Bottle is important link with Downpatrick’s trading past

Bottle is important link with Downpatrick’s trading past

1 August 2012 - by Joanne Fleming

A HISTORIC green bottle found in a Downpatrick attic has revealed a wealth of information about a long-lost business family.

The bottle, which will be sold at Saintfield Auctions on Saturday, is over 100 years old and is a very heavy, dark-green, machine-moulded porter bottle, bearing the words ‘Carr Downpatrick’.

In remarkably good condition, the bottle is believed to have belonged to the

Carr family of Downpatrick, who traded in the town for generations.

Joseph Leckey, from Saintfield Antiques and Fine Books, who has carried out some research on the bottle after finding it in an attic clearance, explained that the Carrs were were originally Scottish settlers who traded as publicans and butchers in Scotch Street.

“Then, in the early 1880s, when Downpatrick had 20 spirit retailers, Nicholas Carr and his wife Mary Anne set up as grocers and publicans in Irish Street,” he said.

“Nicholas Carr died in 1889 and Mrs. Carr continued to trade as a grocer and spirit dealer at Irish Street and Circular Road. Circular Road had been built in the 1850s to link Market Street and Stream Street, so that horse-drawn traffic could avoid the steep hill in Irish Street.

“In 1903 Mrs. Carr was still trading at Irish Street and Circular Road but by 1914, the year in which she died, Mrs. Carr was trading only at Circular Road.”

Joseph notes that by 1923 the grocer and spirit dealer of Circular Road was Richard John Carr, and sometime between 1937 and 1940 the name of Circular Road was changed to St Patrick’s Avenue. He says that by 1942 Richard John Carr was describing himself as a grocer, without reference to the spirit trade, and that sometime between 1950 and 1956 there was yet another change when Richard John Carr & Company was trading as Wholesale Bottlers.

“By 1960 even the Wholesale Bottlers were gone, and now this ancient bottle has turned up — a tangible link with a family prominent in Downpatrick for generations,” Joseph added.

Interested in knowing more about the quirky antique bottle, which prompted his curiosity, Joseph would welcome any feedback on his research to date.

“Attics are sometimes good places to find these sorts of things,” he said. “Rubbish can be thrown up there, and when it comes to moving house, it can be a case of people looking up and simply closing the trap door.

“There are always surprises. You think you have seen it all, then something else comes up.

“I find auctions exciting, as you never know what’s going to be there.”

The bottle is to be sold at Saintfield Auctions on Saturday and may be viewed on Friday or on the morning of the sale.