However, following the recent discovery of an unexploded World War II bomb, it was revealed that there have been even more mysterious – and interesting discoveries on beaches across the Duchy.

Parkdean Resorts has compiled a list of some of the wildest things to ever show up on Cornish beaches. These are as follows:

Crisp packet from the 90s

In 2009, a 20-year-old student from Trevone Bay discovered a crisp packet with a best-before date in 1997 – the year she was born. She had found the packet when she was spending summer holidays at the beach with her dad collecting rubbish.

Loggerhead Turtle

According to Parkdean, more than 200 loggerhead turtles have been washed up on UK shores. In 2012, a dead loggerhead turtle was found by walkers on a beach near Bude, shocking residents due to these turtles usually being found in warmer waters and presumably had got lost on their travels.

300-year old sailor’s leg

Perhaps one of the more shocking of finds. A family found what they thought was a cricket bat ‘substitute’ on the beach, only for a family friend who happened to be a doctor to reveal it was a bone from a human leg they were using.

Experts believed it was the 300-year-old remains of a sailor who lost his life in a shipwreck. His lower spine, femur and pelvis were all later found in the surrounding area of Polzeath.

Timber

In February 2002, thousands of tonnes of timber washed up on Whitsand Bay. The Kodima, a cargo ship bound for Libya, ran aground off the Cornwall coast, causing the masses of wood to fall overboard and float towards the shore.

Hundreds of scavengers swarmed the beach to retrieve the timber, ignoring warnings to leave it alone.

A tree from the Everglades 

When reports of a ‘barnacled sea monster’ hit residents of Bude, many flocked to the coast to see the mass that had washed ashore.

When inspected the ‘monster’ was actually found to be a 40ft tree thought to have been ripped down by hurricane Katia in Florida’s Everglades, drifting thousands of miles across the Atlantic to Cornwall.

'Dead polar bear'

One of the most surprising finds on the beaches of Bude appeared to be the remains of a polar bear. A slouched corpse was discovered, and it quickly became headline news. However, the arctic creature hadn’t made it to UK shores, it was in fact a dead cow that had been bleached white by the sea, causing a lot of chaos for a seemingly smaller story. 

What appeared to be a dead polar bear was actually the remains of a cow bleached white (Image: SWNS)

Rice cakes

Another strange item to wash up on Cornish beaches is a huge amount of rice cakes. In February 2017, thousands of the snacks were spilt onto Perranporth Beach after a cargo ship lost four containers off the Cornish coast.

100-tonne whale

In 2010, a 100-tonne, 56-foot fin whale washed up on Portowan Beach. One of the fastest whales in the ocean, this poor animal was the victim of a ship strike and its corpse landed on Cornish shores alongside a repellent odour. 

Last year, 392 volunteers from 59 Parkdean sites collected an astonishing 622kg of litter from UK beaches, smashing the year-before record of 265 volunteers, 36 sites and 422kg of litter.