I was delighted to see my good friend Barry Calderwood at my house today as he usually comes bearing gifts, actually things he has unearthed with a digger on various building sites and today was no different, He is working in Peel Green demolishing an old building which has an air raid shelter on the site, when he spied this ginger beer flagon several feet down in the soil, he kindly jumped out of the digger and rescued it for me and brought it to mine in his dinner hour. You may recall that Barry was involved in the demolition of the Unicorn pub in Peel Green, when he unearthed a small, stone ginger bottle with the name J, Batty, Swinton embossed on it, which he once again kindly gave me. This flagon with a handle would have contained Herb Beer or Ginger beer, basically the same thing and bears the name of the company who brewed and bottled it, L. Ellis, 596 Bolton Road, Pendlebury with the instructions that it must be returned to them. I have several similar flagons of this size in my collection but not one bearing this name, there were several ginger beer manufacturers in that area including, Edmonson's, Batty, Simpsons, Halls etc.. The address 596, Bolton Road, Pendlebury is now the site of a garage and a Tesco mini market and close to the Newmarket pub and presumably L. Ellis's company has been long demolished. Does anybody remember the company? I think this flagon dates from the 1920s or 1930s also a lot of the flagons had the date of manufacture embossed upon them, I know many were never returned and ended up being used a hot water bottles, this was possibly what has happened here. Once again Barry, many thanks for your continuing kindness in saving for me pieces of our local heritage which could so easily be smashed by the digger. If you have a similar collection as me I would love to see them or if you would like to give them a new home...I'm your man!
