Danks Bros glass bottle unearthed in old well in Ruawai

Kaye Forshaw, of Ruawai, with a Danks Brothers glass bottle that was buried in the old well in the background. Photo / Supplied

Danks Brothers wasn't a name that resonated with Kaye Forshaw but when the Dargaville Museum indicated an interest in a bottle she unearthed from an old well she began making inquiries.

The Ruawai resident and her husband decided to explore an old well on their new 10-acre lifestyle block they moved onto about 18 months ago, given the drought Northland went through early this year.

The couple decided to dig up the well when a digger was on the property for an unrelated matter two weeks ago.

Out came a Danks Brothers glass bottle. Before the 1960s the company ran a cordial manufacturing business that had operated out of Cranley St in Dargaville since the early 1900s.

"We saw the bottle come out. It was reasonably intact. When I posted it up on Facebook, the Dargaville Museum said they were interested so I think Danks Brothers sold either soft drinks or ran a brewery.

"One of the people whose father used to own this block said his father had dug a well over 70 years ago so it must have been filled up since. We have tanks but no water for the gardens.

"There's a dam next door used by local farmers and we also used water from there and it's one of the few places that didn't dry up during the drought but we need to tidy up our well, test the water and see if we can resurrect it."

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Forshaw said she would take the Danks Brothers glass bottle to the museum which would add it to its bottle collection.

When the couple moved a house to Ruawai, she said they found quite a few tiny bottles that people normally saw in museums.

"It's quite shocking people didn't care what they buried under the ground ... they buried all sorts," she said.

The glass bottle with a Danks Brothers embossed logo that Kaye Forshaw found on her property. Photo / Supplied

Museum committee member Ron Halliday said George Danks started manufacturing summer drinks and cordials and there

places he sold them in Dargaville.

He wasn't precise what year Danks opened the business but referred to an advertisement the latter placed in the then North Auckland Times on July 25, 1925, about his company.