Treasures of the sea

Not a bad haul of sea glass this morning despite it being dull and dampish. The sea was just rolling in and out enough to reveal some smaller pieces of glass amongst the shingle and we were lucky to be there at the right time!  The orange and red are very rare pieces, the blue in that shade (between the red and orange)  is hard to find.  The 'cat's eyes' pieces are the result of the different coloured glass pourings having set in the cauldron,  being broken up and the layered shards tipped into the sea 100 years ago.

Generally speaking, red, yellow and orange glass was used for decorative containers, perfumes and the like.  The blues were mainly medicinal.  Greens and browns most often used for beers and clear glass  for lemonade and low cost containers.

In its heyday the glass works at Seaham Harbour produced more glass bottles than anywhere else in the world.  Glass from Victorian dumps on the cliff tops have eroded and fallen into the North Sea providing some of the sea washed glass pieces.  The dumps were formed when the Council tipped household rubbish into small limestone quarries that were disused and dotted along the cliff tops from Sunderland down to Seaham.  The last landslip to reveal fresh finds was about 5 years ago.  I found a couple of complete Hammond's Sauce bottles with raggy glass tops.  The hand blown glass was broken off the blowpipe deliberately so that when a cork was forced in the sharp sheared edges it cut into the material and formed a better leakproof seal. 

One day when I have time and agility to limbo into the depths of the garage I'll takes some photos of my long forgotten bottle collection.  

There's not a lot of pottery pieces to be found.  The vicious North Sea storms have probably ground the pot away.