John Bell recently turned up at my front door handing this in to me. He found it at the riverside in the upper Rotten Calder river and it attracted his attention as it was clearly manufactured or man made.
Perfectly circular, smooth and made of stone, it has a little indent in it. His theory was that it was a bullet, or buckshot, something I initially agreed with, excited by the prospect it was found not far from the old Greenhall Firing Range above the Lady Nancy. Could this be an 18th or 19th Century bullet? It certainly looked like one, prior to bullets becoming metal.
I decided to investigate a little more and sought some advice from fellow history colleagues and have come up with an alternative theory. I’m told had this been ammunition of any sort, it would be much more rough and less round.
I think this is actually a small stopper from a bottle. A CODD bottle stopper type. 20th Century types are shown in the picture with 5 of them, but open to other suggestions if anybody has further comment.
An interesting little find and if John wants to drop by, I’ll make sure he gets it back asap.
Hi Paul, The CODD stoppers are glass, Looks like you have a clay marble (Victorian), I have found a few up Calderside fields and glass ones, I also do have bullets/musket-balls from Greenhall Range if your interested?, Cheers Jimmy
Jimmy – I’d love to see a picture of the musket ball/bullet. I’m very interested in the range but never managed to find any, despite the fact that thousands upon thousands must have been fired there. Paul