Item LL 62841 Bottle Fragment - Beer or Wine, Casselden Place, Lonsdale Street, Melbourne, circa 1880

Summary

Top section of dark green glass beer or wine bottle that includes the cork, finish and wire, circa 1880. Excavated at Casselden Place in 2003.

Alcohol and Drinking.
There were 15 hotels at Little Lon in 1900. The profusion of beer, wine and spirit bottles revealed in excavations at Little Lon confirms that immense quantities of liquor were consumed. Were the drinkers mainly residents or visitors to Little Lon? Unearthed in the former yard of a 'high-class' brothel was a mass of French wine and champagne bottles. Reformers identified alcohol as a major social problem - 'the cause of crime, disease, insanity, marriage breakdown, poverty'.