A Burnham-On-Sea couple have described their shock at finding a WW2 hand grenade, incendiary bomb and wartime shells in their garden this week.
The couple were busy working in their back garden when they made the discovery of the items, pictured here.
“We were in the process of digging out a large tree stump and clearing an old buried path in our garden at the weekend when we came across 22 M42 shells,” says the couple, Liz and Adrian, who don’t want their surname published.
Whilst sorting through a wheelbarrow full of cleared soil, Liz discovered a large stone which they suspected was a grenade.
“After a visit to the police station the bomb disposal unit was called out as a precaution to our town centre home.”
“They confirmed that both the shells were still dangerous and the grenade was indeed live and minus its pin.”
Adrian says he also asked the specialist to check another find in his garden which was initially believed to be a piece of corroded pipe.
“In actual fact they confirmed it was an incendiary bomb, possibly the most dangerous find of the weekend,” he says.
“All of the items were removed and were taken to Berrow beach for the controlled detonation.”
The team also performed a scan of the garden and no other pieces were detected but Adrian and Liz says they will report any further finds to the Police.
“We would like to say a big thank you to the police officers who had to spend several hours on Monday guarding the finds and the disposal team for their part.”
Police had initially reported that the shells were found in Berrow but they later confirmed that the material was in fact found in Burnham.
The devices were safely detonated by an army bomb disposal team on Berrow beach, as pictured below.
An area of the main beach was sealed off by Police, beach wardens and RNLI lifeguards on Monday afternoon to allow the controlled explosion to proceed at 3.40pm.
Niamh Byrne, a spokeswoman for Avon and Somerset Police, confirmed to Burnham-On-Sea.com: “We were called by a member of the public following the discovery of a hand grenade, believed to be from WWII.”
“The Explosive Ordnance Disposal team were in attendance to carry out a controlled explosion.”
Sedgemoor District Council, which manages the beach, worked with the teams during the incident.
Spokeswoman Claire Faun told Burnham-On-Sea.com: “We provided a number of sand bags at the request of the bomb disposal team.”
“We were also ready to provide a respite area if anyone needed to be evacuated in the area but it quickly became clear that wouldn’t be needed.”
