A BOMB squad detonated a suspected Second World War era artillery shell uncovered at a salvage yard.

Karl Dixon, 50, is used to finding a varied range of bizarre items at his salvage yard A and D Reclaim, in Sladburys Lane, Clacton.

But even he was left stunned when he turned over a wooden board and found an unexploded bomb.

Believed to be a Second World War artillery shell, the device had been left behind by a previous visitor to the yard.

His colleague Kaz Strange captured the discovery on film at around 10.45am yesterday morning.

Karl said: “As I’ve parked the van it I saw the nose of this thing poking up.

“I pulled it out and that was when I thought ‘it’s not safe, that looks live.’ “Kaz started filming and I phoned 101.

“A live bomb is definitely the strangest thing we’ve found.

“We were offered a Bren gun last year, but we definitely couldn’t take it.

“I’d even picked some things off this board couple of weeks ago, someone just left it behind.”

He added: “The police stopped traffic and moved us back, we had to leave the business open.

“We were moved back 100 yards.

“Once the police had a look and took photos the road was blocked off for 200 yards.”

Karl and his team were ushered to a safe distance while bomb disposal experts with the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Regiment assessed the device.

They carried out a controlled explosion at around 2.45pm.

PC Toby Wilde was the first officer on scene.

He said: “Usually with jobs like this we’ll send one unit first to establish what it is and if it’s actually an unexploded bomb.

“We’ll always treat them as live until proven otherwise.

“I requested another unit and put a cordon in place until they arrived I sent pictures to MOD who then confirmed it to be an explosive.

“They took around 2 and a half hours to arrive due to another bomb incident in Southend.

He added: “These sort of incidents don’t really fuss me, I’ve been to a few and they’ve always turned out okay.”