Construction Workers in Hull England Dug Up an Artifact Nobody Expected to Find

A construction crew in northern England just hit something buried in the ground – and it wasn't a pipe.

They thought they'd found a World War II bomb.

What they actually pulled out of the earth is something that hasn't surfaced in this city in 30 years – and it's connected to a moment that changed the course of history.

How a 300-Year-Old Cast Iron Cannon Ended Up Nine Feet Underground

Jon Jacobs was operating his excavator at Queen's Gardens in Kingston upon Hull on February 13 when his machine struck something massive.

Jacobs told BBC News he's dug up plenty of things in his career – bottles, bits of junk, the usual.

He'd never dug up anything like this.

When his equipment hit the object, his first fear was an unexploded wartime bomb.

What crews pulled from the ground was a cast-iron cannon nearly nine feet long and weighing over a ton – buried beneath what was once one of the largest docks in the United Kingdom.

Archaeologists from Humber Field Archaeology examined the weapon and determined it likely dates to the late 17th or early 18th century – making it more than 300 years old.

The nozzle had been deliberately capped, meaning the cannon was decommissioned long before it went into the ground.

Peter Connelly, the archaeology manager for Humber Field Archaeology, called it "only the third of its kind in 30 years."

He told Fox News Digital that the contractors "certainly weren't expecting a cannon to turn up" – and didn't even realize what they were looking at when they first hit it.

"The archaeologists weren't expecting it because they knew that the deposit being dug into was dock backfill," Connelly said.

They were expecting broken glass and household refuse.

What they found instead weighs 2,200 pounds.

The English Civil War History Hidden Beneath Hull England

This city doesn't just stumble into history – it makes it.

In April 1642, King Charles I rode to the gates of Hull with 300 troops and demanded entry.

Hull's governor, Sir John Hotham, drew up the drawbridge and told the King of England no.

That stand-off at Beverley Gate – a king refused entry to his own city – is widely regarded as the opening act of the English Civil War.

Hull held the largest arsenal outside London at the time, and Charles desperately needed those weapons.

He never got them.

The Royalists laid siege to Hull twice – and failed both times.

Historians credit Hull's defiance with leaving Charles' army dangerously under-equipped at the Battle of Edgehill, the war's first major engagement.

The city held. The King didn't.

Charles I was executed in 1649.

When researchers date the newly discovered cannon to the late 1600s or early 1700s, they're dating it to the immediate aftermath of that war – the period when Britain was rebuilding its military from the wreckage of one of the most violent chapters in English history.

The cannon researchers are studying now may have defended a ship or guarded the mouth of Hull's harbor during exactly that era.

From Weapon to Mooring Post to Historical Artifact

Here's the part that's almost more interesting than the discovery itself.

At some point in the late 19th or early 20th century, somebody pulled this cannon out of service, plugged its barrel, and stood it in the harbor as a bollard to tie off ships.

Hull still has mooring posts made from decommissioned cannons today – standing in plain sight on Humber Dock Street.

This one got knocked over when the dock was filled in during the 1930s and disappeared under nearly a century of backfill.

It sat underground while the world above it fought two more world wars, rebuilt a city, and forgot it existed.

Researchers are now working to determine exactly when the cannon was cast and where it came from.

Hull had its own cannon makers in the late 18th century, which means this weapon could be entirely homegrown – forged in the same city it was protecting.

Connelly confirmed that further analysis will focus on the cannon's exact casting date, its origin, and if possible, the identity of the foundry that produced it.

https://twitter.com/NahBabyNahNah/status/2041199875107246357

The cannon will be studied on behalf of Hull City Council, which will then decide what to do with the 2,200-pound piece of English history.

Whatever they decide, it spent three centuries hiding exactly where it needed to be – waiting for a construction worker to hit it with an excavator and remind everyone it existed.

Sources:

• Andrea Margolis, "Construction crew unearths surprising 300-year-old cannon while digging in historic city," Fox News, April 6, 2026.
• Hull City Council, "Historic cannon unearthed during Queen's Gardens transformation works," Hull CC News, February 16, 2026.
• Kaleena Fraga, "Historic Cannon Found During Excavations In Hull, England," All That's Interesting, February 18, 2026.