Dockyard Places Time Capsule in Commissioner’s House
Dockyard Places Time Capsule in Commissioner’s House
At the end of October, Admiral Sir Trevor Soar KCB OBE DL, Chair of Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust and Lord Mendoza CBE, Chair of Historic England, placed a Time Capsule within the Commissioner’s House during the topping out ceremony.
Within the capsule there are stories, photographs, contemporary materials and personal reflections from the team working on the project.
Winning Designs
There was a competition, “Cards Beneath the Floorboards,” that invited members of the public to design a pack of playing cards. Two winning designs were selected and turned into a real pack of cards for inclusion in the capsule.
Winners were:
- Steven Hughes – HMS GANNET – Adult Category
- Stanley Kiddle (age 7) – The Three Ships – Child Category
The competition was inspired by the discovery of a single playing card found beneath the House’s original floorboards. Read more about the discovery of the Jack of Spades.
Featured in the Capsule
- Signed letter by Admiral Sir Trevor Soar KCB OBE DL, Chair of Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust and Lord Mendoza CBE, Chair of Historic England
- Business plan for the Commissioner’s House
- Scrapbook with hand-written notes of those who are working on the Commissioner’s House renovation project
- Photos of the scaffolding around the Commissioner’s House
- Then and Now Photos from The Historic Dockyard Chatham’s 40th Anniversary
- 40th anniversary edition of Periscope
- A selection of current leaflets from 2025
- 10-year Strategy
- Historic photos and artworks of the Commissioner’s House from the Dockyard’s archive
- Dockyard40: Transform exhibition photos and accompanying interpretation
- Retail products from The Ropery Shop
Selected items found during the renovation project:
- “The Queen” magazine front cover, depicting a photograph of a yacht sailing. Dated April 4th 1956. On the reverse is an advert for the popular Cow and Gate baby food brand.
- Unknown technical drawing found under the floor. Possibly an electrical diagram.
- Two notes, original text in pencil that has the name Sybil Sherwood written along the top. Blue pencil notes and “crossing out” across each item. Written on a “Hearts of Oak” John Players & Sons tobacco. In 2025, we have a Hearts of Oak exhibition. This tobacco was well circulated in 1900.
- Newspaper section with Christmas advert for Jacqmar scarves. 1936
- Newspaper clipping of cinema listings of locations and showing films. 1960s
- Section of a Laverage safety matches box.
- Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut wrapper from a long-ago lunch break. 1991
- Fry’s “5 Centre” fruit-flavoured chocolate bar. The bar came in 5 flavours: lime, coffee, pineapple, raspberry and orange. 1970
- Quavers crisp packet. 1991
- KP Hula Hoop crisp packet. Round “hoop” crisp 1990
- Smith’s “Salt ‘n’ Shake” crisps. 1991
With thanks to The London Archives for providing the Time Capsule storage boxes.
