Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Centuries-old artefacts stolen in shameful burglary at Abbey
HISTORICAL silver artefacts donated to Malmesbury Abbey by one of the most eccentric of Victorian West MPs were among the haul stolen by burglars last month.
The Wiltshire town was shocked by a burglary at the religious landmark on November 16.
Until yesterday police or church leaders had given few details of the exact nature of what had been taken by thieves.
But now it has emerged that a silver communion set donated by Walter Powell MP is among the irreplaceable items taken, as well as a chalice that is nearly 400 years old.
Powell was a dashing Victorian adventurer who mixed aeronautic derring-do with a political career, before he disappeared in mysterious circumstances.
A classic Victorian hero, he juggled fundraising and good works in the towns and villages around Malmesbury with his passion for the new form of adventure – ballooning.
His balloon launch from the market square in Malmesbury in 1881, in an early contraption called Eclipse, brought out thousands of people from across the West and became the media event of the year.
But that was tragically overshadowed by events months later that gave birth to a riddle that remains unsolved.
Powell was presumed lost in the English Channel after carrying out a relatively routine weather balloon flight from Bath to Dorset on December 10, 1881. He was one of three men in a government balloon, called the Saladin, sent up from Bath to measure air temperature and gather weather data.
Once the trio saw the sea near Bridport they descended but in the fields near the coast something went wrong. The balloon landed heavily and two of the men were thrown out, leaving Powell fighting for control of the balloon.
With less weight, the Saladin rose again, and the last anyone saw of Walter Powell was a cheery but determined wave he gave his colleagues as he drifted out to sea.
His name has largely been forgotten but in the early years of the 21st century the pub in his home village of Little Somerford, near Malmesbury, was renamed the Saladin in his memory and he had a school named after him in neighbouring Great
Somerford. He was MP for Malmesbury from 1869-1881 and at some point during his tenure he donated a communion set dated from 1847 to the abbey.
Wiltshire Police yesterday released a list of items that were taken during the raid.
They included a large salver and a wafer cup given in memory of George Windsor Tucker, Vicar of Malmesbury from 1875-1906; two chalices, one with a hallmark dating it to 1650; a community wafer box given in the memory of Rev. Canon
Charles McMillan, Vicar 1907-1919 and the Pectoral Cross of Ronald Erskine Ramsay, 1st Bishop of Malmesbury (1927-1945).
Investigating officer Pc Jo Phelps said: “These are irreplaceable items of significant historical importance to the abbey and the local Malmesbury community and it’s such a shame that someone has decided to steal them.
“They are part of the heritage of the abbey dating back in some cases hundreds of years.
“If anyone has any knowledge of their whereabouts, or if you have seen them in passing or been approached about them, then please get in touch with us.
“I would also like to directly appeal to the people who took them to do the right thing and return them.”
The Rev Oliver Ross, Vicar of Malmesbury, last month said: “We are all deeply hurt and dismayed by the break-in at the Abbey. We are amazed that someone would stoop so low as to desecrate and steal from the house of God”