Battle woman finds 125-year-old Lloyd’s Weekly newspaper in wall

A woman from East Sussex says she was “quite amazed” to find a Victorian newspaper stuffed into the walls of her flat.

Karen Taylor discovered a scrap of Lloyds Weekly, one of the most popular newspapers of the late-19th Century, in the walls of her flat in a listed building in Battle High Street.

Ms Taylor, 52, now wants to find out more about the scrap of newspaper, as well as find a permanent home for it in a museum.

She said: “I don’t want it to go to waste. There must be someone out there who wants it.”

Ms Taylor said builders working on her flat discovered the newspaper, which had been used as insulation inside the walls.

The newspaper, dated 3 June 1900, features articles on upcoming fashion trends, and an excerpt of a dessert recipe.

A full record of the page, from the British Newspaper Archive, shows the recipe was for Berlin pudding.

Adverts on the paper include medicinal cigarettes which claim to relieve “asthma, wheezing and chronic bronchitis”, and a special offer on melodeons, a type of button accordion.

The newspaper, which cost one penny, reached a circulation of over a million and was one of the most popular papers of its time.

Jen Brewer, research specialist at Find My Past, which helps with the British Newspaper Archive, said the page’s content pointed to it being part of a women’s section of the paper, something which flourished as newspapers boomed at the end of the Victorian period.

She said: “It’s a piece of that house and that street’s history.

“There’s something really special about holding a piece of history in your hands, it’s a chance to connect with history and there’s an opportunity to really tell a story and really explore that community.”