A TIME capsule from 1906 has been found by property developers which contains information about a special ceremony where the memorial stones of a chapel were laid.

Builders converting the old Methodist school on Lower Green Lane, Astley, into a townhouse and apartments spotted it under a ramp at the building.

The capsule, which was presumably lost when the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel was demolished in the 1980s to make way for the school, contains a number of posters and letters as well as pages from The Tyldesley and Atherton Chronicle dated April 13, 1906.

One of the letters states the special ceremony raised £60, which equates to approximately £6,500 in today’s money, towards the building fund of the church.

Jonathan Grant, group chief executive of property developer W Howard Limited, said: “It is such a fascinating find and we thought this would be of great interest to residents in the area.

“This town has a lot of history and I feel like it is very important to preserve that, so we are going to send the items in the time capsule away to see if they can be better restored and then hopefully they can be displayed in some way in the future.”

The capsule also contains list of trustees' names and their occupations, information about a tea party of ‘bachelors and spinsters’ that raised nine shillings, posters of the event, details of ministers and preachers in Tyldesley, Atherton and Leigh and the names of officers and teachers at the chapel’s Sunday school.