A whiskey bottle containing a note from 1887 has been found with a Scottish family from Edinburgh. The unusual find came to light when a plumber broke into the floor of the home of Eilidh Stimpson, a GP from Edinburgh.
It turns out to be a message from two men who had laid the original floor in the house. Plumber Peter Allan couldn’t believe his eyes when he broke open the floor in the Stimpson family home to install a new radiator. Beneath the floor was another floor, on which he found the 135-year-old bottle. “The room is 3 by 4.5 meters in size and I cut exactly where the bottle was, without knowing it. It is unbelievable”, he told BBC Scotland.
The plumber immediately notified Stimpson of the remarkable find. The doctor reacted enthusiastically and in disbelief. ,,When I picked up my children aged 8 and 10 from school, I told them that I had very exciting news. They asked me if they would have hot dogs,” she told the BBC. “They were very excited when they heard that a message in a bottle had been found, they thought it could be a treasure.”
The family decided to take the note out of the bottle, but that turned out to be easier said than done. The paper started to tear, so it was eventually decided to smash the bottle.
(Read more below the photo.)
The note was signed and dated by two men: “James Ritchie and John Grieve laid this floor, but they didn’t drink the whisky. October 6, 1887.”
The family now wants to keep the note carefully. “I think we will frame it, along with part of the bottle. It’s such a fascinating thing to have around the house. To think that it has been there all along, that it could have been there forever, is beyond comprehension.”
Stimpson says he now wants to hide a bottle with a letter under the floor again, for possible a new historical discovery one day.
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