ANTIQUE glass bottles – some more than 100 years old ¬– that were recovered from the Old Market construction site are now sitting pride of place in the Hereford Cider Museum.

The seven bottles currently being displayed as part of the museum’s new gin exhibition miraculously escaped the recent construction work unbroken.

They were saved by developers and put on show in their office, then, with the project coming to an end, the bottles were donated to the museum, where manager Margaret Thompson was able to date them accurately, from the oldest, made in 1880, to the most recent, made around 1920.

They fit well within the gin exhibition, Ms Thompson said, as at the time glass was costly and bottles like these were often reused to store distilled gin.

And alongside the city’s famed history of cider production, Hereford was also once well-known for its gin, thanks to cider maker and local distiller William Pullen.

Ms Thompson said: “We are delighted to be able to exhibit the bottles.

“It was an excellent find on the development site, and a welcome addition to our exhibition.

“In that era gin was consumed in large, large quantities and this type of bottle would have been used to hold it.”

For more information on the Cider Museum, and on how you can visit the gin exhibition, click on www.cidermuseum.co.uk .