What started as a typical afternoon of magnet fishing turned into a suspenseful adventure when a man pulled a strange, mud-covered object from a Kent river—only to later learn from police that it was far more dangerous than he ever imagined.
Raymond Berry, 53, was fishing with a friend under the A229 bridge in Maidstone, Kent, when his magnet latched onto something unusually heavy. A seasoned magnet fisherman who runs the YouTube channel Adventures In Finding Stuff, Berry had found all sorts of things before—guns, knives, coins, even shopping trolleys—but this time was different.
"I was pulling out the usual stuff like old bikes and shopping trolleys with a friend," he said. "But around 3 p.m., up came an object about 10 inches long. It was covered in muck and rust, so I couldn't tell what it was."
Covered in thick river sludge, the object gave no clear sign of its identity. Berry, eager to uncover his latest find, left it to dry, then grabbed a hammer.
"I left it to the side for around 10 minutes to dry off before I came back to it and tapped it with a little hammer to get the muck off," he explained. "As it was coming off, I realized it was some sort of shell. I searched it and put a post in social media groups to see what it was."
The replies poured in quickly—and they were alarming. To his astonishment, the consensus among experts and hobbyists online was that he had uncovered a World War I artillery shell.
"I put it down and phoned the police, who told me to stay with it until they arrived," Berry said. "We just laughed about it, as just 10 minutes ago, I had been whacking it with a hammer. It was very exciting and dramatic, and I couldn't believe it happened to me."
Berry and his friend waited with the shell for around two hours before officers from Kent Police arrived. "I thought they would have flown here after I told them I thought I had found a shell," he added. "While it was unlikely to explode after sitting in the river for more than a hundred years, it could have gone off."
Police promptly cordoned off the area near the riverside footpath, following safety guidance from the Ministry of Defence. A bomb disposal unit was eventually dispatched to the scene and safely removed the shell.
The discovery was especially meaningful for Berry, a social housing worker who has long combined his love for urban exploration and history through magnet fishing and mudlarking—skills he picked up along the River Thames while growing up in London.
Despite the delay in the response, the incident has only deepened his passion for uncovering forgotten relics of the past. What began as a hunt for river junk turned into a reminder of the history still hidden beneath our feet—or, in this case, beneath the murky waters of the Medway.
Kent Police were contacted for comment but declined to address the delay in their response.
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