Two-foot-long Samurai sword found near a playground by litter picking volunteers

A two-and-a-half-foot Samurai sword has been found near a playground by a group of community litter pickers in Cardiff.

Members of Keep Grangetown Tidy discovered the weapon hidden behind a tree in Hamadryad Park.

Fiona McAllister had collected four bags of litter in the wooded area with the majority of rubbish being "a lot of plastic bottles, drink cans, crisp packets and sweet wrappers" before she came across the sword.

She added, "It wasn't until the end of the session when we came across a long sword in a sheath. It was hidden in the undergrowth behind a tree and it's about two and a half feet long, so it was quite a long sword.

"It's the strangest thing I think we've ever found. We've never found any weapons before.

"There was nothing there to say who it belonged to, but it looked like it was hidden."

The volunteers have since handed the weapon over to the police.

Keep Grangetown Tidy is a local volunteer group with the aim of "getting people together to make Grangetown a nicer, cleaner place to live".

The group organise monthly community litter picks in the area. The latest litter pick saw them clean up and collect a total of 50 bags of rubbish.

The group made up of adults, children and even dogs managed to gather 32 bags of litter and 18 bags of recyclable material.

A lot of the volunteers will also help keep their own streets and local parks clean in their spare time, with one lady cleaning her local park every day. "She makes an amazing difference", Fiona said.

"There's always a lot of rubbish around the city. We see a lot of PPE masks now and when the weather is good, we find a lot of mess in parks.

"I think everybody has a responsibility, it's not just the council. The council could empty bins more often, but at the end of the day people can take their stuff home as well."