A 119-year-old message in a bottle has been discovered behind an ornate crown decoration at Edinburgh’s King’s Theatre.
Theatre photographer and historian Mike Hume was on scaffolding 40ft above the stage when he put his hand in a gap inside the plaster crown at the centre of the theatre proscenium arch and found the century-old bottle.
Mike, one of the theatre’s donors, was on the tour of its £40 million restoration works when he made the find in December last year.
Now, after months of painstaking effort, experts managed to extract the note from inside and found a list of the people who built the theatre in 1906.
© Mike Hume
© Mike Hume
‘This is the sort of discovery everyone hopes for on a project of this scale,’ Mike said.
‘When the builders of the King’s Theatre placed this special trinket at the very centre of it, they intended to honour the local people who built the theatre.
‘It’s astonishing to think that this time capsule of history has been hidden in plain sight for nearly 120 years, silently bearing witness to the countless famous faces – and Edinburgh community performers – that have graced the stage of the King’s.’
Scottish Conservation Studio was able to remove the plaster seal and bottle top but could not remove the scroll of paper without potentially damaging it.
Finally, this month, the base of the bottle was carefully removed by Laura Clair, a Glass Technician from the Edinburgh College of Art, to safely access its content.
© Capital Theatres
Dated to October 1906, just two months before the King’s opened its doors to the public, the bottle contained a list of contractor names.
It gives details of the architects, draftsman plasterers and journeymen (or apprentices) who worked on the construction of the theatre.
As the only surviving operational theatre by Kirkcaldy based-architects Swanston and Davidson, their names appear first on the list.
The Swanston Family have donated some of their grandfather’s artefacts to The People’s Archive.
These include tools used by John D. Swanston, and a catalogue of images of the plaster moulds which feature in the King’s rich interior, such as the cupids which grace the front of the boxes.
A postcard featuring a photograph of J D Swanston in uniform during the First World War as captain of the Black Watch has also been donated to the King’s Theatre archive by his family.
Other names on the note include plasterer George King Senior, and apprentice plasterer George King Junior – a father and son team.
The hidden glass bottle, the note inside and Swanston’s postcard will be included in The People’s Archive.
‘We knew we had something really special when the bottle was uncovered,’ Abby Pendlebury, Heritage Engagement Manager at Capital Theatres, said.
‘For 119 years, the bottle was waiting behind the crown – something that every audience member has seen since the theatre first opened in 1906.
Abby Pendlebury © Capital Theatres
‘The significance of the message is that the list of names ranges from managers and directors to draughtsman, architects, and plasterers – people working on the site who were so proud of what they had built.
‘There is pride and ownership in this note. Now we have the histories of those who made ‘the people’s theatre,’ which we will proudly share as part of the King’s origin story in The People’s Archive and through new displays at the theatre when it reopens.’
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