A time capsule of life in Barking today has been buried by schoolchildren for youngsters to unearth in the future.

Pupils from St Joseph’s and St Margaret’s schools wrote essays about their lives and what they thought the future might be like, which were placed in the stainless steel container and interred at the Curfew Tower landscape scheme on the site of the medieval Barking Abbey.

“This is the kind of project we want to involve the children in,” St Joseph’s history teacher Joel Hartley explained.

“They learn about their community and become creative by imagining what the future could be like.”

The Curfew Tower is all that remains of Barking Abbey built in 1370 that was demolished during Henry VIII’s church Reformation two centuries later.

The tower reminded the townsfolk to put out fires and lights before the nightly curfew, a practice which didn’t end till 1900.

The landscaping scheme by Barking and Dagenham Council opens to the public in March.