Brookes student forced to leave home after WW2 bomb discovery

A Brookes student had to leave her family home after an unexploded World War Two bomb was found nearby.

Business and Management student Harriet Gillingham, 20, had to leave the house in Bath for two days.

The 500lb shell was found in the school playground at the Royal High School Bath at around 4:40pm on Friday 13th.

The playground hasn’t been in use for two years, and as soon as the bomb was found an Explosive Ordnance Disposal team were called to the site.

The police set up a 300 metre exclusion zone and advised the residents nearby to evacuate immediately.

Harriet told The Tab: ‘I was out and got back home about 9pm to find the roads shut off and police everywhere.

‘I thought only one of the streets was closed off and someone had been burgled or something, but then I realised all streets were closed off and I couldn’t get home.

‘I asked one of the policemen and she said there was a bomb, so I immediately thought it was a terrorist attack’

Harriet and her boyfriend

Harriet was forced to stay at a friend’s house for the first night, and her boyfriend’s the next. She has now been allowed back home.

‘It was annoying because I wasn’t at home when they evacuated the house so I didn’t have anything with me.’

She wasn’t alone, 1,100 properties had to be evacuated and three primary schools closed alongside a doctors surgery.

After being allowed back into her home Harriet told us: ‘It’s so nice to be home. I got back from uni the day before and took my mum to the airport because she’s away in Australia, so I had to find somewhere for myself and the dog to stay. I even had to go and buy her food from the supermarket because I couldn’t get back in to get anything.’