Gold nugget worth £1.78 million found in box Australian civil servants used as hallway cricket stump

The nugget is the size of loaf of bread and weighs 10.7kg

(Getty Images)

Australian civil servants have discovered a 10.7kg gold nugget worth $3.7 million (£1.78 million) in a wooden box they use to play hallway cricket.

Workers at the New South Wales (NSW) Treasury department were shocked to find a gold nugget the size of a loaf of bread in a box used as stumps for indoor cricket, reports 9news.

This precious metal lump, known as the Maitland Bar gold nugget, was discovered in 1887 and was quickly bought by the NSW department of mines the same year.

It is thought the nugget is one of the purest ever mined and was entrusted to the Australian state’s treasury in the 19th century while the NSW government could not decide what to do with it.

NSW Premier, Mike Baird said: ‘Someone studiously decided they'd place it in a box.’

‘The problem was they forgot to tell anyone and that box became used for hallway cricket.’

Mr Baird has now instructed the Treasury to ‘open every box they can find’.

He added: ‘My good friends in Treasury - I love them dearly, but that was not their finest moment.’

The nugget is currently being displayed in the Australian Museum in Sydney next to the country’s first ever bank note.