AN intricate sculpture dedicated to the work of the NHS during the Covid-19 crisis has been wrecked by vandals, it has emerged.

Farrier Mike Vosper painstakingly built the highly-decorated arch out of horse shoes at his forge in Bere Alston.

Mr Vosper’s creation was placed on the entrance to the village more than a month ago — but has now been badly damaged by somebody armed with what appears to have been a heavy instrument.

The Bere Alston farrier vowed to repair the sculpture, but said he would be placing it outside his forge so he could keep an eye on it.

He said: ‘I have to wonder if whoever did this has a problem, because they obviously used something like an iron bar and I can’t see why anyone would want to do anything like that. It’s not like anyone has kicked it, or anything like that. It looks like somebody came along with an iron bar and hit it. It’s obviously taken quite a lot of effort to do it.

‘It would not have been hit by a car or another vehicle, because it is 12 feet away from the road on a grass embankment.’

Mr Vosper said he believed the damage was done some time on the night of November 11, although he had not reported the damage to the police.

He said: ‘The problem is that the police are very busy and I don’t see that they could do very much about it.

‘Perhaps somebody may have seen something or know something, but the police can’t do much about it without that sort of information.’

Mr Vosper said that he wanted to show his appreciation to the NHS for their work with Covid-19 patients during the pandemic.

He said: ‘I’ve got three doctors who live near me and one of them leaves home at around 6am to 7am and doesn’t get back home until midnight, which is a long day. People in the NHS are working very hard and I just wanted to do something which showed how grateful we are.’

Mr Vosper said he had collected the remains of the sculpture and transported it back to his forge, where it will be repaired.

He said: ‘I’m not beaten that easily. I will repair it and put it outside the forge in future. I’m not worried about that, because the forge has CCTV cameras around it, so if anyone does anything to it, they will be picked up.’