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Kerswell Codd bottles found in the Duryard valley

A Victorian tennis player's refreshment?

Richard Orme

Correspondence from Richard Orme, Red Coat Guide to Sarah, Curator of West Exe

"We were talking about Codd  bottles, and you ask me if I would send you a picture of the bottle I found in my garden some years ago. They are not easy to photograph, particularly if you are wanting a close up of the marble and its function but I have done my best. I think my bottle is the same as yours. The back is much more worn than the front. You can just work out that it was made by a firm in London, but the name is obscured.

Its provenance is that the spot where it was dug up was once part of the grounds of a large Victorian mansion in the Duryard valley, close to where a tennis court once stood. One can speculate that it was abandoned by a thirsty tennis player,  or perhaps more likely that  it was thrown over the 10 foot wall that was the boundary of the property from a footpath that runs close by. The Duryard Valley in those days was a popular excursion for courting couples, and you had to pay a small sum to the lodgekeeper to get in."

Read more about the Kerswell family in St Thomas: Codd pop bottles.