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.

😂

Musket balls were between 0.3 inches and 0.8 inches in diameter, so definitely not a musket ball.
Weigh the ball and and measure its diameter and see if you can roughly match its weight and size to artillery cannons of a bygone era

Husband says it's a small cannon ball - cannonade ?

Maybe the 1870 army barrack boys were doing some target practice across the field where your house now stands.

Many years ago one of us found a nice shaped rock, it was about 7" to 9" inches long. My dad kept it on his garage work bench and we used it for years cracking nuts, banging in nails and paint can lids - that sort of thing.

One day my dad saw some very similar in the local museum and so he trotted it down, to discover it was a tool from the Stone Age. They put it on display. We visited it for many years. It still had the spots of red paint from a paint can. I bet people thought it was ancient blood from some megafauna.

My first thought too

I thought it might be an iron pyrite nodule but looking closer it appears to actually be iron. I think it’s a small cannonball. Check with your local finds liaison officer. You can email them photos. It’s not a musket ball they are much smaller and made of lead.

Oh and definitely not a meteorite

Unlikely to be the top of a gate post because there's no hole or any way it would have attached to anything.

I'm meeting a friend for a couple of drinks in the pub this evening. I'm going to pop it in my handbag as a talking point.

I'll weigh it when I get home.

I'm so glad someone else said this!!!!😂

I was half joking up thread when I mentioned to look out for wires and to put it down gently and back away. I knew someone who found a grenade on the beach once. The bomb squad cordoned it off and cleared the beach before exploding it.

Maybe wise to leave it somewhere safe.

We think it's either a falafel or a small cannon ball used by Minion cannons

It may be a missile from WW2, I would get it out of the house just in case and get a second opinion from the police to cover yourself but don't thow it what ever you do.

Haha

Chances are it may never go off as it may have been placed somewhere else for another purpose, and the land is shifting and moving all the time (tectonic plates.)

A road I used to live on was built on bed knobs to strengthen it so the metal ball you have there may be completely harmless.

Or not.

😂😂😂😂 it’s really not an explosive.

cannonade ?
Is that what you make when life gives you cannons?

@Irridescantshimmmer
Round shot (cannonballs) were not used in WWll. They used shells
Round shot does not contain explosives it is a solid ball of lead

😆😆

Exciting! We find lots of seashells in our village when people dig, the nearest coast is 45 miles away.

I thought about a minion drake but I'm not sure that the possible round shot shown by OP would weigh 5lbs (2.3kg) looks about the right diameter though.

Looks like a passion fruit to me but obviously it's not!

Some of these replies have really made me smile!

My money's on a small cannonball. We used to have a very similar found object, but sadly it got lost in moving house. OP, even if where your mum lives was farmland back in the days of the civil wars, that doesn't rule out the cannonball option - skirmishes happened in lots of places, or of course someone later could have found it on an old battlefield, picked it up and then lost it in the area that eventually became your mum's garden.

Mortar ball. It is smaller than a canon ball but larger than a musket ball.

Mortar ball. Smaller than a canon ball but larger than a musket ball.