I've just been on a trip to our local 'Recycling Centre' as our city dump is so grandly called these days, with six large bucket loads of various types of rubbish from the lottie.
This trip, we took:
2 tubs of hardcore (broken bricks, lumps of concrete dug up around the new rhubarb patch)
Several metal objects (lumps of molten aluminium from previous fires I guess)
A set of bathroom taps and a tub of broken bathroom tiles (all dug up underneath old compost bin)
A car exhaust- no sign of the rest of the car (or perhaps we haven't dug deeply enough yet!)
A bag full of filthy plastic bags, black bin liners, gravel bags and bits of nylon mesh (all found buried in a pile)
A bucket of broken glass, old medicine bottles, several disposable razors (dug up from beneath old shed)
I've tried hard to reuse anything we've found if possible on the plot, but it seems a lot of it is just other peoples buried rubbish! I think the two ironing boards we discovered when we first started clearing the plot are the oddest things we have found so far, but what have other people found, anything interesting?
Nothing so extensive but found a 1937 threepenny bit last week
I have found a number of GWR brass jacket buttons
bound to be a romantic story as to how they got there
some 'brief encounter'!
Just the bone, the same week that human ones were found on a lottie in Peterborogh, that really freaked me till someone looked at my picture and said it was from a cows spine not a humans. was I ever relieved XX Jeannine
an egg (hen), enough screws & nails to fill a hardware shop, glass, whole bricks, 6ft long concrete fence posts (?) and bones - presumably small mamals, not the previous owner and a nest of baby voles !!! At the moment I'm digging up a carpet which is buried under 5" of compacted, weed infested earth - nice.
Next door dug up a rat at the w/e :-X :-X presumably the fox is using his lottie as his personal larder.
a little rusty trowel that Ray put a new handle n and he cleaned it up, just right for me..
an old, really old fashioned shed key..very rusty
so many carpets I think there was someone's front room under there,
the side of a tin shed, laying on the ground
the diggy bit from the thing they dig the roads up with :)
An old key, a dolls house size noddy tea plate, carpet and black plastic, newts and a next of moles!
noddy plate- wow that would be pirate treasure to my daughter!
we know a bloke who buried loads of coins then the following week asked his kid to help him dig up the garden- and told him it was pirate treasure when he found it! the kid is now grown up and very unhappy with his dad- everytime someone needed help in his garden the kid was there with his spade expecting to find treasure!!
enough glass for a greenhouse, the metal things that hold windows open. enough nails to hold the greenhouse together, ciggie packets, carrier bags, carpets, foam and today found some of that silver insulation foil that goes behind radiators.
Mark Gratton on plot 120 opposite DebP found a wedding ring, his that he had lost three years earlier when digging the Lottie.... he has two now!
;D
Usual bits of broken crockery, bones and enormous nails but the luckiest finds were two very badly corroded keys which Mr W spent weeks cleaning and which turned out to fit (a) the shed and (b) the allotment site gate so we have a set each ;)
I am hoping that one day one of my opal earings turns up on the plot next to mine. As I was walking along the path a couple of weeks back, the wind blew and the netting whipped up around my earing and wripped it clean out! I cried!! I love opals, my fave stone ever and my love had bought me these when we were on hols on the Isle of Wight. Someones treasure one day.
Quote from: EJ - Emma Jane on April 13, 2007, 23:42:30
I am hoping that one day one of my opal earings turns up on the plot next to mine. As I was walking along the path a couple of weeks back, the wind blew and the netting whipped up around my earing and wripped it clean out! I cried!! I love opals, my fave stone ever and my love had bought me these when we were on hols on the Isle of Wight. Someones treasure one day.
Oh no! I love opals too, cried like baby when I lost a black opal earring that OH had bought me on honeymoon... :'(
Aaw! Hope you find your opal ear ring soon EJ. I am always burying my small tools, and just recently dug up a rusty old pair of secataurs, that I lost last year on the plot.
We have found loads of bones, including a big jaw bone and a shoulder blade, possibly a dog, at least hoping that, and not something human. Lots of clay pipe bits and small pieces of pottery. busy_lizzie
An old sixpence and a very rusty flat iron!
A George II shilling & clay pipes, clay pipes & clay pipes!
In plot 1, we tried to move the rusting metal compost bin and it turned out to be half of a Morrison shelter!
Then we took over plot 2 (next-door-but-one) which had enough debris on it to keep Steptoe & Son busy for months. And guess what the compost bin was? The other half of the Morrison shelter!! It was sunk so deep into the ground that I think I might turn the hole into a pond!
What's the strangest thing you have ever dug up on your allotment?
my foot - with a badly time swing of the spade didnt half hurt
Bits of shrapnel from the Blitz, and decaying fragments of an Anderson shelter. The shelter wasn't usable as it flooded (not surprising next to a stream), so they ended up dossing in the shed for a while.
The first year on my first allotment, it was vegetables. I done everything wrong and the nieghbours were amazed that I had a crop at all.
E.J. Claim on your insurance, but don't tell them you purchased them on th I.W. ;)
oh, I missed one: condoms ... unused (still wrapped and sealed) ... several packets in total which just pop out of the ground occasionally ... v bizzare.
Quote from: gingerninja38 on April 13, 2007, 22:36:06
enough glass for a greenhouse,
I know that feeling :)
TGF :D
Pah. I am very miffed now. Not dug up a single interesting thing. Apart from worms which are of huge scientific interest to the kids.
A fork!, tons of bricks (well it feels like it), loads of glass - I can see on Google-earth that I used to have a greenhouse on site - but it got swiped when the previous owner was chucked off - and someone kindly smashed all the glass and left it for me to find!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Scaffolding joints - metal poles - half a million plant labels - Grrrrrrr I hate them!
And just about enough couch grass to make me want to have it listed as public enemy number one!
Louise
X
Quote from: mc55 on April 14, 2007, 18:19:24
oh, I missed one: condoms ... unused (still wrapped and sealed) ... several packets in total which just pop out of the ground occasionally ... v bizzare.
What on earth was someone trying to grow????????
LOL
Louise
Quote from: mc55 on April 14, 2007, 18:19:24
oh, I missed one: condoms ... unused (still wrapped and sealed) ... several packets in total which just pop out of the ground occasionally ... v bizzare.
Your shed was den of iniquity (sp?) in it's former life.
What on earth was someone trying to grow????????
LOL
Louise
[/quote]
A rubber tree. ;D
yes i know.....get ya coat. ;)
;D ;D ;D
They could have fallen off the back of a lorry. It's not unknown for stolen property to by hidden in allotment sheds.
Me and my lad found yesterday the shell casing from a .303 bullet, my lad was well pleased and we are now attempting to get it sparkling :)
today I dug up two steel toe caps ... no boots though. Oh, and a carpet - rather garish red design, not surprised it was buried.
Our site sits near to a old brickworks (all gone years ago - turn of last century) so I keep turning up bits of roof tile.
My neighbour has found a flint arrow head. I have found parts of pots - the ones that have the top & bottom halves joined with a wavy thumb pressing join (I have part of the join). And finally a couple of rounds of musket shot (from during the siege of Basing house I guess - Roundheads & Cavaliers).
And then there's the bind weed ... but thats another story :(
didn't dig em up but unearthed them under the benching in the greenhouse, a nice stack of porn mags from the late 70's early 80's, had a good laugh at the clothes, why did they always wear a big floppy hat ? ;D
Quote from: laikadog on April 23, 2007, 18:19:25
didn't dig em up but unearthed them under the benching in the greenhouse, a nice stack of porn mags from the late 70's early 80's, had a good laugh at the clothes, why did they always wear a big floppy hat ? ;D
;D :o ;D :o ;D :o
Quote from: laikadog on April 23, 2007, 18:19:25
didn't dig em up but unearthed them under the benching in the greenhouse, a nice stack of porn mags from the late 70's early 80's, had a good laugh at the clothes, why did they always wear a big floppy hat ? ;D
Clothes???? ??? :o
Cheers,
Rob ;)
!970's porn, they would probably still wear clothes :o ;D ;) :D
I'll put some pics up tomorrow....I have stopped digging now, I think I may be digging up history :(
We live in a barn conversion on the edge of a very old estate/walled gardens. As we are digging over a patch we cut out of the adjoining field we go down about 12" then come across cut stone flags and some cut/dressed sandstone conical shapes.
Going to have someone take a look before I ruin something important :)
Also I keep pulling up some strange stones that when cracked in half reveal some very shiny crystals inside?? Not quartz but as bright as diamond, all the stone seems very strange and not from the same area or era. Hard jet black sharp stones, smooth round stones, flint, coal, sandy shale. Very strange also lots of bits of pottery and glass bottles.
I don't know what those stones are called but i have bought them for my children to crack open (and one for me ;) )
Can you post a pic of the stones? Where are you?
I dug up a whole roof truss, and 3 b and q trolleys, which prove useful for visiting the shop on site. :D
I dug up another ten yards of concrete path the other week. It was all buried whebn I started; most of it is exposed now.
I have unearthed a piece of heavy duty chain, still attached to something so deep I can't dig it out.
Perhaps one of the previous owners had a goat........or perhaps a slave!
Maybe it leads to an underground shelter where people have been living for umpteen years like something out of lost.
I vaguely remember those stones from years ago, you had to break them to see what was inside,someone gave me some as a gift, for ages I didn't break them but eventually the suspense was killing me and I did, I was very dissapointed. I can't remember what the packet claimed but it did say 'sometimes' I guess it wasn't my turn, I would be curious to know what others found XX Jeannine
Quote from: Tin Shed on April 26, 2007, 13:41:41
I have unearthed a piece of heavy duty chain, still attached to something so deep I can't dig it out.
Perhaps one of the previous owners had a goat........or perhaps a slave!
DON'T PULL IT!!!! a lake in Australia will empty. :o
Quote from: cornykev on April 26, 2007, 17:11:24
Maybe it leads to an underground shelter where people have been living for umpteen years like something out of lost.
;D ;D ;D
Quote from: froglegs on April 26, 2007, 23:02:39
DON'T PULL IT!!!! a lake in Australia will empty. :o
;D ;D ;D
Hee hee hee. :D
OMG, I can't believe the stuff we are all turning up ... how on earth do you bury 3 trollies ???
And why? :-\
Ooooo, last night I whilst in the garage I came across a rusted up gin-trap that I dug up on a previous lottie. (I've set it one or twice in our garden - but obviously there is no gin there 'cos I never caught any :( )
And I also once found a perfectly servicable bow-saw (needed a replacement blade only).
QuoteI vaguely remember those stones from years ago, you had to break them to see what was inside,someone gave me some as a gift, for ages I didn't break them but eventually the suspense was killing me and I did, I was very dissapointed. I can't remember what the packet claimed but it did say 'sometimes' I guess it wasn't my turn, I would be curious to know what others found XX Jeannine
They are called Geodes, take a look here,
http://www.magickeys.com/books/bitaba/geodes.html
I`ve dug up at least three peices of worked flint and a victorian pipe stem in the last two weeks and I have a complete mouse skeleton but that was in a plant pot.
Col
We have an old Anderson air raid shelter buried under part of our plot. It's marked on the plans and the lady it belonged to can remember sheltering in it during WWII. We're certainly not going to dig it up! And last year I lost a sapphire from my engagement ring :'( - someone else can dig that up (unless I get there first) :)