Beautiful stained glass window damaged in Parish Church burglary

The Parish Church of St Peter & St Paul in Wincanton was burgled some time during the night of Friday 16th and the morning of Saturday 17th June 2017.

The forced entry into the church caused damage to two of the stained glass windows, one of which is a beautiful memorial window with an inscription under it saying, “In honour and in loving memory of George Southam Cash, killed in action at the Battle of the Somme 1916, aged 26yrs”.

There was also damage to the votive candle stand and its donation box, which was detached from the stand, forced open, and contents taken. Several cupboards and lockers were forced open. The church is now going through the process of getting everything returned to its original condition, via its insurer.

The damage was discovered during the routine unlocking of the church around 8:45am on Saturday morning. The police were immediately notified using the 101 number and our local police attended the scene that morning. The CIS police attended on Sunday morning at 9.45am to gather evidence.

Avon and Somerset Police have issued the following appeal in conjunction with this incident.

We’re investigating a burglary at St Peter and St Paul Church in Station Road, Wincanton, which happened overnight between Friday June 16 and Saturday June 17. It was discovered at around 9am on Saturday.

Unknown offender(s) have smashed a stained glass window to get into the church and then carried out a search. It’s not yet known if any items were stolen.

PC Neil Wolstenholme, of Wincanton police station, said: “It’s incredibly hard to comprehend why anyone would even consider breaking into a church in order to steal items, let alone causing damage to such a beautiful stained glass window”.

If anyone has information, or saw or heard anything suspicious, please call us on 101 and give the call handler the reference number 5217136330.”

Comments

Login to comment!