A LUMP of rock moved aimlessly round a village rectory garden for more than a decade has turned out to be an ancient relic.

Only a chance sighting by a visiting archaeologist confirmed that the object nestling in the vicar's rockery was in fact a forgotten Roman altar.

For years, the Reverend Robert Cooper occasionally moved the stone object as he reorganised his garden, with little or no thought as to its origins or how it came to be there.

Standing some ten inches tall by seven inches square, the vicar of Sadberge, near Darlington, dismissed it as unimportant until freelance archaeologist Peter Ryder dropped by.

The stone caught his eye and, after two weeks of examinations by the Museum of Antiquities in Newcastle, it was concluded that the stone had been an altar once used for offerings to the gods - possibly of wine or oil.

"I've been moving it around for ages. It's been in our rockery and it's been moved from time to time," said an astonished Mr Cooper.

Lindsay Allason-Jones, director of the museum, said it was likely that the piece had been brought from nearby Piercebridge, or Aldbrough, as a garden ornament in the 18th century.

She said that there was little to link Sadberge to the Romans.

"What is quite interesting is that there aren't many of these things coming up on the east side of the A1.

"I don't know how this particular thing got to the vicar's garden," she added.

Mr Cooper now plans to keep the altar in the village's St Andrew's Church.