THIRTY children were led to safety after a Second World War grenade was unearthed in the grounds of Stanton St Quintin School.

The grenade, known as a Mill's Bomb, has a lethal range of 80 yards and was found on Tuesday by two workmen digging the foundations to an extension to the school at 3.30pm.

Most of the pupils had already left for the day but 30 children had stayed behind to take part in after school activities.

They were evacuated to nearby Stanton Manor Hotel while Army bomb disposal experts were called in to identify and dispose of the grenade, cordoned off the school.

Headteacher Rob Parsons said: "The pupils were very well behaved and we walked them over with the staff."

Youngsters flee from bomb alert

PRIMARY school youngsters were evacuated on Tuesday when workmen unearthed a grenade at Stanton St Quintin School.

Builders were working on a new extension just after 3.30pm on Tuesday afternoon when when a digger struck the grenade 15cm below the surface of the ground just yards from the main school building.

Army bomb squad experts later identified the grenade as a Second World War Mills bomb, which has a lethal range of 80 yards.

Frank Taylor, 58, who runs his own business, Bundy & Taylor, with partner Fred Bundy, 54, was the one who spotted the grenade: "I could see it was a grenade straight away," he said.

"I knew what a grenade looks like after watching films and looking at pictures of them.

"My first reaction was to get out the way. I wasn't scared. It looked like the pin was still in it and it was all rusty and I didn't know if it was live or not.

"I had just brought in a coin ten minutes earlier that I thought the children might like to see and when I went to tell the headteacher there was a grenade there, he thought I was joking."

Most of the school's pupils had already left for the day but 30 were still taking part in after-school clubs.

They were evacuated to the Stanton Manor Hotel while the school warned parents of the danger.

The children were later collected from the hotel by families while the area around the school was cordoned off.

Jackie Robson, who has been a cleaner at the school for more than 14 years, was told that she wouldn't be able to do her job. She said: "I was shocked when I went to work and was told that there was a bomb. In all the time I have been here nothing like this has happened at the school."

The children were all aged between seven and 11 and attending two after-school clubs in the school buildings.

Molly Rose, seven, was one of the children evacuated.

She said: "We were in the gardening club when the teacher told me that we had to go out. I thought we were going for a walk."

The discovery was made on the second day of work to a one-classroom extension and storeroom to the main building after heavy machinery moved in to dig the foundations.

Headteacher Rob Parsons said the pupils had been told that they were going for a walk in the wood and they had behaved very well throughout the scare.

"My first thought when I heard that there was a grenade near the school was to get the children out. They were very well behaved and we walked them over to the car park at Stanton Manor with the staff. I was very calm because there are set procedures that we are told to follow and once the children were out I phoned the emergency services."

He said the grenade looked like a clump of mud and was heavily rusted after years buried underground.

The area that the grenade was buried in was covered by a shed that had been moved to allow work to begin.

The Royal Logistics Corps bomb disposal unit based at Tidworth arrived on the scene to check the type of grenade and to dispose of it safely.

After two X-rays, bomb squad experts revealed the grenade was not live.

The grenade would originally have had a lethal range of 80 yards.

A police spokesman said: "If anyone does receive anything of that nature we advise that they should not touch it and notify the emergency services immediately."

The bomb scare was the second emergency faced by the school in three months.

In July pupils were treated for stings and shock after youngsters out on a school walk were attacked by a swarm of wasps, sparking a major incident scare.