Message in a bottle found behind proscenium crown in Edinburgh theater

A message in a bottle discovered hidden behind an ornate plaster crown in the moulding above the stage of the King’s Theatre in Edinburgh has now been opened, revealing a full list of the crew who built the theater in 1906.

The bottle was discovered last December by just the kind of person you’d expect to stick his hand in a gap behind a big plaster crown on the off-chance there might be something cool in there: historian, photographer of historic theaters and long-time donor to King’s Theatre Mike Hume. His father worked on sets there when he was a child,

The theater is currently undergoing a $50 million restoration and is covered in scaffolding giving select visitors the chance to see parts of the baroque-style building that are impossible to see, let alone access, in normal circumstances. Hume was on a private tour for theater patrons when he found himself eye-to-eye with the top of the proscenium arch 40 feet above the stage. On an impulse any history nerd can understand completely, he reached into the gap behind the crown and fished around for anything besides plaster debris and dust bunnies. He touched something solid and grabbed it. Only when he withdrew his hand did he see his prize was a glass bottle with a scroll of paper inside.

The bottle top was completely covered, encapsulated in plaster to the bottle shoulder. It had been dipped in wet plaster to seal it when the bottle was stashed behind the crown, so it was not immediately possible to remove the message. The year “1906” written on the paper was clearly visible through the transparent glass.

Conservators at the Scottish Conservation Studio were able to remove the seal and open the bottle top, but they deemed it too risky to remove the paper through the slim bottleneck. After Scotland’s Treasure Trove Unit determined the King’s Theatre owned the artifact, the bottle was transferred to the Edinburgh College of Art where a glass technician was able to cut off the base of the bottle with a fine diamond blade. See the video of the operation, set to the apropos strains of Genie in a Bottle by Christina Aguilera, here.

They were able to see the date of October 1906 (two months before the theater opened) and that it was a list of names, but the folded and rolled paper was stuck to itself in some places, so it needed to be treated by paper specialist Helen Creasy at the Scottish Conservation Studio before it could be unfolded without damage. The full list of names was then revealed, starting with the building contractors W.S. [William Stuart] Cruikshank & Son, followed by architects John D. Swanston and James Davidson, the clerk of works John Tulloch, draughtsman John A. Cameron, foreman plasterer George King, Jnr., shop & job plasterers William Begg, John Hutchinson, George Greaves King, Snr., Andrew S. Law, J. Johnston, L. Black, W. Donnelly, William Hunter, J. Mitchell and G. Hay.

BBC News hired a genealogy service to research the names on the list and handed over the information on the workers’ histories and families to the theater. When the theater reopens in 2026, the bottle and note will go on display in a new exhibition space dedicated to the history of the theater.

* This article was originally published here