We left ‘live’ cannonball right next to the fire for 20 years!
FOR 20 years this cannonball took pride of place as an ornament on a fireplace.
After discovering it while on holiday in France, collector Steve Attfield drove it 400 miles back home in his car.
And although his partner Beverley Heath disapproved, she duly added the cannonball to her dusting duties and it soon became a talking point for visitors.
Now, however, the relic, which is more than 200 years old, has been hastily removed by bomb squad officers – after the discovery that it was packed with charge and could have detonated at any time. Mr Attfield, 56, a clock engineer, was reading about cannonballs when he realised his ornament could destroy his three-bedroom semi in Croydon, Surrey.
‘I was horrified when I read a similar ball to mine was dug up on a building site in Quebec, Canada, and taken away for a controlled explosion,’ he said.
‘A shiver went down my spine when I read “the explosives can still be quite volatile even after 200 years”. I was shocked. For 20 years the cannonball had been sitting by the burning fire. It is terrifying to think it could have exploded at any minute and killed us.’
The couple contacted police. Within 20 minutes two explosives experts arrived and carefully removed the 250lb object. It is not clear if they blew it up.
The cannoball, believed to be packed with gunpowder, was fired from the castle at Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy. It landed two miles away without exploding – and was buried until 1997 when it was found during building work.