PEOPLE who had to be evacuated from their homes in Foxham, near Chippenham after a bomb was found in a garden shed have spoken about their ordeal.

Police evacuated six homes at Foxham Lock last week while bomb disposal experts were brought in to dispose of the World War II bomb.

Mother-of-two Carol Chatterton, who lives next door to the house where the bomb was found said she had seen the device in the garden about a year earlier.

She said: "I remember seeing it and asking them if it was safe. They said it was so I just believed them.

"It is very scary because it was in the shed right next to our house.

"Imagine what could have happened if it had gone off. Our walls could have come down on top of us."

Another resident, Martin Styles, was watching the Real Madrid versus Manchester United football match when the police told him to evacuate.

He said: "I was not told much and the police did not know if it was live. I went to the pub and saw some friends. We were allowed back just before midnight."

The bomb, thought to be a World War Two device, was discovered by Richard Monks at 6.30pm whilst he was clearing out the garden shed of the house he shares with his girlfriend, Gemma Taylor, and her mother.

Miss Taylor said: "I was at work when the news came that the police had arrived.

"None of this was mine or my boyfriend's fault all he did was report it to the police, which was the best thing to do."

Miss Taylor said that the bomb had been there for some time, since her mother lived in the house with a previous boyfriend and that it was found during a diving holiday and brought back to Foxham.

Miss Taylor said the bomb had been in the shed until recently when her boyfriend saw it and said that it should be got rid of.

"Nothing got done about it though and when my boyfriend found it was still in the shed last week, he did the right thing and rang the bomb disposal people."

Her mother, who did not want to be identified, said: "I wasn't aware that it had been brought to my home at first, but once I was, I was assured that it had been made safe. I would never have done anything that would have endangered the lives of my children."

Officers from the Royal Logistics Corp detonated the bomb in the field the next morning when it was light, leaving a small crater in the earth.