It's not really the sort of thing you want to hear when you're at home with your feet up...

Robert Trivett responded to the knock on his flat door at Bishop's Waltham to be confronted with a gardener telling him: "I think I've found a bomb..."

Robert (51), of Claylands Road, said the gardener had unearthed the explosive device, an unexploded shell dating from the Second World War, whilst digging a large hole to erect a fence.

He removed it from the hole and alerted Robert and his wife, Soula (48), who then went to the garden to take a close look at the menacing find.

Robert, who is retired on medical grounds from the Army Catering Corps, said he had seen explosives while he was serving in Germany and wisely advised the gardener not to move the device.

"It was about the shape of a bread roll and obviously a pyrotechnic of some sort. The nose was the same shape as it should be so obviously it had not gone off," said Robert.

Soula said: "I thought 'Oh My God!' They're going to have to clear the houses."

The police were called and they alerted a bomb-disposal expert from the Royal Logistics Corps, who examined the weapon and took it away to carry out a controlled explosion at the end of Claylands Road. It was not deemed necessary to evacuate the road.

Captain Tim Gould, operations manager with the Ordnance Disposal Regiment with the Royal Logistic Corps, said the shell was a high-explosive device, probably a legacy from the Second World War.

He explained that the Corps was still called on to deal with around 2,500 such discoveries each year - notably in the South-East, which was particularly used by the military.

Captain Gould said the missile, probably used in an anti-tank gun - could theoretically be armed by the slightest movement and would have caused a large explosion.

He praised Mr Trivett on his swift action. "If you come across something like that, contact the police. Don't even think about moving it."

Robert later joked with the gardener, who had been trying to dig the hole for some hours, that his job would have been much easier had the bomb exploded.

He said he'd never come across anything similar before, although he had heard from residents that Clayfields Road had been a Luftwaffe target during the war because Spitfire engines and parts were stored in the area.