Syngenta closed its 100th anniversary celebrations by burying a time capsule which will only be opened when the firm’s 150th comes around.

Kirklees Mayor Clr Jim Dodds and engineering apprentice Thomas Petherick, 18, took up spades to bury the time capsule, which contains items commemorating the Huddersfield chemical company’s centenary celebrations.

The capsule includes a sample from the last batch of textile dye manufactured on site in 1999, a video from the centenary open day in September, copies of the Examiner looking back through 2016 and an empty bottle of Syntenary Ale, which was brewed using Syngenta barley by a team of volunteers in collaboration with Mallinson’s brewery in Lockwood.

It also contains a Huddersfield Heritage book, a Syntenary tankard, a financial report, a hardback book of pictures of events throughout 2016, a staff photograph, and a Guardian article about the celebrities who died in 2016!

The open day at Syngenta's Huddersfield plant

The ceremony was held at the Leeds Road site during the firm’s annual Connecting Communities Fair. The event promotes the firm’s Community Gift scheme, which allows staff to take paid time off for volunteering and bids are made to the fund to release cash.

Jane Denton, of the event organising committee, said: “The Connecting Communities Fair is always well-received by both the groups we invite and our staff. This year the event is even more special to us as we incorporate the planting of the time capsule.”

The lid of the time capsule bears the instruction that it should not be opened until 2066.