What Will We Leave Behind?

I was thinking today about what we have found during our barn conversion project, and when digging ditches for drainage and for our polytunnel on our property. We have not found any treasure, unfortunately, and nothing hugely fascinating. But we have found a few interesting bits of Victorian or early 20th Century ‘rubbish’.

We found a few pieces of pottery, a piece of old green tile (not dissimilar to the tiles I have chosen to place behind our Rayburn wood-burning stove), a couple of small paste jars (we like to think left behind by a farmer or builder after eating their lunch. And a ceramic dummy egg. (The kind placed in nesting boxes to encourage chickens to lay in the right place.)

For your information – it did not work for us, and some of our girls still insist on laying wherever it takes their fancy – like at the back of a bed underneath a prickly bush! Some chickens definitely seem more free-minded and stubborn than others.

A hoard of Pictish silver was found just a mile or two away from us in the late 20th Century I believe – but we have not had any luck finding anything valuable. But we still cherish even the smallest find for what it tells us about life in the past.

19th Century ‘rubbish’ is often sought after, and some even search old dumps to sift through the remains. Of course, modern dumps are also mined for valuable metals etc.. But we all need to ask ourselves what will live on from our own lives – what will we leave behind for future ‘treasure seekers’ to find?