By Jenni DixonPOTS dating from the 15th Century and from as far a field as Germany, France and Holland have been found underneath a garage of a house near Southwold.

By Jenni Dixon

POTS dating from the 15th Century and from as far a field as Germany, France and Holland have been found underneath a garage of a house near Southwold.

Builders working on an early 20th Century home discovered four pots during an excavation of a garage and mistook them for human skulls.

They alerted Suffolk County Council and archaeologists dated the pots as coming from 15th Century, but have no idea as to their value.

Project officer, Jezz Meredith, said: “The area was a major port on the Suffolk coast in medieval times. It's a nice collection and I believe they were discarded in rubbish pot adjoining a well-to-do property.”

The owners of the house, Julia and Kevin Sowerbutts, have only used the house as a holiday home, but are planning to move from London into it with their four children as their main home.

Mrs Sowerbutts said: “I haven't seen the pots as yet, but I think it's great and would like to put them in a cabinet.”

David de Krestner, curator of Southwold Museum, said it was very surprising that something that old had been found in the area.

But opinion was divided over for what purpose the pots were made.

Geoffrey Munn, an antiques expert who lives in Southwold, said: “They sound like witch bottles buried in floors of houses and filled with all sorts of horrible things to keep witches away.”

Don Thompson, chairman of a local history group, said: “I presume they are burial pots. What they did 500 years ago was to put bones and parts of dead bodies into urns and caskets and bury them.”

jenni.dixon@eadt.co.uk