A D-Day museum had to be evacuated after a member of the public brought a hand grenade as a ‘donation’.
An alarmed member of staff at the Castletown D-Day Center in Portland, Dorset, raised the alarm at midday on Wednesday after receiving the device.
Police evacuated the building, along with neighboring properties, and set up a 50-metre cordon causing a huge tailback of lorries heading towards the port.
The Royal Navy’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal Team was called in to deal with the grenade.
Visitors were said to be “filled with terror” as they hurriedly evacuated the building.
One local resident, who asked not to be named, said: “I was just taking the kids from their last day at school and, yeah, it’s not something you hear every day.”
“It beggars belief”
Pete Roper, the mayor of Portland, expressed his exasperation at the decision to deliver the grenade.
“I can’t understand the thought process. It’s a demolition of belief,” he said.
“The grenade should have been left alone and the police should have been called as soon as it was discovered.”
He added that trucks and coaches heading to the ferry port had to be re-routed.
A spokesman for the museum said: “A member of the public brought a Second World War British hand grenade to the Castletown D-Day Center as a donation.
“To be safe, we immediately alerted the relevant authorities, who took the safety precautions observed earlier today, before the grenade was safely taken away by the Royal Naval Explosive Ordnance Department for disposal controlled
“Sometimes we receive donations of medals, uniforms and the like, but we always advise people to report any potentially dangerous items to the police rather than bring them to us, even if they think the item is safe.”