A stall at a Christmas market had £10k worth of stock stolen in an overnight break-in.

The Gay Glass Stall, which sells handmade items, was broken into at the Dickensian Christmas Festival, in Rochester, at the weekend.

Owner Val Clarke arrived to open up at about 8.30am on Sunday and said it was "immediately obvious" there had been a break-in.

She said: "This was despite us being assured whilst setting up the previous morning that we didn't need to pack it all down overnight as there was security in place.

"This was made very clear, or so we thought, by the stalls having metal fencing erected at the fronts by the security company as we were coming to the end of trading on the Saturday."

Val said that after speaking to other traders in the area, she found out that they had also been stolen from – but not to the extent they had.

"Whoever took from our stall was clearly allowed to be in the tent undisturbed for some time," she said.

"They had time to empty bags and boxes and fill them with what they wanted to take.

"The worst thing about this is that we don’t buy our stock in from abroad, everything we sell is painstakingly handmade and takes many hours to fire.

"It took hundreds of hours work to create what has been stolen and it is my intention to make this theft go viral so that they cannot sell their haul – our stock is quite distinctive and many recognise our work straight away."

Its entire LGBT pendant stock was stolen, which includes hundreds of pendants in 30 different flag types.

As well as this, all its hand-painted quirky jewellery was taken, along with wall hangers and various other items.

Its set-up box, containing an electric drill and screw-in tent pegs was also taken, as well as its business cards.

"It would appear someone is thinking of trying to pass themselves off as us," said Val.

"I am really quite disappointed by this incident – during lockdown we spent hours making and hiding little glass Secret Hearts to make people happy and lift spirits and we hid around 7,000 all over Medway.

"We have always worked hard to raise the spirits of the community and when we started making ‘gay glass’ and saw how happy people were to see themselves represented on a ‘standard’ market we changed direction slightly to encompass this."

She says the theft was reported to police on duty, however she intends to report it online today.

She is still planning on setting up her stall this weekend at the market, and is working non-stop to try and build up her stock.

"Of course we don’t expect to be rewarded for anything we have done as we did it simply to make people happy," she said.

"But it would have been nice had we not been targeted in this way, especially as I am also caring for my terminally-ill husband, with stage 4 bile duct cancer, currently."

Medway Council provided stallholders with terms of conditions, stating that there would be overnight security for the event.

Paul Cowell, who is head of culture and libraries at Medway Council, said: "We understand the distress and upset the reported thefts caused stallholders.

"When we became aware of the reported thefts, we encouraged stallholders to report the matter to the police.

"Although we have 24/7 security patrols in place, all traders were advised when booking not to keep any stock or items of value in their stalls overnight."