Lancashire town locked down ‘after grenade donated to heritage centre’

A town centre in Lancashire was placed in lockdown on Saturday, with British army bomb disposal experts forced to remove and destroy a grenade.

It is understood that a member of the public had donated items to a heritage centre in Darwen which included the grenade.

Emergency services were called to Railway Road at about 2pm and police cordoned off a large area of the town centre as bomb disposal experts carried out the operation.

The British army said the grenade was subsequently removed from the area and destroyed by a team from 11 Explosive Ordnance Disposal and Search Regiment RLC, its specialist unit responsible for improvised explosive device and conventional munitions disposal.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Defence said: “We can confirm an army bomb disposal team was called out to Darwen at the request of Lancashire police.

“The item was safely moved to a safe distance and destroyed by demolition.”

A spokesperson for Lincolnshire police said earlier: “We are at the scene of an incident at Market Hall, Darwen. Officers are at the scene and a cordon is in place.

“We are asking people to avoid the area for now and we will update you in due course.”

While the cordon was in place, customers at the Bridgewater pub were told to remain inside and the monthly artisan market in the town centre was abandoned, the LancsLive website reported.

One person wrote on X: “Apparently Darwen town centre is in lockdown an unexploded grenade has innocently been handed into the Heritage Centre. The pin was still in had to get Police and bomb disposal to remove it. Police and bomb disposal vehicles all over the town centre.”

The incident comes three days after a controlled explosion was carried out after the discovery of a suspected second world war grenade in Woodthorpe, Nottinghamshire.

Engineers took the device to Gedling Country Park where a controlled detonation was carried out.

In December, the Guardian reported that a couple had inadvertently kept a live bomb as a garden ornament in Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire.

The missile, which had been outside the home of Sian and Jeffrey Edwards, was thought to date back to the late 19th century and was detonated by a disposal unit.