Sculptures damaged and stolen from farm trail

Nine wooden sculptures have been removed from their plinths and stolen from a farm near Exeter.

The animal heads on plinths were stolen from a walking trail on Darts Farm in Topsham between Sunday and Monday, Devon and Cornwall Police said.

Their sculptor Brendan Rawlings said it was "saddening that people have done this" to the sculptures he said were worth a total of about £10,000.

Police officers investigating the theft have asked anyone with information to contact them.

A police spokesperson said: "It has been reported that nine animal head sculptures were removed from their stands and taken from the walking trail area."

Mr Rawlings said it was "gutting" the heads had been removed from the plinths as it took "so much more time and skill" to carve each one from a single piece of wood.

The sculptures, some years old and some weeks old, had been on display at Glastonbury Festival in June before he reinstated them on the farm trail.

Mr Rawlings said: "I want to tell the thieves they are literally taking food off my kids' table as well as depriving lots of people the opportunity to enjoy the sculptures for free in the wild."

"Each one is unique," he said. "They mean something to me making them but then they resonate with other people when they see them and on the farm trail they were accessible to everybody.

"This injustice is hard to swallow," he added.

Follow BBC Devon on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected].