My mum found this in the garden...

[TreacheryPepper]

My mum moved into a rental property last year. The garden was in a bit of a state when she moved in, and she's been gradually digging areas in preparation for seeding a lawn. She's removed loads of crap from the soil, but yesterday came across this.

It appears to be made of iron and is very heavy for its size. It's like a small cannon ball.

Has anyone come across anything similar?

Lime included for scale.

I bet it’s a cannon ball- how exciting! Are you near any historical battle sites?

No but place marking to find out what it is

Its an old form of bullet, are you close to civil war battlesites?

It certainly looks like a cannon ball, they are indeed heavy to inflict as much damage as possible. Is there a museum nearby that may be able to help, or a military museum even.
If it’s got wire sticking out, put it down gently and slowly back away, Then run.

Musket ball?

Looks like a musket ball to me!

I also think it’s a musket ball. Which means it could be as early as the 15th century up to mid 16th.

What a cool find!

Give you local museum a call or Google battlefield archaeology and somewhere local will come up.

exciting find!

Testicle?

Musket Ball for sure.

The nearest local history society might be able to help. They want to do an archaeological dig!!

Some councils have an archeology officer who you could email.

Look like a musket ball, how exciting!

I have a friend who does weapons reenactment. They said knowing area or county would be helpful - soil type? I don't know! And that they might expect it to be deformed.

Oooh how exciting. Roughly where is your mum based

Is it magnetic?

Following for updates, exciting! All i even find is cat crap :-( not from my cat either

I'm a professional appraiser and can confirm that's a lime, probably early 21st century.

To the people saying musket ball - do you see the photo next to the lime? How big do you think muskets were? They were akin to regular rifles these days, and think how big bullets are for those. You wouldn't expect a musket ball to be more than about 1-2cm across.

Very interested to find out what it is

Oh that's exciting! What part of the country is she in?

My dad used to find meteorites on the South Downs when he was a farmer. Difficult to tell from the photo, they’re very heavy. Like the idea of contacting the local archaeologists- yes maybe they’ll dig up the garden for her!

We found something like this it was attached to a chain and designed to stop goats straying

😁