Bomb-disposal experts at the site on Blawith Knott
A training exercise for mountain rescuers almost went with a bang when a member of the team found an unexploded bomb.
The Duddon and Furness Mountain Rescue Team was on exercise on Sunday on Blawith Knott in the southern Lake District when team doctor Craig Stangroom came across the unexploded mortar on the hillside.
The team was taking part in a search exercise on the 248m (814ft) fell, near the southern end of Coniston Water. Team member Martin Cooper, who served with the Royal Artillery, recognised the ordnance as a Second World War two-inch mortar.
Mr Cooper said: “We were doing search training and the supposed subject was a seven year old autistic child who had left home. We had to do a thorough search of a small area and were looking in a fellside covered in bracken.
The mortar shell embedded in the hillside
“The team member shouted that he had seen a vole and called me over and we then found the mortar.”
Mr Cooper, who served with the Royal Artillery for 37 years, instantly recognised it as a shell. “It was a two-inch mortar dated 1943,” he said.
After initially marking the site of the mortar with a high-visibility jacket, the team members decided it was best not to draw the attention of members of the public to the explosive find, and took the jacket away.
“We left it where it was and marked it with a crisp packet.”
Members of a Catterick-based bomb-disposal squad were led to the site by members the following morning and the squad confirmed the mortar was still live. Mr Cooper said: “They covered it in plastic explosive and blew it up.”
Martin Cooper of Duddon and Furness Mountain Rescue Team
The area around Blawith Knott was used in the 1940s by Home Guard units for live fire training and the 62-year-old mountain rescuer said the team had found live ordnance in the area before.
Duddon and Furness MRT currently has 35 active members, including a Search and Rescue Dogs Association handler. The team covers the south-western area of the Lake District and the Furness and west Cumbria coast.
Blawith Knott is listed in Alfred Wainwright’s The Outlying Fells of Lakeland.
