Costly: The damaged roof of the Ragged School Museum, which was left with a repair bill of £20,000
Posted on 08/05/2007 12:57:57 PM PDT by BGHater
Police have warned of a bizarre crime wave sweeping Britain as thieves strip millions of pounds' worth of metal off buildings to ship to China and other countries where demand is soaring.
Thousands of properties - including hundreds of churches and other historic buildings with lead roofs - have been targeted by organised gangs who sell the metal on to unscrupulous dealers.
It is then shipped overseas, either as scrap or after being melted down, to countries such as India, China and Dubai, which are struggling to find enough materials to keep their booming manufacturing and building industries supplied.
According to Ecclesiastical Insurance, which provides cover for most Church of England properties, lead thefts have trebled while copper thefts have multiplied by 10 since 2005. In the past 16 months they have received 750 claims, totalling £1.2 million.
Chris Pitt, from the company, said: "These people have to be organised because of the amounts they are getting away with. These buildings will never be the same again once they've been stripped in this way."
The gangs are also ripping lightning conductors from spires using towropes and vehicles and stealing bells.
Among the hundreds of churches targeted have been the 13th-century St Nicholas's Church, in Great Kimble, Bucks, which suffered damage of more than £10,000, and St Mary's Church, in Woolpit, Suffolk.
The Ragged School Museum - a local history museum in a Grade II listed building in east London - suffered £20,000 of damage when lead was stolen from its roof.
Eleanor Clark, the museum's director, said: "Any building that looks old is being targeted."
Costly: The damaged roof of the Ragged School Museum, which was left with a repair bill of £20,000
More lead to put into the toys they’re selling us I guess.
More lead to put into the toys they’re selling us I guess.
The saddest sight in England is the number of abandoned Anglican churches. Beautiful, centuries-old architectural gems that have defied time and the elements, but are dying now of neglect, apathy and vandalism by 21st century barbarians.
Statistics on church attendance 1993 to 2003 can be seen here:
http://www.culf.org.uk/files/CULF-Table%201.pdf
I am sure these statistics are far below pre-WWII numbers.
Maybe if they had more Gay Weddings and archbishops...
Nevermind.
Dooohn jooo worry about a thing.
All that lead will come back to us in 123 grain .311 diameter pointed packages covered in thin gilding metal jackets at 2600 feet per second or so.
You heard it hear first; Muslims staring to demolish christian churches to make way for mosques
‘The saddest sight in England is the number of abandoned Anglican churches. Beautiful, centuries-old architectural gems that have defied time and the elements, but are dying now of neglect, apathy and vandalism by 21st century barbarians.’
Really? I live in England and I haven’t noticed many. Of the 16,000 Anglican churches, over 13,000 are listed buildings protected by the state. Around 15 churches per year from that stock stop being used as Churches but they are not from listed stock and are usually post-war buildings that are being replaced with better buildings.
As there’s so many of these churches being neglected out of 16,000 you must have loads of links you can post for us to see them, as I’m struggling to find more than a handful.
I have no links, photos or locations to support my first hand observations.
From a visit to East Anglia in 2002 (and prior) several family members from different villages pointed out to me small country churches with crumbling walls and locked doors.
I understand from media reports that some churches are being vandalized for copper and lead fixtures and some are no longer Anglican but used as mosques. I have no links or photos of them either.
“”””You heard it here first; Muslims staring to demolish Christian churches to make way for mosques”””
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16959621/site/newsweek/
According to a forecast by the British-based group Christian Research, practicing Muslims will outnumber practicing Christians in England within a few decades. More than 1,600 churches—about 10 percent of the country’s total—have been formally declared redundant by the Church of England. And the English have recognized the new reality: if church buildings are to survive, new uses must be found. While a handful serve as mosques or Sikh temples, many more have found roles as cafés, concert halls, warehouses or chic apartments.
hiccup!
http://www.gnmagazine.org/issues/gn15/worldnewstrends15.htm
In much of Europe church attendance began a serious slide in the 1960s before plummeting in the 1980s. Consequently, unused churches are scattered throughout Germany, France, Britain and other northern European countries. Many have simply shut and locked their doors.
Point taken, but you should know that standard Chinese ammunition nowadays is 62 grain, 5.8mm, with a velocity of 3050 ft/sec.
It's an old tradition in those Roman outposts, I hear.
They stole stones out of all the old historical sites to build houses and such.....even from the Colosseum in Rome!
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