SHOCKED staff at a forestry company have told how they found a antique sword mysteriously stuck in a tree - in the middle of a West Kilbride wood.

The amazing find, thought to be a 1907 pattern bayonet, was spotted embedded in the towering tree - 20 feet in the air.

Peter Blackstock, who runs DB Forestry in the village, said he spotted the object straight away while working in the Carlung woods.

He explained: “We were in tidying up the area for the owner as it had been neglected for years, taking ivy off the trees and just generally sorting the place out.

“We’ve actually got a student who works with us and I was taking him through and showing him different things when we spotted it.

“Nothing in a forest is in a straight line so it stuck out straight away, it was so out of place.

“People must have walked through those woods hundreds if not thousands of times and just never noticed it so high up.”

Peter says he dispatched his son Donald to have a closer look, likening him to King Arthur trying to pull Excalibur from the stone.

He said: “It was well of the ground, so someone has either got it up there somehow or it has gone up as the tree has grown.

“It took a bit of convincing, but my son Donald went up and confirmed what we thought from the ground.

“He managed to eventually pull it out with his bare hands and brought it down so we could have a closer look. It is all a bit unbelievable to be honest.”

Peter believes there could be a simple reason behind the mystery spending decades in the tree - and has vowed to make sure the piece of history stays in the village.

He said: “It is thought there used to be a prisoner of war camp or a home guard unit based in Carlung, so it would make sense to have come from there.

“We stuck the photos online and people came back and confirmed that they think it is a 1907 pattern bayonet that was probably used in World War One. But how it came to be stuck 20 feet off the ground in a West Kilbride wood remains a mystery.

“It is an amazing piece of local history now, so we will take care of it and make sure it is displayed in a museum.”