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

2. 7am Under the watchful eyes of the palm trees

3. 8am The gate is off

4. Gouging out the lime mortar

5. Tools of trade

6. 9am Securing the lifting straps

7. Lifted up a bit

8. Moved to the side

9. A thin bed of mortar?

10. 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.

11. 10am Cutting grooves across the concrete surface, to make small blocks

12. Chiselling out the small blocks

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

14. More chiselling

15. And more cutting

16. Lambton Residents Group members watch on

17. 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.

18. What’s this?

19. Part of a glass stopper!

20. Collecting glass fragments

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

22. 12noon Still more careful cutting

23. 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.

24. Removing the other half of the glass stopper

25. What’s this?

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

27. 1pm Time to try the hammer drill

28. Drilling at a safe distance from the glass

29. 1pm A surprise visit from the great grandson of Mary Ott, the Ladies Committee leader in 1917-1918

30. 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.

33. Clearing a wider area around the bottle

34. Depth about 200mm

35. Brush loose dust away

36. 2pm Fragments of paper!

38. What’s this?

39. A rolled up newspaper, damp but not saturated

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

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

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

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

44. What was left of the bottle

45. 3pm A modern coin placed in the bottle, a layer of clean yellow sand, then a layer of sand and cement dust

46. Topped with mortar

47. The pillar was placed back in position

48. 4pm The gates reinstalled

49. And lastly, mortar around the base

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