Codd-neck bottle found at Sydney Gardens
This Codd-neck bottle was found by Ryan, one of the builders, while they were digging out the foundations for the new Community Building.
These bottles are collectable and it’s rare to find one like this with its marble still inside. Children would smash the bottles to get the marble out. This example is embossed with the company name Brooke & Co of Bath.
This type of bottle was designed specifically for lemonade and other fizzy, carbonated drinks. The design was patented in 1872 by Hiram Codd, a soft drink maker of Camberwell, London.
The Codd-neck bottle dispensed with the need for a cork or cap by enclosing a marble in the bottleneck. The effervescence generated by the fizzy drink forced the marble up the neck, locking it against a rubber gasket to form an effective seal. The bottles were filled upside down, and pressure of the gas in the bottle forced the marble against the washer, to seal in the carbonation. They were made from thick glass to withstand the internal pressure. The glass was pinched to form a chamber into which the marble was pushed to open the bottle. That stopped the marble from blocking the neck as the drink was poured.
This design was an improvement over the bowling pin-shaped ‘Hamilton’ bottle, which tended to slip and roll off surfaces. The Codd-neck bottle was very popular in its day, for soft drinks and beer, across Europe and the British Empire. They were in production for decades into the Twentieth Century, but gradually declined. Codd-neck bottles are still used in India for the drink Banta and in Japan for a similar lemon drink called Ramune, both of which have been sold since the 19th Century.
