Police closed off the busy A10 Shoreditch High Street during this-morning’s rush-hour for what was believed to be an unexploded wartime bomb.

Bus services were disrupted and properties around the junction with Old Street and Hackney Road were being evacuated when Scotland Yard told the East London Advertiser that “wartime ordinance” had been found.

“A number of properties were evacuated as a precaution,” a police spokesman said. “Specialist officers attended the scene and roads were temporarily closed.

“But the item was found was not suspicious and not an explosive device.”

The cordon was lifted after 50 minutes and the area, which includes the historic St Leonard’s Shoreditch Church, re-opened.

The last time the street was closed off for security was in 2007, when a real explosive device packed into a rucksack was found on the top-deck of a London bus a month after the 7/7 bombings.