Cannon Found in the River Don.

It all started with a trip to Sheffield to meet up with some friends to litter pick and magnet fish a stretch of the river Don.

We had been finding some crazy stuff and about halfway through the day, Ray gave me a shout, like many times before, “Can you help me lift this, its really heavy” so i went over and put my magnet on it with his and we started pulling. It quickly became apparent that it was too heavy for just the two of us, so our friends came over to help, as well as getting the winch involved.

As it started to break the water, we all looked at each other in disbelief and said “It’s a cannon!”. We couldn’t believe it, this is a first for magnet fishers in the UK and we were shocked and overjoyed at the find.

In the end it took 4 of us, with 2 magnets, 2 spare ropes lassoed around it and the winch, a total of one and a half hours to get it up out of the water and over the bridge.

We decided to go to a local museum – Kelham Island Museum – to inform them of the find as it might be possible that it fell under the Treasures Act and to get advice from them on what to do next. As it turned out, we weren’t able to leave it with them, so our only option was to take it home with us and discuss it with the Finds Liaison Officer.

6 months later, we still haven’t heard anything from them, and it is nicely drying out in my cellar. So stay posted for any updates/restoration news.

If you want to see the amazing video of us pulling this ‘holy grail’ of finds out of the water, check out the video ‘BREAKING NEWS cannon rescue history in the making’ on my YouTube channel.