Phillips and Maynard had differences of opinion, leading Phillips to exclude the Ipswich Museum. The press had come to learn of the significance of the find by 28 July. Brown continued to work on the site in accordance with his contract with Pretty, although excluded from excavating the burial chamber that he had located. On 14 August Brown testified at a treasure trove inquest which decided that the finds, transported to London for safekeeping due to the threat of war and concealed underground at Aldwych tube station, belonged to Pretty. Working with a farm labourer Brown took care to cover the excavated ship site with hessian and bracken. Brown returned again to his work at Stanton Chare in late 1939. After Sutton Hoo During World War II Brown performed a few archaeological tasks for the Ipswich Museum, but was principally engaged in civil defence work in Suffolk. He served in the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes and in the Royal Observer Corps post at Micklewood Green and tended the heating boilers of Culford School, Bury St. Edmunds. It became his usual practice to stay at the school for a fortnight at a time before undertaking the arduous twenty mile bicycle journey home to Rickinghall. After the war Brown was again employed by the Ipswich Museum, nominally as an "attendant", but with archaeological, external duties. He joined the Ipswich and District Natural History Society and then the District Astronomical Society (1950–1957) when it broke away from its parent body. In 1952 he undertook excavations in Rickinghall that uncovered a long-since disappeared Lady Chapel at the Superior Church and a Norman font at the Inferior Church. Until the 1960s he steadily continued the systematic study of archaeological remains in Suffolk, cycling everywhere, and preparing an extremely copious (if sometimes indecipherable) record of information pertaining to it. In 1961 Brown retired from Ipswich Museum, but continued to conduct excavations at Broom Hills in Rickinghall between 1964 and 1968. He uncovered evidence of a Neolithic presence, Roman occupation and the site of a Saxon nobleman's house. Brown returned to Culford School where he was employed as a caretaker, encouraging pupils to take an interest in archaeology. Death In 1965, during the Broom Hills excavations, Brown suffered either a stroke or a heart attack, which ended his active involvement in archaeological digs. He died on 12 March 1977 of pneumonia at his home "Cambria"