A wooden box made by a German internee during the First World War was valued at about £500 on this week’s episode of Antiques Roadshow.

The box was taken onto the BBC show by a woman who found it in a house that she and her husband had bought.

Antiques expert Paul Attebury called the box a ’fantastic insight into a not forgotten but overlooked piece of First World War history’.

The box was made by August (known as Richard) Glaser who spent time at both the Douglas and Knockaloe camps, spending the entirety of the war in the island.

Mr Attebury said: ’You’re going to spend four years of your life in the Isle of Man, so what do you do? Well the answer is, get on with what you can do, which is make things. Now this gentleman must have been quite good at woodwork.

’What I like particularly is this German inscription "Zum andenken an die kriegsgefangenschaft, Douglas Isle of Man".’

This translates to: ’To the memory of the prisoner of war camp, Douglas Isle of Man.’

While the box was valued at £300 to £500, Mr Attebury said that the ’story is much more valuable’.

And he said he hoped the owner would be able to find the internee’s family one day and let them into that part of their history.

Alison Jones from the Knockaloe Internment Camp and Patrick Visitor Centre said that Mr Glaser was interned in Douglas Camp just after it opened and remained there for three years before being transferred to Knockaloe until his repatriation back to Germany via Alexandra Palace in London in March 1919.

The box is set to be donated to the Knockaloe visitor centre in Patrick, where it will be displayed amongst the Douglas collection.