A worker's well-worn pair of boots and a football pools coupon are among the forgotten items uncovered beneath Buckingham Palace's floorboards during its ongoing restoration.
The Palace has been undergoing a £370million renovation for the past decade to rewire its electrics, upgrade its plumbing and heating, and overhaul its infrastructure to prevent long-term damage.
The work has turned up a treasure trove of historic items collected by renovators, ranging from an empty Silk Cut cigarette packet, the brand once smoked by Queen Camilla, to an almost 140-year-old fragment of West End theatre listings from The Standard newspaper in 1889.
A ticket to a "whist drive" run by the Royal Household's social club nearly 80 years ago was also among the resurfaced goods, alongside a blank Littlewoods football pools coupon from 1957 and a pair of battered black hobnail boots.
Workers also found a detailed, typed schedule with all the timings and directions required for Queen Elizabeth II's hosting of a diplomatic reception in her Silver Jubilee year of 1977, revealing that the monarch would work the room in a "clockwise direction."
The misplaced belongings, found beneath the floorboards or in other areas of the royal residence during the building work, offer a glimpse into the lives of the people who worked and lived behind the scenes at the monarchy's headquarters. They have remained hidden for decades, preserved within the fabric of the Palace, before being discovered by workers carrying out the infrastructure refurbishment.
Fire risk cabling removed
Examples of electrical wire covered with Vulcanised Indian Rubber cabling, which posed the greatest fire risk to the building, were also located. The cabling, which becomes brittle with age, was removed as a priority when the project began in 2017 and is due to be completed next year.
Some 2km of the rubber cabling has been replaced so far, equivalent to the length of 40 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
A ticket from 1949
The small, once-white Whist Drive ticket, priced at sixpence and dated April 14, 1949, during the reign of the King's grandfather, George VI, was found embedded in a lump of building rock.
The pass to the staff social club gathering, where people would have played progressive rounds of the trick-taking card game whist, reads: "Royal Household Social Club, Buckingham Palace: A Whist Drive to be held on," followed by the faded, stamped date "14 APR 1949."
In April 1949, Queen Elizabeth II was still Princess Elizabeth and had been married to Prince Philip for less than 18 months. Their eldest son, the now-King, then Prince Charles, was only five months old.
Great Train Robbers in the archive
Also discovered were pages from the Daily Express newspaper of Tuesday, February 1, 1966, detailing the "maximum security" prison housing the Great Train Robbers. The pages pictured the inside of Durham Prison and revealed that the men found guilty of stealing a fortune in mailbags spent their week stitching them for nine shillings.
The Queen's clockwise instructions
The instructions for Royal Household staff for the 1977 Diplomatic Corps reception revealed that the Queen and other members of the royal family would move round the Ball Room in a clockwise direction.
Aides were also asked to encourage the 350 British guests to mingle with the diplomats at the annual gathering, where the dress code required white tie and decorations or national dress, with the royal women wearing tiaras.
"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 manually typed sheet read. "In the Ball Room, Her Majesty and other Members of the Royal Family will move round the room in a clockwise direction."
The sheet also warned that smoking was banned in certain state rooms and that the reception was kept to a strict timetable. "Drinks will be served to guests in the Blue Drawing Room, State Dining Room and West Gallery between 9.30 and 10.00pm," it read. "Guests allotted to the Ball Room will be served drinks in the Ball Room Annexe from 9.30pm until approximately 10.15pm. Smoking will not be permitted in any of these rooms."
Tiles, tankards and Christmas cards
Other findings included a section of Minton decorative ceramic tiles from a fireplace hearth, with the design dated around the mid-1800s, an aged pewter tankard, a bottle of Schweppes Still Malvern English Spring Water, a wooden junction box, and a faded box containing six Christmas cards.
