PICTURES MUTILATED

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 793, 14 October 1929, Page 13

PICTURES MUTILATED

DURHAM CASTLE OUTRAGE wwu 6 , pictures 111 Durham Castle, nm hL S t-°- V ° n - e of tlle colleges of Duiham University, have been mysexchane y e. mUtilated ' S?yS a Londoa The discovery was made iate one evening when Charles Sands, one of the college servants, on entering the dining hall, noticed that a prized painting by Hastings of the procession of boats on the River Wear, at Durham to celebrate the Battle of Waterhad been badly scratched. bands thereupon ixamined the other pictures, and found that the portraits ot three former cathedral prebendaries, Thomas Gisborne, George Townsend and John Saville Ogle aU “„5 e , ! , ear IS33 > had been torn’and mutilated. M l!l T th , e , common room a portrait of Mr. J. Pemberton, one of the earliest graduates of Durham, and founder of the Pemberton Fellowship, was also found to have been cut. ' The castle is visited daily bv hundreds ot sightseers, and on that particular day , there were over 200 visitors who were conducted in batches bv guides. The fact that the mutilation ot tlie pictures was uot detected until the evening- suggests that the outrage Avas committed late in the afternoon. The matter is in the hands of the police.