The re-opening of the Victoria Tower Repository in July 1963 allowed the House of Lord Records Office an opportunity to exhibit some of the vast array of historical records they held going back to the 15th Century. This exhibition aimed to showcase manuscripts of national importance which would include Katherine Howard's Attainder (1541), the 1679 Habeas Corpus Act and the 1688 Declaration of Rights.

Victoria Tower's gothic majesty had always caught the public's imagination with previous newspaper articles describing it as ‘Parliament's Attic' and the ‘Tower of 28,000,000 secrets'. The Times article on that day led with the headline ‘New Life for the Record Tower', which certainly would have been agreed by the guests at the tea reception that followed in the newly refurbished House of Lords Dining Room.