Digging at Grantham

Many East Midlands and Lincolnshire diggers know of the main Grantham tip. The tip is next to the old incinerator which was built in the 1880s. This was demolished in the 1960s and replaced with factory units. Part of the tip has always been accessible and has been dug on and off for the last 20 years or so. Part of the tip, situated within the factory compound has been subjected to occasional illegal digging over the last few years, much to the annoyance of the factory's owner. This digging has caused several trees to topple over and has cost the owner several hundred pounds to clear up. My digging colleagues and I always keep an eye on known tips, mainly to see if any building work is taking place. On one of these trips, Sean Gallagher noticed that the tip had been dug recently and left in a right mess. He contacted the director of the company, John Willis of JSW Marketing, with a view to digging the site out completely, using   a JCB. After a couple of phone calls and a face to face meeting, an agreement was drawn up and signed by both parties.

A local plant hire firm was contacted and a JCB (with driver) was hired for 2 days at a very reasonable rate (cash in hand works wonders!). This was later extended to 3 days when the site took longer to dig out than originally anticipated. The only major incident of the weekend came on the Sunday, when, due to a combination of lack of alertness by the digger and carelessness by the digger driver, caused the digger (Stuart Roffey) to be knocked into the hole by the JCB bucket. The fall  broke his arm. Fortunately the hospital is just around the corner, and 2 hours later he was back on the site, wielding a fork !.

There were high hopes of a slab seal (or 20) as there had been a Boyalls dug many years ago. This has a circular slab in the form of a belt and buckle, and is from Grantham. There was also a chance of getting a Summerbys flask. However, the nearest we got was a broken Boyalls and a couple of broken flasks.   The site was unusual in the large number of tent inks that were unearthed in various colours including blue, turquoise and green. The following list represents the finds made over the three days. We could have done better, but if reduced to pure monetary terms, a reasonable profit was made. More importantly, it was fun (not sure about the broken arm though). The site was left in a very tidy state, and the director of the company is very pleased. There should be no more illegal digging in the site, as there is no 'fresh' left. We have also been told that there may be development work starting adjacent to the factory unit soon, and would be invited along. Those slab seals must be there somewhere.

Finds made at Grantham           

Lids                                                                 

Pratt lid - Skaters / Whysall & Co, Grantham /

John Newcombe, Grantham /DL Evans, Swansea

F S Cleavers / Hockins

Green Gosnells/ 6 Burgess / 7 Boots

Minerals

Taylors , Staines 10oz Chapmans patent

Mowbrays ; Grantham 10oz Sykes McVay *

Ginger Beers                                                  

Fisher & Co, Grantham/ Mowbrays, Grantham             

Dales, Grantham / Whitehead, Manchester        

2 Hopkinsons (with anti skip grooves around body) *3 Hopkinsons (as above but split size) *

Patent Beers

Blocksidges patent beer (grooves in neck) - Green

Letters Patent beer, Rylands - Aqua

Porters

Grantham Brewery / F West Grantham

Ointments

2 Holloways /2 Poor Mans Friends

1 Clarks / 1 Natures Herbal

Tent Inks

1 Blue / 1 Turquoise   /6 Green /14 Aqua

Miscellaneous

Amber Dr Soules   / Harrods flagon / Mowbray & Co, Grantham / Fresh Astrachan Caviar Jar, Tongue & Co, Hull / 29 Codds / 19 Bullet stoppers / 93 Local Beers

6 Hamiltons ( *) designates previously unrecorded item

By Ian Whittaker