A family from Glen Roy have discovered a time capsule in their garden dating back to 1993.

Mel Christian and family found the capsule this week, which contained local newspapers, photographs, coins, bottles of rum and brandy, a Cowley Groves guide, and a handwritten letter.

They bought the cottage, in which they currently live, in 2013.

‘We bought it from a lady who was selling it as part of an inheritance as it had belonged to her family since the 1920s,’ said Mrs Christian.

‘The land had been divided up, so her brother Charlie Brew lives down the road.

‘One of the things that were sold to me as well as the house was the well in the garden but the top of it had fallen off over the years, so after we moved in we repaired the well and put it back together.’

She added: ‘Last week my husband was having a cup of tea in the morning and the top of the well came off again.

‘A friend of ours started doing some work on it and in doing so found the time capsule.

‘We opened it up and we were quite excited and found out it was from our neighbour’s father who lived here in the early 1990s just after his wife had died.’

Mrs Christian explained that there were copies of the Peel City Guardian and Ramsey Chronicle newspapers, neither of which is currently being produced, as well as a copy of the Isle of Man Courier.

She added that one of the newspapers had an article about ‘helping Ukraine celebrate Christmas’, which she called ‘a strange coincidence’ given the current situation in Ukraine.

‘He’d done this time capsule with newspapers that aren’t around now,’ she said. ‘Some really unusual things in there.

‘That’s why it felt like a very unusual thing because it also has papers that aren’t around anymore.

‘There was also a little bottle of rum and a little bottle of brandy.

‘There was a photograph of the cottage in 1993 and then this little handwritten letter from Charlie’s dad.

‘He was talking about the cottage and where his wife and him had lived and that they were building the house down the road where his children were.

‘It was beautifully handwritten.’

The man who wrote the letter mentioned he had hoped the time capsule would last 100 years.

Mrs Christian explained they wanted to fulfil his wishes so would be re-burying it, saying: ‘We thought we’d put in a photo of the cottage now in 2022 and write another letter with a bit about our family who are living here now.

‘I’ve got a newspaper from last week of when the Queen died, so I thought it might be nice to pop that in with it.

‘I suppose I’d better print off some house prices for 2022 as well to go with the Cowley Groves one!

‘So we’ll bury it again and hopefully in years to come someone else might find it. Hopefully it’ll be another 30 or 40 years before anyone does.

‘It feels like it needs to go back in its rightful place really. It would be lovely for this piece to go in too with it.’

She continued: ‘It’s just nice to have some record of the cottage.

‘Charlie’s dad, Jimmy Brew, just wanted to have some sort of record too, I suppose.

‘He talked about how his wife had just passed away and where he lived. They were both from Peel originally.’

Mr Brew was unaware his father had buried a time capsule.

‘I sent him a picture of it when it was still in situ in the well when we first found it and asked if he knew anything about it,’ Mrs Christian said. ‘He said “has my old man done a time capsule?” They had no idea.

‘The time capsule looked a bit odd at first, it’s a welding rod box, it’s completely watertight so he’d obviously put quite a lot of thought into it.

‘It was wrapped in tarpaulin and placed within the stones of the well so he’d obviously thought to keep it dry.

‘It was exciting because we didn’t know how old it was, obviously we hadn’t put it in so we knew it was older than nine years old.

‘When we did fix the well one of our neighbours stopped and said “it’s so nice to see the well back up again” because I think it had been in disrepair for a couple of years before we came into the house and fixed it.’