A memorial to one of Maidstone’s most famous sons - Captain Louis Nolan of the Charge of the Light Brigade fame - has been defaced.

Vandals spray-painted it with pink graffiti on Saturday night.

The memorial which stands in Church Street close to the Trinity Foyer was unveiled in April 2013.

It was commissioned at a cost of £50,000 by Maidstone Borough Council and designed and erected by the Stone Shop in East Farleigh, run by Gordon Newton.

Mr Newton was appalled this morning to see the obscenities scrawled across the monument to the war hero.

He said: “It’s disgraceful. The graffiti is really extensive on all sides. I’m absolutely gutted that someone should do this.”

Captain Nolan had been master in charge of the cavalry at Maidstone Barracks, now The White Rabbit pub, before going off to Sebastopol to fight in the Crimean War.

He had lived at Lion House in Church Street, now home to ACT Publishing.

He was the first to die in the ill-fated charge of 1854, after spurring his horse to the front in a failed attempt to warn Lord Cardigan that he was leading his cavalry into the wrong valley - one where three batteries of Russian artillery waited to annihilate the 600 horsemen.

A movie of the engagement was made in 1968, with David Hemmings in the role of Nolan.