Man finds secret cellar under his house filled with 135-year-old bottles of booze

It’s not every day you discover your house is bigger than you thought it was. And it’s certainly not every day you unearth buried treasure.

But that’s exactly what a young man did after a neighbour mentioned there might be a cellar under his home.

Luca Hillier and his friend Tom went to investigate, eventually breaking through the floorboards of the 200-year-old pad to reveal a hidden chamber below.

They documented their DIY excavation on TikTok, along with the moment they discovered a number of dust-covered bottles lying in the corner of the secret room.

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Wiping one clean, they made out the label on one, which read “Clarke’s World Famed Blood Mixture, Lincoln, England.”

According to the Science Museum, the concoction – which was available between 1876 and 1920 – was sold as a treatment for a number of skin and blood diseases, including gout, rheumatism and scurvy. The name came from the maker’s claim that any such illness could “only be cured by purifying the blood”.

However, it turns out the ingredients were hardly ground-breaking stuff. The British Medical Association analysed the product in 1909 and found that it mainly consisted of water, a little sugar and alcohol and traces of chloroform and ammonia.

Still, Tom and Luca were enjoying a small taste of history, and their finds soon got a little more punchy. Alongside a full bottle of brandy, they also found whisky dating from 1887.

“It looks like there was some sort of ancient party going on down here,” Tom joked.

The pair's finds delighted fellow TikTokers, with the videos of their underground adventures racking up more than 5 million views.

Commentators were quick to offer their antique advice, with one writing: “The oldest bottle of port dates back to the 1800s, it would taste like pish [sic], but it’s absolutely priceless due to the age. Get these bottles appraised NOW. You could pay off the house!”

While another added simply: “Little gold mine you’ve found.”

The men left the story on a cliffhanger, revealing that they believed there was another room to the secret cellar.

Turning the camera to a brick wall, Tom explained that it sounded “quite hollow” and so they were going to “drill through it to see what [they] could find”.

All that's left to say is, to be continued…

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