Thieves have broken into Shrewsbury Abbey forcing open and breaking the lock off a 400 year old door, and then smashing there way through an ornate carved dorr probably dating to the Victorian era.
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00:00Hello Steve how are you sir? Hello I'm very well thank you. So we're here at the
00:04magnificent wonderful Shrewsbury Abbey and what's your role here Steve? I'm
00:09parish administrator. See you've been here a few years, since you've been here
00:15and to your knowledge previously you can't recollect there ever being
00:19somebody breaking into this gorgeous building but sadly that's
00:23happened. Yes yes to everyone's surprise, well of course it's good to be a
00:28surprise, we haven't had anything like this before. When did this happen then
00:32Steve? This happened on Thursday night, sometime, well Shrewsbury Choral were in
00:38rehearsing their B Minor Mass and they left, I think the last man out was about
00:459.45am and the first person in yesterday morning was at 8.40am so between
00:53those times. So just talk us through what they've done, they've done some damage
00:57haven't they, getting in, just lead us through, they came in on this side door.
01:00Yes this is the south porch, this door is alongside Abbey Foregate, yep, so we
01:10must stress this door, it was a bit of a mess when you found it, you've
01:15since had brand new up-to-date locks put on. It's since been repaired and it's secure,
01:21professionally done, that's happened yesterday afternoon. So yes they came in this way,
01:28damaged the locks on there initially, but that's already done, safe now.
01:35So if we just follow through, so they came through, then they turned left, perhaps thought there were valley walls in here,
01:45but you can see a chip out of the stone, some sort of jemmy that's gone in there and forced the door.
01:58And here is the state of this door Steve, so you have a door with a bit missing, a chunk off the door.
02:09So this is the bit missing, look at the state of that, it's just literally wedge-snapped out of the door.
02:18So this is an oak door, I don't know when it was installed but it's very likely Victorian, because there was a lot of work done in the Victorian times.
02:28It's not as old as the south door, we think that's about 400 years old on the street.
02:35But yeah, nice door, or it was.
02:39So they came in, and like you say, we don't know if they were disturbed or something, it seems they've gone as far as smashing the way into here.
02:47And then thankfully, I mean it's worth pointing out, there is nothing of value in this room.
02:52No, there isn't, well they would have seen that as soon as they opened the door.
02:56No, we store a few things in here, but there's nothing of value on the premises, it's all locked away, it's in safes.
03:06It's just not here, we don't keep money here.
03:09So no, they would have, whoever it was, been disappointed and got out again.
03:19So here we are in this beautiful abbey, and much loved by everyone who comes in the community.
03:29Although still there are people who come in for the first time, having lived here all their lives, and they're rather amazed just how beautiful it is.
03:38And yes, fortunately, the rest of this place was not compromised in the raid.
03:48I don't think whoever broke in, I don't think they went very far.
03:52As I say, there's very little to steal anyway, there's plenty to look at.
03:57So you'd be appealing for information then, if anybody saw anything, if anybody had some dash cam footages that were driving past around that time,
04:07anybody hanging around on that door, anything like that that could help?
04:11Definitely, well there's a lot of traffic and pedestrians going past that door all the time, day and night.
04:19As I say, we don't know quite when it was, but sometime overnight on Thursday, or possibly early morning on Friday.
04:27And yes, if anybody saw anything the least bit suspicious, do please contact the police.
04:36They're very much on the case, West Mersey Police have been absolutely brilliant, can't praise them enough.
04:42Very quick and very thorough, very professional.
04:46And how does it leave you feeling, Steve? You know, you come in here, you do good work here, for little reward financially.
04:56Yes, yes, that's true, but well it could have been a lot worse.
05:01We've still got the Abbey here, we're still here.
05:05Thanks to our brilliant volunteers, they coped admirably, all we did was close one door to the public
05:15and the rest of the day went well, we didn't have to close.
05:22We're open for business again this morning and will be tomorrow.
05:26Really, we got off quite lightly, there's hardly anything visible
05:35and once the door is repaired then there won't be anything, no evidence that this ever happened.
05:42People often think the church has got loads of money, it's rich in land and assets,
05:48but in terms of money, you haven't just got a big pot of cash, have you, to do the repairs?
05:55It's not, you know, every cost has to be scraped and funded for.
06:02That's right, it's a myth that the church is rolling your money.
06:05Maybe the church globally, that there are assets that probably look impressive,
06:10but certainly on a local level we haven't and the Diocese of Lichfield is not flush.
06:19Many people would dispute that, I don't know where they get their information from,
06:23but the fact is we might have grand buildings, but that doesn't mean we're millionaires.
06:31I've been in here on an extremely rainy day and there's water leaking through the roof on the front there.
06:37Now, if you had a big pot of cash, I'm sure you would like to fix that.
06:41Have you estimated what this might cost you, these repairs to the door and so on?
06:47Well, it's not going to be, hopefully, too much.
06:53Hopefully under about £3,000, but if we have to remake the door from scratch
07:01and it needs a skilled craftsman to do that, you know, it might be higher.
07:07We've got some lock damage, I don't know what that bill's going to be.
07:11But a few thousand pounds and we'll lose a bit.
07:14It'll be insured, of course, but we'll lose a bit on the insurance.
07:20We should point out, you've got storm damage on the front,
07:25so that's another cost the Abbey's having to bear.
07:27The wind took part of the window out.
07:31Yes, we had a gig that evening and I just arrived and the storm was blowing.
07:36The west end of the Abbey, it's a vortex, I think the term is.
07:42The wind just kicks up there.
07:46When the sun's out, it's nice and warm.
07:49We do get the high winds.
07:51There was one little pane missing out of a leaded window
07:56and the wind came in, spun around and basically blew the window out.
08:02It blew out one piece and I went up there
08:06and it was just in the process of blowing out a bigger piece.
08:10Fortunately, we found somebody who was pretty much on the doorstep
08:14who boarded it up.
08:16But yes, that's another insurance claim.
08:19It's another cost, it's more time.
08:22But it's an ancient building.
08:24It's a Grade 1 listed, so we have to do everything really carefully
08:28and involve the architect to make sure that we are good custodians
08:33for future generations.
08:36And yes, that's the nature of the beast, really.
08:39This break-in, Steve, is there anything you'd kind of change
08:42about how you work things here?
08:45Well, the door is now secure.
08:48One thing we might change or add is CCTV.
08:54We don't have any CCTV currently.
08:57There is some CCTV on the other side, on the north side,
09:01from the businesses along the splinter of Abbey Foregate have CCTV.
09:08But I did see Anna Rouse, who looked after us brilliantly yesterday,
09:14has studied all the footage and there isn't anything really.
09:17It's on the wrong side of the building.
09:19We could do something.
09:20So I think that's something we ought to look at, really.
09:24So if there was a reputable CCTV company in Shropshire
09:29that wanted to come forward and said,
09:31you know what, we're going to do our bit,
09:33we're going to help the Abbey and put a little system in place,
09:36I'm sure you'd welcome that.
09:37Well, most certainly, yes, we would, absolutely.
09:40And, yeah, anything we do is costly.
09:46We have to be very careful how we spend our money.
09:49And not just to be good guardians of it, but we've just been saying
09:56no church that I know of anyway is flush.
10:01So, yes, it's something we should do.
10:03It needs to be, we can't, how can I put it,
10:08we can't sort of get it wrong and then afford to do it again,
10:11so we want to get it right first time.
10:14Yeah, I think that's something we ought to look at, just to cover our doors.
10:20It's sad that you have to, but these are the days we live in.
10:24Yes, indeed.
10:26And, you know, you're right, we would have to find where to mount the cameras
10:33and we'd need to tell the public that that's what we were doing,
10:37but I think that's only reasonable.
10:39There's so much CCTV around pretty much everywhere you go
10:43that I think that nobody would really object to that, I don't think.
10:47Well, thank you for sharing the experience of what's happening, Steve,
10:51and we wish you all the best with all the good work that you do here, so continue.
10:55Thank you, and do please, if the public watching this, anybody who went by,
11:02do let us know or let the police know of anything that might lead to caching the perpetrator.
11:10We are always grateful to the public.
11:13Well, for one thing, we're open to the public and we like to be open
11:17and they love coming in and we're grateful for that,
11:20not just in the day but to all our many events.
11:25It's thanks to the public supporting those events, musical events in the evening,
11:30that we can be open every day and that's the way we want to be.
11:34We don't want to be a closed church.
11:36We're open and we like to be friendly and we have volunteer staff.
11:41That's what the Abbey is. It's everybody's Abbey.
11:44It's not just for a small group of people.
11:48So, if you haven't been in, do come in.
11:51You can get an impression of how wonderful it is, beautiful and historical.
11:56It plays a very big part in the history of the town.
12:03So, let's hope that something good can come out of something bad.
12:08Thank you, Steve. All the best. Thank you.