A controlled explosion took place in the Harrogate area after a person found a hand grenade.
North Yorkshire Police revealed it was one of two suspected explosives found in Harrogate over the weekend.
The other, which was fished out of a river by an angler, turned out to be harmless.
Police were alerted to the hand grenade at 9.30pm on Friday night. The force said in a statement:
“A member of the public rang us having found a hand grenade in the Harrogate area. We attended immediately and were at the scene a few minutes later.
“A cordon and scene guard were put in place to keep everyone safe while we contacted our colleagues at explosive ordnance disposal.
“A farmer kindly allowed us to use his field, and explosive ordnance disposal attended and safely detonated the grenade in daylight hours the following day.”
The angler’s metal object, discovered on Sunday, turned out to be nothing fishy.
But North Yorkshire Police received reports of a third suspicious item by a man clearing a barn in Craven. This one required detonating.
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Police said in a statement:
“We dealt with three calls relating to suspected explosives unearthed over the weekend.
“The result: two of them were unexploded devices that needed to be detonated at a safe distance – the third was just a battered piece of metal.
“In all three incidents the finders did the right thing by contacting us.”
They advised anyone discovering suspicious looking items not to touch them, leave them alone and move at least 50 metres away before calling the police on 101.
“As we did over the weekend, we’ll assess what you’ve told us, and contact explosive ordnance disposal who can take any necessary action.”
Harrogate woman: ‘A hand grenade was found in my garden’
A woman from Harrogate has spoken of her shock at discovering there was a hand grenade in her garden today.
Sandra Warburton’s family home on Gordon Avenue, in Bilton, became the centre of a police operation today when the explosive device was found.
The house has been in Ms Warburton’s family for 60 years but it was only today, the day after she sold it to her daughter, that the grenade was discovered.
Ms Warburton, who received a call from her son-in-law this morning saying he’d found the device, said she was shocked and bewildered. She added:
“It could have been there when we were little”.
Her son-in-law contacted North Yorkshire Police, which quickly responded by placing a cordon on the street and giving nearby residents the option to evacuate.
Two bomb disposal experts arrived just after 1.15pm and were able to safely remove the device and leave, along with other police officers, about 30 minutes later.
Ms Warburton said:
“These things just don’t happen. My son-in-law that found it this morning, he just rang and said someone was on their way to deal with it. He was moving all sorts of things around and he found it in the garden.
“But they’ve found it and said it was fine now. I just can’t believe it.”
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Police cordoned off three streets in Bilton after the discovery on Gordon Avenue, just off Bilton Lane, late this morning.
A police statement said:
“Police evacuated a small number of houses whilst the Ministry of Defence made an assessment on the device.
“The MoD recovered the device and the cordon is now lifted.”