clean yellow sand, then a layer of sand and cement dust

Topped with mortar

The pillar was placed back in position

4pm The gates reinstalled

And lastly, mortar around the base

Nine hours without a break. “Thank you, Harry Nine hours without a break! “Thank you, Harry!” (5th generation stonemason)