What was in Princess Diana’s time capsule buried in 1991? Contents unearthed after 34 years

A time capsule buried by the late Princess Diana in 1991 at the Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) in London was confirmed to have been unearthed earlier this year, even though it had originally been intended to be buried for "hundreds of years."

The fascinating time capsule was dug up after only 34 years because construction work is beginning on a new children’s treatment centre at the hospital.

The capsule is full of things that’ll take people right back to the 1990s heyday, and it was originally conceived as part of the BBC’s Blue Peter television show. In 1991, two children named David Watson and Sylvia Foulkes were chosen to pick 10 items to put in the capsule that was to be buried at Great Ormond Street Hospital.

As part of the process, David and Sylvia would be helped by none other than the president of the children’s hospital, Princess Diana. So, just what was inside?

One of the first items unearthed was a CD (children today might need to be told this was how we listened to music, pre-streaming) of Kylie Minogue’s Rhythm of Love album.

It makes sense. Diana was arguably the most famous princess of the 1990s, and Kylie Minogue was one of the most famous pop princesses of the decade.

As for the rest of the contents, it included:

• A solar-powered calculator
• A pocket television
• Five tree seeds
• A snowflake hologram
• A passport
• A collection of British coins
• A copy of the Times newspaper from the date of the capsule’s burial
• A piece of recycled paper
• A photo of Princess Diana.

Per reports, while some of the artifacts had water damage, photos from the unearthing showed that they're largely intact after nearly 35 years.

Describing the process of the capsule’s retrieval, Jason Dawson, who works with the new Children’s Cancer Centre being constructed at the location of the capsule’s burial, called it "really quite moving."

He shared that it was "almost like connecting with memories of things that have been planted by a generation gone by".

By unearthing the box, he also revealed that they plan to take "the hopes and inspirations of 1991" and reflect new beliefs for the future. Another time capsule will eventually be buried under the finished cancer centre, in a nod to the royal tradition.

Diana’s time capsule wasn’t the first. When Alexandra of Denmark, wife of King Edward VII and a former Queen Empress Consort, was still the Princess of Wales in 1872, she laid the foundation stone of the older hospital building and buried a time capsule of her own.

Per several reports, this included a copy of The Times and a photograph of Queen Victoria in a glass jar, but it has actually never been unearthed or found.

The two Princesses of Wales aren’t the only royal to have buried something away, waiting to be unearthed hundreds of years later. In January 2025, King Charles III put a personal letter in a time capsule, which will be buried in Ayrshire and opened in 100 years, in the year 2125.