A parish church council is worried about the upkeep of a graveyard after all of its gardening equipment was stolen.

Around £3,000 worth of machinery, including four mowers, two strimmers and a leaf blower, was taken from a shed outside St Peter and St Paul Church in Boughton-under-Blean.

Julian Owen, a church council volunteer and former warden, discovered the break-in on Wednesday, December 20, while fetching some lights from the equipment store.

Determined thieves had forced open the doors and cut through four locks and chains used to secure the mowers to the floor.

This was despite high-security bolts being installed.

He said: “They had broken through one of the walls and door bolts from the inside.

“It was all the equipment we use to keep the churchyard under control.”

“They were kept as secure as they could have been.”

Mr Owen has given up hope of the stolen items being recovered and is waiting to hear if insurers will be able to help with the cost of replacing the machinery and fixing the shed.

If not, the church council may be forced to look at other ways of maintaining the large and sloping churchyard, which contains hundreds of graves.

The break-in is believed to have happened sometime between noon on Friday, December 15, and 1.30pm on Wednesday, December 20, but went unnoticed because the thieves had managed to get the doors shut again.

“The building is quite a long way out of the village so it’s difficult to keep an eye on,” Mr Owen said.

All of the machines had been security marked with the name and postcode of the church following a previous break-in in 2015.

Anyone with information should call police on 01795 419119, quoting reference number XY/067044/17.