This ship in a bottle was made by a German Prisoner of War held at Hadham’s Wynches Camp during WW2. It was traded for 2 bars of soap. In the museum collection are letters written by former prisoner Walter Schernagl who recalled that..

“Autumn 1946 and we approached Christmas. Some German prisoners had the idea to start the production of toys and other little things which could be used as presents… It was no problem to find the necessary material on the farms, like some wood from old chest boxes, old sacks etc. And really, during the months of November and December the chaps were very busy in the evenings… Some ‘specialists’ concentrated their activity on the production of slippers… Others started with the production of little toys like puppets or ‘Jumping Jacks’ or chessmen. The most skilled ones fabricated little boats and sailing ships and one of the chaps concentrated on wonderful bottle ships.”

Copper In The Clouds are currently running a 5cl miniature promotion whereby customers will receive a free miniature 5cl bottle of gin with any purchase over £20 made through our website. The code is FREE-MINI and can be used at checkout.