The last thing Colin Oddy expected to find in his son's garden was an ancient stone carving wedged in a wall.

But as he hacked away at the undergrowth he was confronted by the foot-high statuette staring back at him.

Bradford Council's district archaeologist Gavin Edwards has confirmed the stone face was one of the region's famous carved heads, some of which date back to 500BC

Mr Oddy, 51, was doing some gardening at his son's home in Knowles Lane, Dudley Hill, Bradford, when he made his startling discovery.

He said: "The whole garden was about a foot high with grass. As I started to cut it down I discovered a small dry-stone wall.

"It wasn't actually me who spotted the stone, it was my son's wife who saw it from a bedroom window and shouted down at me and said there was a face looking up at her.

"She just wanted me to take it away because she was scared of it. It doesn't bother me. It's only made out of stone and it can't hear. I'm not superstitious, anyway."

Mr Edwards, who works at Ilkley's Manor House Museum, said there had been about 500 carved heads discovered in the region.

He said: "It's a tradition which probably started in the Iron Age with the Head Cults when it was all the rage to cut off your enemy's head and keep it as a victory trophy.

"Carved heads have been made since 500BC and are still being produced right up to the present day. Sydney Jackson, who used to work at the museum, wrote a book about them in the 1960s and was a leading authority on them until he died."

He added: "It's notoriously difficult to date the stones. Two carved heads which were discovered recently were thought to be very old until someone came forward and said they were carvings of Hitler and Mussolini that he made last year.

"While I don't think this is one of the earliest Celtic heads it's still a very good example of the tradition in this area and could be hundreds of years old."

Mr Edwards said he would be logging where and when the stone was discovered and adding the details to files kept on all the carved heads found in the area.

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