UK´s lost jewels displayed over a century after discovery                  The Hoard is the world’s largest collection of Elizabethan and early-Stewart jewellery, almost five hundred pieces in total. And it was found by chance in Cheapside in the city of London just five minutes walk from the museum in 1912 by workmen who were demolishing a building put up just after the great fire, said curator Hazel Forsyth.

Perhaps one of the finest jewels in the Cheapside Hoard is this salamander brooch. With emeralds from Columbia, diamonds from India and enamelling completed in Europe, this piece demonstrates London’s standing as the heart of the international gemstone trade during the 1600s.

"The salamander jewel, I think, is particularly charming as a piece of jewellery....what makes it such an enchanting piece and significant for the hoard is that the salamander by tradition was a creature that was supposed to have withstood and be in fact nourished by fire," Forsyth said.

Watch set in a single Columbian hexagonal emerald crystal.

Other pieces of note include this watch set in a single Columbian hexagonal emerald crystal. The dial plate is enamelled in translucent green and its suspension loop is set with small emeralds.

Definitely one of the oldest pieces in the collection is this cameo depicting the profile bust of a queen from Egypt’s Ptolemaic period.

Elsewhere, the Cheapside Hoard contains more than 30 of these gold and enamelled necklaces, which were extremely popular during the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods.

Gold and enamelled necklaces popular during the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods.

Museum of London conservationist, Catherine Nightingale, says that because of the unique nature of the hoard, visitors are being shown a true insight into the gems and jewels of the past.

"A lot of jewellery made of that period perhaps would’ve been taken apart, the gems would’ve been reset, perhaps if the enamel got chipped they may have just discarded the enamel, reused the gold. So what’s fantastic is because it was buried, we’ve still got it in the way that it would’ve been manufactured when it was made," she said.

The Cheapside Hoard: London’s Lost Jewels, runs from October 11 till April 27 at the UK’s Museum of London.