IT weighs two tonnes, it's 11 foot long, and it dates from a 17th-century battle.

But now, more than 300 years later, the Orford Cannon is at the centre of another

battle - about where it should go.

Presently the bronze sensation is on display in all its glory at the Royal Armouries Museum in Fort Nelson, Fareham.

However, the cannon's new home is hundreds of miles from where it was actually found off the Suffolk coast by diver Stuart Bacon eight years ago.

He claimed salvage rights and until last year the gun was displayed outside his craft shop in Orford.

Now a group of Suffolk schoolchildren is far from happy about the cannon's new home.

They have written 27 letters to museum chiefs demanding one of East Anglia's greatest pieces of maritime heritage be returned.

Laurence Day, aged ten, wrote: "If you keep it the children that grow up in Orford will never see it again. Please could we have it back as it is one of the greatest artefacts ever found in Orford."

Clare Robinson, also aged ten, said: "When you took our cannon the village looked bare, and because of you there's a bit of the village missing."

After seven years deliberating who was the cannon's rightful owner, the Receiver of Wreck from the Maritime and Coastguard Agency decreed it belonged to the nation.

Nicholas Poole, spokesman for The Royal Armouries Museum, said they tried to find a suitable place to display the gun in East Anglia, without success.

"It has always been our desire and hope to display the cannon in Orford or the surrounding region when a suitable resting place can be found," he said.

"A number of museums were approached but we were unable to find a home for the cannon.

"In the meantime we feel it is our duty to properly display the gun and preserve it for generations to come."

As a gesture of goodwill the museum has offered the children a free trip to the Tower of London.

Historians believe the artefact - more accurately referred to as The Dunwich Cannon - dates from 1550 and originates from Austria.

It was probably used in the Battle of Sole Bay off the Suffolk coast in 1672.