Don't touch the display: Bombs on show at museum for the last 20 years detonated after it is discovered they were live

• Army called in to make safe potentially deadly Second World War explosives
• Staff were completely unaware of the danger they posed

Danger: Staff at Dorking Museum were completely unaware of the danger posed by the Second World War explosives

Museum staff got a shock when they learned they had been letting visitors walk past a display of live bombs for nearly two decades.
Now the Army has blown up the unexploded World War Two cannon shell and a military flare which were hastily removed from the display at Dorking museum in Surrey.

The bomb squad was called in after they were checked during a stock assessment.
Kathy Atherton, from the museum, said staff would investigate how they got there but suspected they were historic donations from souvenir collectors.

They were discovered by volunteers two months before the end of the museum’s three-year refurbishment programme.
'A volunteer took photos and sent them off to the Imperial War Museum, and they came back, identified them and said ‘You can’t be sure with these things, even if they’re old they may still be explosive, you really need to get some advice on this.'

'At that point we contacted the police who got the bomb squad in from Aldershot' she said.

 

'They’ve probably been in the museum’s collection for years, we’ve been collecting since the 1950s.

'There’s a whole generation of people who during the war went and collected souvenir items, someone’s probably had it in the back of a wardrobe for years and at some point deposited in the museum and they’ve been in our stores ever since.'

Deadly: A mortar round - similar to those pictured - was detonated by Army specialists after being discovered at the museum (stock picture)

The Ministry of Defence said the Royal Logistic Corps removed and destroyed a two-inch illumination mortar round and 20mm cannon shell.

They were on show alongside a 1940s war map showing where planes crashed, parachute landings took place and bombs, rockets and incendiaries fell on the Dorking area.