Hello and welcome to the North Norfolk bottles website.

This website has been put together to give collectors a comprehensive look at North Norfolk bottles.

The bottles that will be covered on the website will include:

All of the bottles will also be accompanied by a brief history and background information about the companies and manufacturers that had the bottles produced.

If you are able to help us in any way with information, photographs or bottles that are not recorded on this website please don't hesitate in contacting us by clicking below.

If you would like help with information on Norfolk bottles that you have,  please contact us and we will do our best to assist.

To the find out how to purchase this book and any further details please click the following link or click on the image above.

East Anglian Pot lids

The area of Norfolk that will be covered is North Norfolk which is as far as Walpole in the West, Stalham in the East down to Horstead, across to Downham Market and back up to Walpole.

Towns, Villages and in some cases Hamlets that have bottles covered within the website include as follows:

In the ages before mass production and heavy infrastructure nearly every town would have its own drinks manufacturer or dairyman, and they would need bottles to sell their products. Whether they were a wine and spirit merchant, ginger beer, mineral water or soda water manufacturer, porter dealer or dairyman, a glass or stoneware container was essential. In order to get their bottles back or promote their produce they would have their name embossed, etched, printed or impressed onto the bottle.

However compared to the rest of the country there is a distinct lack of quality in Norfolk bottles. The poor quality of Norfolk wares probably comes down to there being very poor infrastructure and a largely agricultural community with small populations, few shops and very few retail outlets. The fact that the vast majority of Norfolk's population were from a farming community would mean they would be very unlikely to be able to afford frivolous items such as Russian bears grease. The small populations also meant there was few brewers and little competition, so bottles were kept relatively plain with few coloured tops and pictorials in ginger beers, and a very small amount of coloured minerals.

Bottle collecting in Norfolk is dominated by ginger beer bottles, this is mainly due to the above, in there being very little quality in the type of bottles to collect. Apart from Norwich and Gt Yarmouth there is also a very small amount of local pot lids. Another reason why Norfolk is obsessed with collecting ginger beers is due to the sheer number of different ones available through digging, car boot sales, antique shops and eBay.

All this said Norfolk does have a few quality items which would be of interest to collectors around the country, all of which are shown in the tables as follows:

I would also like to thank the people who gave us permission to photograph their collections and allowed the images to be shown on this website, without their help this would have not been possible. Thanks