1. What it is

A small, round piece of dark green glass with a design stamped into it:

Ch Ch
  C.R
 1785

It is attached to it an irregularly shaped piece of glass and was once part of a bottle. Although it is called a bottle seal it was never designed to form a stopper for the bottle, it was rather a means to identify some kind of ownership.

Seals are usually positioned on the body of the bottle, just below the neck.
The Ashmolean has about 70 seals in its collection and around 130 bottles with seals intact, many were donated by T.E.Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia).

This particular seal was given to the Ashmolean in 1944 by Mrs. Maud White. It was found at Temple Farm, Temple Cowley. The barn on this farm was used for the annual dinner of the Bullingdon Club (which had been formed in 1780).

Maud used to work for the City Council and had dug it up in her garden many years before, together with a ring that she also gave to the Ashmolean. Her sister had taken them to the British Museum to see if they were of any value and the keeper there suggested that she took them to the Ashmolean.

Mr Leeds from the Ashmolean had already written two articles about similar glass seals found in Oxford and was interested to know the exact location they had been found so Mrs White did a sketch map.

She also wrote to him telling him that her husband’s house
‘was on Templars land at Cowley. We often dug up carved stones in the orchards, and one wall we thought might have well gone back to those times as it had a plinth and other markings which looked as if it had been the ‘worked’ part of a former stone building on the site.’

The ring and bottle seal were dug up in the garden of a small house called ‘Mynchery’. (Find out more about Minchery)

2. What it is made of and how it was made

Glass bottles have been made since the times of the Syrians and Romans. The Venetians became masters of glassmaking and by the 1500s high quality drinking glasses were being made in England.

By the mid 17th century moulded seals were commonly attached to glass bottles. They were made by attaching a small blob of glass to the bottle whilst it was still warm after blowing it, it was then stamped with a metal (or fired pot clay) die. In 1822 the expense of cutting a seal was 7 shillings and 6 (old) pence. If the glass was too runny then the mark may be blurred and if it was too cool the impression wouldn’t be complete.

Sometimes a seal is called a prunt, these are usually applied as decoration, but also help provide a firm grip in the absence of a handle and were common on the stems of drinking glasses.

Over 800 different seals have been recorded. Sometimes sealed bottles were referred to as ‘marked’. They signify the owners of the bottles (either the individual or the institution, the tavern from which the wine came or the merchant who supplied the tavern).

They were probably kept after the bottles broke as they are quite pretty.

In the 1660s thick green glass bottles were in common use. This seal in the Ashmolean’s collection probably came from what is commonly called a sack bottle. Fragments of glass wine bottles have been found on almost every building site in the city of Oxford. They are valuable objects as they can be used in dating and defining areas of occupation.

The earliest dated and documented sealed bottles date from 1659.

3. Bottle making

Around 1636 English law prohibited the sale of wine by the 'bottle' in England, individuals had private bottles made carrying their own seals which they then took to a wine merchant who filled them with wine from a cask using a liquid measure.

Bottles were also used to transport wine from the casks to the tables in college. They replaced leather bottles, flagons of stoneware and Lambeth Delft tin-glazed fabric and were designed as decanters rather than storage vessels.

Up until 1647 the monopoly of glass making in England had been held by Admiral Sir Robert Mansel.

Over the years the shapes of bottles changed from a tall-necked bottle with a globose body to a squat short-necked one to a cylindrical one with a thick short neck.

Around this time heavy, durable wine bottles began to be produced and used in England.  By 1735 there were free blown true cylinder-shaped bottles. The body of the bottle was blown into a dip mould, the neck and string rim were finished by hand. It is likely that the bottles were made in Bristol or London.

A standard bottle held a quart of wine (about 2 pints).

Each town licensed a few people to sell wine on a retail basis from taverns.

Places that sold ale or beer were more numerous and called inns or alehouses.

Deposits were charged on bottles which were stamped to show the tavern sign, name or initials of the owner and sometimes the place and date.

Between 1704 and 1850 there were 6 families of glass merchants in Oxford. They supplied bottles, china and glass. The Strange family is the one most frequently encountered as a bottle supplier to the colleges but in 1783 the supplier of bottles to Christ Church is known to be Kencott.

There is also a record of there being two families of cork cutters in Oxford – they would have made the stoppers for the bottles.

Most of the bottle seals found in Oxford that date from the 17th century come from the 5 main taverns. It is possible to date the seals from the curvature of the bottles as different bottles had different profiles over the years.

4. Taverns in Oxford

Then, as now, taverns, inns and coffee houses were the social centres of the day and because of the university there were a large number of wealthy people in Oxford who could afford to drink wine.

By 1640 Oxford townspeople depended largely on the University for their livelihoods. Without the University it is unlikely that the town would have ever grown to the size it is today. Major routes bypassed it to the North and South although it was on the main trade route between Northampton to Southampton and there have long been Royal connections.

We have a lot of evidence about taverns in Oxford from the City and University records as they had to be licensed and there were often disputes.

There were five main taverns in Oxford between 1640 and 1750. The Mermaid had associations with Christ Church but in 1709 it was demolished so this particular tavern could not have supplied the bottle that this seal came from.

Wine was sold retail by vintners in the taverns, it wasn’t until the 1730s that wine merchants started to sell wine wholesale. Inns and coffee houses also started to sell wine without licenses.

The City lease books show that wine taverns had ceased to exist by 1751, this is evidenced by the non-payment of wine licences.

The establishment of the college cellars may have led to the demise of some of the taverns. Colleges started to say that the wine wasn’t f good enough quality. We know that wine was drunk in Hall during dinner and in the Common Rooms of the colleges. Senior college fellows seem to have encouraged members to drink in college. It may be that they were trying to prevent problems from them drinking in town.

5. College wine cellars

The colleges didn’t start having wine clears until the 18th century. Magdalen was the first in 1733. All Souls seems to have been an early one too as it started to purchase wine wholesale then and has a collection of over 1,000 18th and 19th century wine bottles intact with seals  (dating from 1760 to 1840). Their wine account book of 1750 also show the name of a glass-maker in Worcestershire (Mrs Batchelor) who was paid 2 shillings per dozen bottles. On the 28th December she was paid £35 2 shillings and 1 penny.

The monopoly of the vintners was broken and there is evidence of a cluster of wine vaults at the top of St Aldates.

The Common Rooms in colleges became the centre of social life for the students. Wine was used for special occasions, entertainment of guests in the Common Room and the provision of wine to Fellows on festivals and feast days. Sometimes dated bottles can be related to particular celebrations.

Christ Church was one of the first to record the wholesale purchase of wine in 1710 but there is no record of a purpose-built wine cellar being constructed. We know from the College records that Christ Church was supplied with wine by Robert Finch from 1788-1791 from a cellar under the Town Hall and then by Mr Strong from 1791-1797 who was calling himself called a wine merchant.

6. Wine making – distribution

Most wine was transported in ships from places such as Portugal, because of the conditions in the hold and the motion of the ships it often got hot and ‘cooked’.

Once in England it is likely that it was transported, still in barrels, on boats along rivers and then carts on the emerging road network. Oxford and Banbury both had wharves on the river.

By 1771 St Clements turnpike road was introduced and roads began to be reasonably well maintained. Magdalen Bridge was rebuilt between 1772 and 1778. In 1792 the canal opened before then there were about 90 carrier services operating from small inns to deliver goods. It wasn’t until 1844 that the railway came to Oxford.

7. Types of wine

Christ Church’s records show that Port was a very popular drink (then as now!). It was bought almost every year from 1726 to 1850 and was supplied by Mr Snow. Around 1785 there are also records of Calcarella, Lisbon, Sherry and Madeira being bought. The supplier of the Calcarella was Mr Ping.

However we don’t know what the contents of the bottle were that this seal came from.

8. Historical context

This bottle seal was given to the Ashmolean one year before the Second World War ended. It was dated 1785 and the building of Christ Church’s ‘New’ Library had only recently been completed. Just a few years before America had signed the Declaration of Independence. William Wilberforce had started to campaign against the slave trade and William Pitt was trying to reform Parliament. George III was on the throne and the first spa towns were being established. A few years later there was the French Revolution.