Time capsule

A unique piece of local history has been discovered in the wall of a local primary school in Gravesend, Kent. A bottle containing artefacts from the day in 1893 when building work on Wrotham Road School finished was dug out by workmen building an extension.

Coins, letters from the architect, and copies of two local newspapers had all been buried beneath its memorial stone.

Head teacher Jenny Hetherington said they would be reburied by the pupils along with some modern equivalents.

"We're hoping to re-use the memorial stone and add our new memorial stone from this phase of the work. The children are writing their own time capsules, and this time we're going to add photographs," she said.

The artefacts unearthed at the school had all been squeezed into a sealed glass bottle, and included a copy of the Gravesend and Dartford Reporter.

The paper's current news editor, Michael Adkins, said he was not surprised the Victorians had chosen to preserve his paper. "It was the bible for Gravesend," he explained.

The school opened in 1894, just a few months after the capsule was buried, and was designed for 700 children in 10 classes.

The historic items will be reinserted into a new time capsule, along with those chosen by the pupils, and will be reburied in one of the walls of the new extension.