Following the end of WW2 the government quickly realised a nationwide, co-ordinated effort was needed to the repair and rebuild Britian's bomb blasted towns and cities. So on January 1st 1947 the Ministry of Reclamation was form to lead and manage the rebuilding efforts and to reclaim the bomb flattened neighbourhoods. It was a Ministry workteam who found the artefacts in a long disused cellar in 1962, edivence suggest that they may had been put there sometime in the late 19th century. The items were put into storage awaiting to be catalogged where they laid for the next 40 odd years.

The Ministry was disbanded in 1968 following a series of budget cuts when many government departments were axed.