A schoolgirl has found what could be a 100-year-old letter in a bottle.

Theia Langowski was on a camping trip with her dad Daniel over the weekend on Darnet Island, in the Medway Estuary, when they came across the historic find.

Daniel said: “It was there embedded right up on the backshore. It must have been a storm or high tide to get it up there.

“We had to break the lid off as it was corroded and we saw the letter.

“We thought it would be something really modern so to find out it was not was a big surprise.”

He said there are plenty of old bottles washed up on the beach, which is also home to nesting seabirds, and said in the Victorian times many would picnic on the shore.

The dad managed to make out that the letter looked to be from HMS Wakeful.

There have been a few ships commissioned with that name but by the looks of the writing style Daniel thinks it could be quite old.

Although the ink has faded, it appears to read: “From: L/Capt James … of HMS… If found, please contact this address… 8 Mess, HMS Wakeful, London.”

In October 1917, HMS Wakeful, a destroyer of the Royal Navy, was launched and served in both world wars.

It was chosen to support Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of troops from Dunkirk, in 1940 but when returning to England, it was torpedoed.

Only four people survived and the wreckage is now a designated war grave.

Another HMS Wakeful was launched three years later and also served in the war but sold for scraps in 1971.

“It could be from any of those ships,” Daniel, who is an avid fisherman and boater, added. “It is a real mystery. People have been going crazy about it since I posted about it.

“Theia thinks it is absolutely amazing.”

Daniel, from Rainham, will be taking the note to the Chatham Historic Dockyard museum.