Police called in the bomb squad and sealed off a main road - after a three-year-old child trod on a hang grenade during an Easter Egg hunt.

The eggs-plosive discovery was made in woodland on Saturday morning during a pre-school chocolate hunt attended by around 25 excited kids and their parents.

Army bomb squad officers were ordered to the scene after a horrified parent realised a toddler was standing on top of the unexploded device.

They later blew up the grenade - thought to have been there since the Second World War - in a field next to the woods in Holford, Somerset.

Stunned father-of-three Stuart Moffatt, 34, who was first to spot the object at around 11am, claimed the rusty bomb was egg shaped.

The engineering consultant said: "We were beginning to count the eggs up at the end of the hunt and I saw a young boy, around three-years-old, standing on an object.

"On closer inspection we realised it looked like a hand grenade. It was brown and about three or four inches high. It looked like an Easter Egg.

"I was shocked - it is the last thing you expect to find on an Easter Egg hunt and the last thing you could possibly want to find with children about."

Stuart, attending with wife Victoria, 35, and children Nelly, five, Isla, two, and Freddie, aged 11 months, alerted organisers from the Stowey Bears pre-school group.

They then slowly moved the children away from the scene, keeping calm in order not to panic them.

The hand grenade was near the opening of the woods - just feet away from a public car park and the busy A39 main road.

Stuart Moffatt said the grenade was the "last thing you expect to find on an Easter Egg hunt"

Police officers put a 100-metre cordon in place and alerted members of the Army's Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team, who rushed straight to the scene.

They detonated the device in a nearby field at 2.30pm.

Stuart, from Holford, Somerset, said: "All the children were fine and the leaders did a great job in not panicking them.

"The boy who was standing on it just thought it was a rock. It was an eventful escape - it could have been a lot worse, especially with children around.

"The longer these things are left without being found, the more unstable the chemicals can be inside them too."

The deadly hand grenade is believed to have been an old Second World War device.

Lorry driver Paul Gibbard, 40, from nearby Stogursey, who was also on the Easter Egg hunt with daughters Ruby, three, and Jade, two, said: "It was a bit of a shock.

"Apparently there used to be an American Army base in Holford during the Second World War. I think it has to be something to do with that."

Avon and Somerset Police confirmed the grenade had been destroyed.

A spokesman for the force said: "The Explosives Ordnance Disposal (EOD) attended the scene and destroyed the object in a controlled explosion.

"The cordon has been lifted and the local community are thanked for their patience while this incident was dealt with."

Source: SWNS