Garden Find

Herne Hill, United Kingdom Construction workers working on an addition to a residential property ran into ordnance while digging the foundation for a kitchen expansion. One of the workers, a builder from Romania, was the first to find the ordnance. He reportedly lifted them out of the ground with his bare hands before brushing the dirt off.

Authorities were called to respond after the workers alerted the homeowner, a 42-year-old mother of two. When bomb disposal personnel confirmed the ordnance was live, they sent police door-to-door to evacuate the neighbors.

The two ordnance items were safely transported to a nearby golf course where they were disposed of through a controlled detonation. Following the disposal shot, the neighbors were allowed to return to their houses.

According to a local historian, records show that numerous bombing incidents occurred on Danecroft and adjacent Frankfurt Road after a raid on 29 December 1940. On that night, the Nazis deployed 136 bombers which dropped over 100,000 bombs on London, including St Paul's Cathedral, a firebombing soon dubbed 'The Second Great Fire of London'.