Knole volunteers who found the Message-in-a-Bottle

Brenda: They [contractors] knew that, they had looked down and seen that that [something] was there but hadn’t moved anything so we go in and sort of find it. But they actually said to us, ‘Oh there’s – we don’t think there is much here.’ But we, as good archaeologists had a look round in the room. And there was a void because the ceiling level between Lady Betty’s bedroom and the sitting room is actually, there is a difference of a number of feet actually and there was a void going down and I looked down.

Jim: It must have been about eight or ten feet deep. 

Brenda:  It was certainly deeper than anybody, for us to get down there … 

Interviewer: And dark? 

Brenda: Yes, and dark and when I looked down, I could see the shape of a bottle and shone the torch on and saw that it was a bottle but it was completely covered in dust. But as Jim said, absolutely far – too far down for anybody to get to it. So we had all these ideas of being able to – of how we were going to get this bottle up – none of which we thought would work. There were a couple of the workmen there, Will and Jack. When we have done our sort of forensic work, they hoover out in between the joists and bag it up as Jim previously said and we sift through that. They have these industrial hoovers; and they suggested that maybe if we put the hoover down that it would suck the bottle up which is a very non-archaeological, it is not a conventional way (laughter) of getting this, something up. We just couldn’t come up with any other idea.  

But when they put the hoover down but didn’t put it right down it started to take the dust off this bottle. We sort of, our hearts sank a little bit because we saw the shape of it and we went, ‘Oh my goodness me, it’s a Perrier bottle!’ So we thought we – we were beginning to think, ‘Oh it’s probably something that somebody has put down there about ten years ago. But anyway as we took the dust off we could actually see there was something inside the bottle … 

Interviewer: Gosh.

Brenda: So that made us more determined didn’t it, to get it out. They managed to suck, attach the bottle to the hoover and gradually pull it up. And we all got down on our hands and knees and sort of got our hands underneath. We managed to get the bottle out.

Brenda: And it was a Perrier bottle. We could see that there was a rolled-up piece of paper in it. First of all, the label on the bottle that actually said ‘By Appointment to His Majesty King Edward the …’ 

Jim:  7th  

Brenda: 7th.’ So it wasn’t a new Perrier bottle, it was an old Perrier bottle. Then we could see that this bit of paper, actually was a rolled-up piece of paper that was a message. It actually said on it – and I am not absolutely certain. 

Interviewer: Was there a stopper Brenda? 

Brenda: There was, it was a little bit if I remember rightly it was actually just scrunched-up paper. 

Jim: A little bit of screwed up paper. 

Interviewer: Right, did you have to tweezer it up? 

Brenda: Ah, well this is where Jim came in. Jim came to the rescue here because we were absolutely determined that as it has this, a message because it actually said on it, I can’t remember what it said … 

Jim: Something like ‘Read me.’ 

Brenda: Like ‘Read me’ or ‘Take me out’, or something like that. We took the top off, but we could not get the message that was inside the bottle actually out. 

Jim: So, I took a pair of tweezers, put them down inside the bottle and grasped part of the paper and then by winding it further tightly – we managed to draw it out. 

Interviewer: How wonderful, how satisfying! 

Brenda: It certainly was! 

Interviewer: And it was more than 100 years old. 

Brenda: It was. It actually did, when we got it out, actually it said September 26th, 1906 – I think those are the correct dates. 

It was on embossed Knole paper, so it said Knole, Sevenoaks, Kent. And down at the, we could see a name on it: S.G.Doggett. And as soon as we saw that we knew who it was. Because S.G. Doggett, Sid Doggett, his name is in many places in the house because he worked here.

And it actually said on the outside, ‘Take this out and see inside.’ That is what it said. And so we did exactly that and then it said, ‘This bottle was dropped, ‘d-r-o-p-t-e-d’ [sic] here in the year AD 1906 by S.G. Doggett when these radiators were put in, also the hot water service.’ And in the room next door was a wonderful … 

Jim: A magnificent cast iron radiator. 

Brenda: Yes. And so we were thrilled by this.

Brenda: Relations of Sid Doggett got in touch and – actually came and visited the house, saw the bottle, saw the message – came on one of the behind–the–scenes tour. And actually as a result, it was the grand-daughters, one of the grand-daughters, still had in her possession Sid’s toolbox. He had worked here for many, many years and it has his name – I have not actually had the pleasure of seeing it. But I know that his tools are all engraved with his name and they have actually been presented to Knole. So hopefully those will go on display as well as part of this story.