Buckingham Palace Restoration Uncovers Everyday Items from the 1800s
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Buckingham Palace works uncover trove of everyday items dating back to 1800s
Image source: PA Media
Image caption: A coil of vulcanised indian rubber cabling, which posed the greatest risk of fire to the building (bottom left), was among the items discovered
By Ruth Comerford
Published 24 minutes ago
A pair of battered, hobnailed boots and a newspaper cutting dating back nearly 140 years are among a trove of everyday objects unearthed during restoration work at Buckingham Palace.
The misplaced items are thought to belong to staff who worked at the palace decades ago, and were found by workers carrying out the £369m refurbishment.
A ticket for a "whist drive" – a card game event hosted by the palace on 14 April 1949 – was found embedded in a lump of brick.
Several betting slips, a bottle of Schweppes Still Malvern English Spring Water, an empty Silk Cut cigarette carton and a newspaper article about the gang jailed for the 1963 Great Train Robbery were also found under floorboards.
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Until now, many of the items have remained hidden within the building’s infrastructure.
Among the discoveries was a typed schedule detailing Queen Elizabeth II’s plans to host a diplomatic reception in her Silver Jubilee year of 1977.
Image source: PA Media
Image caption: The pages from the 1966 Daily Express newspaper detailed the prison where the Great Train Robbers were being held
It revealed the monarch would work the room in a "clockwise direction", and that aides were asked to encourage the 350 British guests to mingle with the diplomats at the annual gathering.
"The British guests will be distributed throughout the State Rooms, except the Music Room and West Gallery, where they should be encouraged to talk to the Diplomats," the sheet reads.
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A pewter tankard, a wooden junction box and a faded box containing six Christmas cards were included in the haul.
Examples of electrical wire covered with vulcanised Indian rubber cabling were found. It was replaced as priority when the restoration began as it posed the greatest risk of fire to the building.
Also discovered were pages from the Daily Express newspaper in 1966 detailing the "maximum security" prison where the Great Train Robbers were incarcerated.
