14-05-2025
Over 1000 antique bottles dug up from Pontypool Garden
36-year-old mum of two Zoe Brown just wanted to dig a veg patch with her family when she started finding buried rubbish and bottles hidden in her garden.
Zoe said: 'We moved in a year ago. The kids and I are budding gardeners and want to be able to grow our own veg for Christmas.
'Last weekend we decided to dig up the veg patch, we dug down a metre deep trying to find clear soil, but it was absolutely riddled with rubbish.'
Tillie Woodhouse 4 with sibling Reg Woodhouse 3 and over 1000 vintage bottles (Image: Zoe Brown) Zoe added: 'We were pretty annoyed at the start but then we found the Morgans and Evans Abergavenny brewery bottle and thought it was really cool! From there it just became a family effort.
'My little boy and his dad were on the digger; my daughter and I were on picking and wheeling.
'We were digging the glass up by the bucket load, so it went from horror to excitement pretty quick!'
Over 1000 antique bottles dug up from Pontypool Garden (Image: Zoe Brown) Most of the bottles found were old brewery bottles some of which from brewers in Merthyr, Rumney, Newport and Cardiff.
However, alongside old alcohol bottles the family also discovered 'poison bottles' many dating back to the Victorian era.
Zoe explained: 'We have found out that the poison bottles were most likely medical bottles, they made them green and ribbed because many people years ago were illiterate.
'The colours indicated that it was poison, it changed then under the poisons act because the colours of the glass were attractive to children.'
Old beer bottles from a Newport Brewery hidden in a Pontypool garden (Image: Zoe Brown) The family's new project has been time consuming.
Zoe said: 'It's taken us this weekend to wash them all. Some still have their lids on so we left them. There's over 1000 bottles.
'Apparently before WW2 people were responsible for their own rubbish so that's probably why there was so much in one place!'
