Recently unearthed time capsule from Princess Diana yields 1990s nostalgia

Theresa Braine, New York Daily News on Aug 28, 2025

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A time capsule assembled by the late Diana, Princess of Wales — sealed inside the wall of a London children’s hospital 34 years ago — has recently been unearthed, yielding a treasure trove of 1990s memorabilia.

Diana served as president of Great Ormond Street Hospital from 1989 until her death in 1997. The capsule, a wooden box encased in lead, was sealed within the main entrance in a 1991 ceremony marking the start of new construction.

Inside were items chosen by two children who had won a contest sponsored by the popular children’s TV show “Blue Peter.”

Contestants got to pick eight items they felt represented life in the 1990s. Diana helped winners Sylvia Foulkes and David Watson, ages 9 and 11 at the time, with their picks, while adding some of her own.

David chose a CD of Kylie Minogue’s “Rhythm of Love” album, a sheet of recycled paper and a European passport, The Guardian noted. Sylvia picked a collection of British coins, five tree seeds from Kew Gardens and a snowflake hologram.

Other items included a Casio pocket television, a solar-powered calculator and a photo of the princess herself, the hospital said, plus a copy of the Times from the day the capsule was sealed in. Front-page headlines included “US rejects Iraqi warplanes plea as rebels close in,” and “Cooked meats bring out Soviet voters in droves” next to an image of former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

The items were more or less intact, aside from a bit of water damage that’s being repaired, the hospital said in a statement.

Staff who had worked at the hospital when the time capsule was buried, or those who had been born there in 1991, were on hand to help remove the capsule earlier this year.

“It brought back so many memories seeing the pocket TV in there,” said staffer Janet Holmes. Hospital official Jason Dawson found the moment “really quite moving,” he told The Times of London, and marveled at how the cutting-edge technology of the time now looked like a toy.

The original plan was to keep the time capsule interred for hundreds of years, but it was removed prematurely to enable construction of a new children’s cancer center, the hospital said.

Diana was not the first Princess of Wales to lay a time capsule inside the hospital walls. In 1872, her predecessor Princess of Wales Alexandra sealed a time capsule into an older hospital building, The Times noted. That held a copy of The Times and a photo of Queen Victoria in a glass jar, but has never been found.