An interesting discovery this week has produced a new link with smuggling days along the channel coast of the Island. Workmen engaged on alterations to 2, Old Myrtle Cottage, Brook, found a six gallon brandy cask and three glass bottles or jars of four, five and six gallons capacity in a chimney ‘hidey.’

The containers were found behind a bend in a chimney stack between the main building and a lean-to, which is being demolished. No entrance to the hiding place was apparent. Mr J C Morris, owner of the property, who lives next door in Rectory Cottage, estimates that the bottles and cask have been stored away for at least a century. He told a County Press representative that he had known the cottage for 70 years and the existence of the hidey was never suspected.
Courtesy of the Isle of Wight County Press, 1958.