Message in 132-year-old bottle unravelled at Scottish lighthouse

A message in a 132-year-old bottle has been discovered by an engineer conducting an inspection at a 209-year-old Scottish lighthouse.

Ross Russell, who is a Northern Lighthouse Board mechanical engineer, removed some panels in a cupboard at Corsewall Lighthouse, which is located at the northern tip of the Rhins of Galloway, reported UPI.

He also spotted a bottle hidden inside the wall.

To fish the bottle out of its hiding place, Russel and his team used some rope and a broom handle. They opened it with the current lighthouse keeper, Barry Miller.

The cork was stuck in place and had to be carefully removed using a drill, the team said.

“We all swore ourselves to silence if it was a treasure map,” Miller joked to The New York Times.

Dated Sept 4, 1892, inside was a note bearing the names of three engineers who had installed a light at the top of the 100-foot lighthouse as well as the names of three lighthouse keepers.

“It was so exciting, it was like meeting our colleagues from the past. It was actually like them being there,” Miller told BBC News Scotland. “It was like touching them. Like them being part of our team instead of just four of us being there, we were all there sharing what they had written because it was tangible and you could see the style of their handwriting.”

He said: “You knew what they had done. You knew they had hidden it in such a place it wouldn’t be found for a long, long time.”

The note reads: “This lantern was erected by James Wells Engineer, John Westwood Millwright, James Brodie Engineer, David Scott Labourer, of the firm of James Milne & Son Engineers, Milton House Works, Edinburgh, during the months from May to September and relighted on Thursday night 15th Sept 1892.”

Along with a message of their own, Russel said that he and his team would put the bottle back into its hiding place.