A donation box stolen from a shrine in Faversham 10 years ago has been recovered from the Creek.

The large rusty box, filled only with mud, was pulled from the water on Tuesday by members of the Faversham Creek Trust.

It was stolen from the Shrine of St Jude in Tanners Street in 2004.

Thousands of pilgrims come from all over the world to visit the sacred place of worship, which is served by a group of Carmelite friars.

On the outside of the metal box, faded writing says: ‘“Your gift to St Jude will help us to educate future Carmelites.”

St Jude, ironically, is the patron saint of lost causes.

Creek trust members have been working all week to clear the water near to the Purifier Building.

One of them, David Bone, initially thought the box may have been the safe which was stolen from his house in The Mall in the 1980s.

Another worker, Alan Brown, said: “We had noticed the box before. In fact, it has been there for years and years but we had no idea it belonged to the shrine and for a while before now it was impossible to get it out.

"We had forgotten about it until this week, but it’s strange it has happened on our 60th year of ministry at the shrine – it’s like our history coming back to us." - Matt Betts

“Luckily, we had a man with waders with us so he was able to pull it out of the mud. We cleaned it up a bit and could see it was from St Jude’s. Clearly, it has been stolen and dumped here. There was nothing inside apart from lots of mud. We are going to clean it up properly and take it back to the Carmelites.”

Development manager at the shrine, Matt Betts, said: “Although this was before my time at the shrine, I knew it had been stolen and once the thieves had emptied it, they dumped it in the Creek.

“We had tried to get it back but the authorities said it was too dangerous to get it out of the mud so we had to leave it there. We had forgotten about it until this week, but it’s strange it has happened on our 60th year of ministry at the shrine – it’s like our history coming back to us.

“We have heightened our security and our donation box is now in the wall, so it won’t be happening again. We learned our lesson.”