MYSTERY surrounds the discovery of human remains in the front garden of a block of flats in a busy Hampstead Garden Suburb street.

Two bones were found just after 5pm last Thursday, March 24, by a man walking his dog by the A1 Lyttleton Road in a clump of trees outside Widecombe Court.

According to a police spokesman, forensic examinations over the weekend suggest the two bones are human and “very old."

Officers sealed off the area on Thursday night and most of Friday, while they searched for other remains and tests are ongoing to establish whether both bones, which are thought to be decades old, are from the same person.

One line of investigation relates to nearby East Finchley Cemetery, with officers studying to see if the bones came from a grave.

One resident of the flats, said police had not told them what they had discovered, adding she thought it must have been “a weapon”.

She said: “I came home and police had sealed off the area in the front. They weren’t there for very long, so we didn’t see much.

“They did ask my flatmate if she had seen anyone digging in the front garden, which I found a bit strange.

It’s quite a well-used patch of ground and people do walk on it and let their dogs on it as well. It’s quite scary actually to know it’s bones they found, it makes you wonder how they got there.”

A spokesman for the Met Police said murder squad detectives had been informed "as a matter of course" but the discovery was not at this stage thought to be related to a murder.