WESSEX Water workers laying a new main close to Hopton Industrial Estate in London Road, Devizes, at 8am on Monday got a shock when a digger bucket unearthed what looked like a live grenade.

All work stopped on the site, between Cannings Hill roundabout and the start of the dual carriageway, and police alerted a bomb disposal squad.

Workers from nearby Latchways, who had just arrived for work, were sent home and the A361 between Cannings Hill roundabout and the junction with the Bishops Cannings road was closed.

The grenade was discovered when work began on the verge opposite the former police skid pan.

Mike Ashley, crew foreman, said: "We were up by the old military camp digging with a JCB and the grenade just fell out of the bucket. There was just the one but that was enough. So we evacuated the site.

"I thought it was a hand grenade it was rusty. It was full of concrete and apparently they were used for practice. The bomb squad chap said that most of them were practice ones but it could have been a live one because live ones were kept there to show the effect they had. He told us to proceed carefully and not to take any chances with the rest of the digging.

"We were more or less finished on the site and are moving off to work elsewhere so we're just a bit relieved."

The bomb disposal squad from the Royal Logistic Regiment arrived at 9.13am and confirmed quickly that it was a practice grenade, a dummy with no explosives inside, that dated from the Second World War when Hopton Barracks was used for training.