A JINXED pier was evacuated yesterday following the discovery of a bomb on the beach.

A surfers' shop, an amusement arcade and ice cream kiosk on Saltburn Pier were cleared of people and the east Cleveland resort's famous funicular railway stopped, after a council official spotted an unexploded First World War artillery shell on the sands.

The 1916 projectile was discovered lying just 50 yards off the pier, which had only recently reopened following a £1.3m overhaul.

Cleveland Police immediately cordoned off a 200 yard area of the sea front to await the arrival of a bomb disposal team from the nuclear submarine base at Faslane, near Glasgow.

Divers blew up the shell in a controlled underwater explosion last night.

Earlier this year, and only 12 hours after the pier re-opened for business after being virtually rebuilt, an old fishing coble, with a pensioner ill at the helm, crashed into the trestles. Fortunately no damage was caused.

Without the renovation work funded with National Lottery money, the last working Victorian pier on the North-East coast would have collapsed into the sea.

It stood safe until 1924, when a German ship was blown off course and drove through the middle of it.

During the Second World War, the pier was shortened.

In 1974, a storm swept away the pier head and bandstand, and subsequently it was shortened again.