AN amateur historian believes he has the answer as to the origin of two shells embedded in a town centre wall.

Bob Harbron believes the shells at the Finkle Street entrance to Green Dragon Yard, in Stockton, came from the 1914 bombardment of Hartlepool.

The editor of the Norton Heritage magazine said the unexploded shells from the bombardment, in which 120 died, were put on display as Army recruitment tools.

He said: "They were exhibited and used as part of an intense recruiting campaign. There were posters put up all around the region saying Remember Hartlepool or Remember Scarborough, which was also bombarded. The shells were made safe and would be put in shopfronts around the region.

"It seems these two 8in shells, which have the internal screw thread of the nose cap visible, were probably forgotten later in the war.

"Some person must have found them and decided they would make ideal wall bolsters to prevent goods wagons for the warehouses they used to have there damaging the 200-year-old arch. The tragedy of it all is the new recruits, often known round here as the bombardment recruits, became part of the so-called Kitchener's New Army, which suffered heavy losses at the Somme in 1916."

Mr Harbron said he had been given a Remember Scarborough poster by a woman in Norton, near Stockton, about ten years ago.

Anyone with any information about the Green Dragon Yard shells is asked to call the Stockton office of The Northern Echo on (01642) 675678 and details will be passed to Mr Harbron.