Mysterious locked safe found buried under pond in couple's back garden

A mysterious locked safe has been found by a couple buried beneath their back garden in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear. Heavy and rusting, the enormous safe, which is the same type as those used on the Titanic, was hidden beneath a garden pond for decades. It was only when David Maguire spent an afternoon tirelessly shifting mounds of soil that the object finally revealed itself.



David’s wife Nikki said they can hear something is still inside from their efforts to move it across the garden and are now desperate to get in without damaging its impressive cast iron walls. “We’d seen this bit of bronze metal poking out from where the old pond used to be for a while but just thought it was part of an old pump,” said Nikki. “We were completely amazed when it turned out to be the top of a safe. The house was built in the 1920s, but this looks a lot older than that.

“Before the house was built there was flats here. I don’t know if it’s been brought up here to be buried especially when they were building the houses. We’ve just got no idea,” added Nikki. The safe is almost a metre tall and is made by Milners, an historic company that began in 1814 by Thomas Milner and became famous for developing the world’s first fire proof safes. He would wow crowds with stunts involving elaborate street bonfires to demonstrate that his safes could protect anything that was inside.



Five of them were used onboard the Titanic, which sank in 1911. On the front of the one found in the Maguires garden is a plaque which reads ‘Milners of London, Manchester and Liverpool’ and ‘Patent fire resisting special safe’. However, with no key found alongside it, its contents remain a secret. Despite its rusty appearance, the safe could date from anywhere between the mid 19th century and 1955, when the Milner company merged with the firm Chatwood, although older designs had a distinctive arch on the front door.