A mystery object, originally thought to be a Tavistock Abbey artefact, is in fact an 18th century bottle, an expert has said.

Eileen Bargery, 92, from Yelverton, believed an object she found in Tavistock town centre in the 1980s was a remnant from the abbey from the tenth century.

After seeing an article in the Tavistock Times asking residents to come forward with any objects which might be remains of the former Benedictine monastery, she contacted the paper.

Weathering has further disguised the fragment to look more like pottery, but is in fact aged glass.

Research into the glass fragment has shown the item is the base of a bottle which might be from a house which is now part of Bedford Hotel.

The public appeal for artefacts which may have come from the abbey aims to obtain as much evidence as possible of the now ruined abbey to bring its history alive for visitors and locals. The appeal is also a way of involving the wider community in a history project which will include a citizen historian archaeological dig next year.

The fragment of bottle found by Eileen features an indentation or dimple in the base of a bottle which historically was designed to help hand-glass-blown bottles stand upright and provide strength. Punts are also used to fool the eye, giving the impression the bottle is holding more wine than it is.

Simon Thompson, from the abbey project, looked into Eileen’s find. He said: “On balance, I think it is more probably an early-to-mid eighteenth century glass bottle base.

“Earlier bottles, certainly in the seventeenth century, had a less pronounced punt. The wall of the bottle would have been more-or-less vertical, with the punt rising very acutely from it.”

Simon said because the fragment did not appear to be part of a collection of other artefacts/remains, giving an historic context, the provenance was not easy to deduce.

He therefore suggested: “It is difficult to give it any particular significance; it could possibly relate to the former house of Jacob Saunders – now the eastern part of the Bedford Hotel – which was built in about 1725.”

Eileen, who used to run a Tavistock music sheet shop, dug out the glass from an earth bank alongside the River Tavy, next to Abbey Bridge in Tavistock, when she was taking her dog for a walk and has kept it safe ever since without giving it much thought.

After reading the appeal, she handed the object over to the Tavistock Times, thinking it was a piece of broken pottery monk’s mug, discarded from the abbey. She asked the Times if the town’s amateur history detectives could solve her decades-old ‘mystery’.

Tavistock Heritage Trust was also contacted by other Tavistock Times readers with potential artefacts and at least one, from Tavistock vicarage gardens, is being looked at by experts at Exeter University. A 3D online digital recreation of the abbey will be created by the trust for everyone to view, once all the new finds and existing remains are surveyed and investigated. The project is being funded by national grants.