AN ANCHOR believed to have belonged to the Second World War battleship

HMS Hood has been found off Bute. Mr Ivan Cowie, skipper of the Level

Morr, snagged his nets on it when he was half a mile off Craigmore

Point, on the east coast of the island.

Mr Cowie brought the anchor partly to the surface but had to let go

because of its size and weight. Two local boats then dragged the huge

four-five ton anchor into 15ft of water in Rothesay Bay.

Local diver Ian Woolcott, who went down to inspect the anchor, said it

measured 16ft by 14ft and was still in excellent condition.

Mr Cowie previously has snagged two nets in the area on what he

thought was the remains of a wreck.

HMS Hood, the then flagship of the British Navy, was sunk, with the

loss of 1419 lives, by a single shot from Germany's battleship Bismarck

in a battle off the north of Scotland in 1941.

She had been anchored in Rothesay Bay when she had to ''slip'' her two

giant anchors to set off in pursuit of the Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen

in the Baltic.

One of her anchors was located by former fishing skipper Mr Jim

Campbell, more than 10 years ago, in the same area off Bute. It was

removed by the Admiralty but the second anchor has never been found.

Mr and Mrs Cowie, who now own a hotel in Rothesay, are hoping to have

the anchor formally identified.

Mrs Cowie said: ''We only hope that we can persuade the Admiralty to

let it stay here on Bute. It would do the island so much good to have it

here for visitors to see rather than stuck in some museum.