The treasure trove of trinkets beneath Palace floorboards
The treasure trove of trinkets beneath Palace floorboards
Victoria WardMon, September 14, 2026 at 6:00 AM UTC
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Princess Margaret was a heavy smoker, at one point getting through 60 a day - Tim Graham/Corbis
Buried amid the priceless artefacts and works of art, they are, on the face of it, worthless.
But a treasure trove of long-forgotten everyday items discovered by builders restoring Buckingham Palace has offered a fascinating glimpse into the lives of those who once walked its gilded corridors.
In replacing the old with the new, workers found an array of misplaced belongings beneath the floorboards and in other areas of the royal residence, preserved within its fabric for decades.
Among the collection of trinkets is an empty Silk Cut cigarette packet, a ticket to a “whist drive” run by the royal household’s social club nearly 80 years ago, and a pad of 1957 Littlewoods Football Pool betting slips.
The Littlewoods Pools’ betting slips - Aaron Chown/PA
The thought of smokers puffing away on cigarettes in the opulent state rooms is very much of the past.
The empty Silk Cut packet points to a bygone era when Gallaher, the tobacco company which makes Benson & Hedges and Silk Cut cigarettes, held a royal warrant.
The company was granted the warrant in 1877 and, as an official supplier to the royal household, proudly displayed the royal coat of arms on its products for 122 years.
The warrant was withdrawn by Elizabeth II in 1999, ending the palace’s official orders for tobacco. The move was welcomed by anti-smoking campaigners who had long complained that the monarch was endorsing a product that had killed her father, George VI, her grandfather, George V, and great-grandfather, Edward VII.
The King, then Prince Charles, who is an ardent anti-smoker, was said to have influenced the decision.
Silk Cut was Camilla Parker-Bowles’ favourite cigarette brand - Aaron Chown/PA
Princess Margaret, then 68, was the only smoker among senior members of the Royal family at the time. She had cut down from 60 a day following a life-threatening stroke the previous year but was said to have ignored advice to stop smoking altogether.
The then Camilla Parker Bowles, who at the time was described as the heir to the throne’s companion, announced she was giving up smoking to mark his 50th birthday in 1997, although she eventually kicked the habit in 2001. Silk Cut, launched in 1964, was said in a report from the time to be her favoured brand.
Among the other everyday objects unearthed by builders during the restoration works, was an almost 140-year-old fragment of the West End theatre listings from The Standard newspaper in 1889.
Also found was a detailed, typed schedule with all the timings and directions required for Elizabeth II’s hosting of a diplomatic reception in her Silver Jubilee year of 1977, revealing the monarch would work the room in a “clockwise direction.”
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The Palace has been undergoing a £370m reservicing for the past decade to rewire its electrical systems, upgrade its plumbing and heating, and overhaul its infrastructure to prevent long-term damage.
Electrical wire covered with vulcanised Indian rubber cabling - Aaron Chown/PA
Examples of electrical wire covered with Vulcanised Indian Rubber cabling, which posed the greatest fire risk to the building, were also located, with the cabling, which becomes brittle with age, removed as a priority when the project, which is expected to be completed next year, began in 2017.
Some 2km of the rubber cabling has been replaced so far – the equivalent of 40 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
The small once-white Whist Drive ticket, priced at 6d, a 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 in the palace, where people would have played progressive rounds of the classic trick-taking card game, 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, Elizabeth II was still Princess Elizabeth and had been married to Prince Philip for less than 18 months. Their elder son, the then Prince Charles, was only five months old.
Also discovered were pages from the Daily Express in 1966 detailing the “maximum security” prison housing the Great Train Robbers, showing the inside of Durham Prison and revealing that “the men who were found guilty of stealing a fortune in mailbags spend their week stitching them for nine shillings”.
The copy of the Daily Express from Tuesday, Feb 1, 1966 found at the Palace - Aaron Chown/PA
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 around the Ball Room in a “clockwise direction”.
Aides were also asked to encourage the 350 British guests to mingle with the diplomats at the glittering annual gathering, where the dress code would have been 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.
It added: “In the Ball Room, Her Majesty and other Members of the Royal Family will move round the room in a clockwise direction”.
It also warned that smoking was banned in certain state rooms, with the reception kept to a strict timetable, saying: “Drinks will be served to guests in the Blue Drawing Room, State Dining Room and West Gallery between 9.30 and 10.00pm.
“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.”
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.
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
