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by Burt Allsopp
In February 1994, a popular park in my home town was about to receive a face-lift. The old tennis courts were about to be ripped out, to be replaced by a new all-weather surface .. I knew at least part of this park was on top of a dump. Some four years earlier a pipe line was laid out across the park, and it uncovered a dump of 1880-1890's vintage. The workmen simply ignored all of the pot-lids, codds, ointments, poisons etc and they simply left them on the sides of the trenches - but that is another story. Back now to this one. Along with my son, I kept watch on the park as the work developed. After the tarmac and hard-core was ripped out, about three foot of clay was also removed but parts of the tip could be seen in places. It proved to be no more than three foot deep and dated anything between 1860 and 1900. The site foreman would not let us dig the dump until after all of the machinery had stopped for the day.That ruled out digging during the week, leaving only weekend digs. Even then, we could only hope for a few hours. On the first Saturday we turned up, the workmen had to leave at 3.00 p.m. as materials that they needed had not arrived. My son and I got down to work. In the first few shovels full , out came a Daly seltzer. (Not many of these known). Next came our first pot-lid from the site, Keys Pomade, Eastbourne , closely followed by an Atkinsons Cold Cream complete with base. After only a few more minutes, up came a lovely local pot-lid, a Garrad Cold Cream with a gold band still intact. As you might imagine, these discoveries certainly got the adrenalin pumping.
Our next finds were hamiltons/ovates, fourteen of them one after another. These were followed by three codds and then a nice six-inch cobalt blue Hydes master ink. We also found loads of bulk. It was starting to get dark, so we wrapped up our goodies and left . We returned to the site the following day. Unfortunately, the delayed materials had now arrived and the men were back at work. We spent most of the day waiting for a chance to dig.At 3.30pm , the men finally left the site. We decided to split up and probe different areas as we had already dug out the main part of the dump. It was a very strange site, full of pockets of tip, here and there. You had to find an area, and then dug until you had four clay walls around you. By the end of our second day, we had gathered four more pot- lids ; a Waldron pink lid, Burgess,Gosnells and a lid from Margate .
We realized we would only have one more weekend on the site but the best was yet to come. By the following Saturday, the site was nearly covered by tons of small stones with a green tarmac topping. This left just one piece of dump showing right next to the compound with the huts inside. We set to work and soon located an early part of the tip. Out came the first pot-lid, P G Roby, Meat Paste, Leamington . One really rare item! P G Roby first set up his business in Bath Street in 1833, then moved to Regent Street , Leamington where he died in 1862. We could therefore date the lid to pre-1862! After a lot of back-slapping it was back to work with the shovels. A few minutes later and I had another pot-lid. To my utter amazement it was a small Prattware lid, the Bear Pit. Meanwhile, from a wall in his hole, my son had retrieved a fishing vessel pictorial Blanchflowers pot-lid. It seemed to be just pot- lids, we were finding no bottles at all! I carried on digging, stabbing my fork into the face of ash and then .......another Prattware pot-lid, The Prince Consort, which was slightly damaged. In the bottom of the hole, I thought I saw the telltale sign of another lid. A small white piece was showing. I carefully eased it out, removed the ash from the face and .....Brill, magic!! I showed it to my son, it was another Bears Grease, the black and white two bruins variety with a fancy border and in mint condition. After all the excitement died down, we returned to the ash and pulled out two more lids, a shilling Woods, and A Comman's Toothpaste, Bath. Then the dreaded clay appeared all around the hole. Nightfall prevented any further digging that day.
Our very last dig would come on the following day, a Sunday. We invited a few friends along to finish it all off but nothing special came out .Now, every time I pass the ultra modern tennis courts, I think back and wonder what may still lie beneath the stones and tarmac. To all my fellow diggers out there reading this story, my advice is simple; Never give up, the stuff is out there waiting for you, it is just case of finding it.