A MORECAMBE man has unearthed a 5,000 year-old axe head while digging for potatoes.

Michael Arrowsmith, a keen viewer of archaeological television programmes, guessed that he had found something ancient but he had no idea just how old it was.

Mr Arrowsmith was gathering potatoes on a fruit picking site at Over Kellett when he found the axe-head in the soil.

It was a dream come true for Michael who took it to the City Museum Services where Dr Andrew White revealed that the axe was Neolithic - and was probably made in the Lake District sometime between 4,000 to 2,000 years BC!

Dr White explained: "It may have been lying there in the field ever since its ancient user lost it while clearing trees to make farmland all those years ago."