Pub preserves message in a bottle (From Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard)

Pub preserves message in a bottle

A CHAMPAGNE bottle with a message for the future which lay buried in the foundations of the railway works in Swindon for nearly 100 years has been sold at auction.

Susan Platt, landlady of the Ghost Train pub in Purton, paid £120 for the message in a bottle, a unique piece of Swindon's railway history, when it was put up for sale at Dominic Winter Book Auctions.

The bottle was discovered by workmen after lying undisturbed for almost a century during work to convert the site into part of what is now the Designer Outlet Village.

In 1904 six workers cracked open the bottle of Dry Monopole champagne to mark the completion of an extension to the GWR Work's carpenters' shop.

After drinking the bubbly the group buried the bottle in the foundations along with a letter for the future which they all signed.

They wrote: "October 19, 1904. Office extension gang. This bottle was duly placed in the presence of the undersigned six honest British workmen on the above date, in all solemnity and reverence."

After being unearthed it passed into the hands of a private collector and then when the owner put it up for sale Mrs Platt said she saw her chance to help preserve part of Purton and Swindon's treasured railway history by purchasing it for £120.

She said: "The pub is next door to where the old Purton railway station was so we have a strong link to the railways and my children have always been railway enthusiasts.

"We are going to buy a cabinet and put it on display for people to see."

Mrs Platt said the message in a bottle has already attracted a wide interest in Purton.

"A woman who lives in the village, Gwendoline Hart, thinks that one of the workmen who helped bury the champagne bottle all those years ago and signed the message may be a relative.

"One of the signatures is that of a W. Hart which she thinks might have been her father-in-law William Hart."

She added: "I've also got my own link to it because the day it was buried, October 19, is my birthday."

Pictured is Susan Platt of The Ghost Train pub in Purton with the hundred year old bottle and message.