Over the course of 20 years “Henry the Stag” had become quite the London landmark. Cab drivers, ordered to head to the bronze stag somewhere in Knightsbridge, knew exactly where to go.
Alas no more.
In a criminal act that required a fair bit of chutzpah and a lot of muscle, the life-sized bronze stag was lifted out of the front garden of Alison Cork’s townhouse, loaded onto a van and driven away into the night.
Ms Cork, an interior designer, writer and broadcaster, is bereft. She has offered a £1,000 reward for Henry’s safe return and launched a hunt for the stag. She fears however that her “precious family heirloom” may have already been melted down for scrap by the gang that stole him.
“Whoever took him is beyond despicable,” said Ms Cork, 60, the chief executive and founder of homeward brand Alison At Home and a familiar face on television, “When we moved into the house 20 years ago, we wanted something fun and different, so given that Henry VIII used to hunt stag in Hyde Park, we thought it would be wonderful to have him in the front garden.
“Since then Henry has become a local celebrity and is a unifying figure in the local community. My kids, who are now 20 and 23, have grown up with him around, he is far more than just a lump of metal, he is part of the family.”
The statue, which is 6ft tall, weighs about 60kg and is worth upwards of £10,000, was snatched from her garden on Saturday night.
It had sat there since 2007 when she bought it from a bronze statue specialist as a moving-in present to herself and her family. In the intervening years Henry has become something of a local celebrity.
Tens of thousands of tourists have taken selfies with the stag which sat in a quiet Knightsbridge street around the corner from the Berkeley hotel.
The bronze statue had become an unofficial landmark for “the knowledge”, needed by London black cab drivers to navigate the city.
Ms Cork, awarded an MBE last year for services to female entrepreneurship, said: “I once got into the back of a cab and said ‘can you head to the bronze stag in Knightsbridge’, and the driver asked me if the crazy lady still lived in the house, I told him she was sitting in the back of his car.”
Henry was also prone to a bit of fancy dress, depending on the season, ensuring his fame spread. “Throughout the seasons I’ll dress Henry up, so on Halloween he gets cobwebs, at Christmas he gets baubles and when it’s the Belgravia flower show in summer, I’ll decorate him with some flowers,” said Ms Cork.
She woke up on Sunday morning to discover a huge gap in her front garden. “I couldn’t quite work out what was different, then all of sudden I noticed he was gone. I just feel really, really sad. It’s shocking,” she said.
Ms Cork, who was long-listed to be the Conservative candidate for London Mayor in 2020, believes her loss speaks to the wider “moral degeneration” of the city.
‘Total moral degeneration’
She said: “The city is riddled with crime, I no longer feel safe, London has changed. There is a total disregard for people’s property and their feelings. There is a complete lack of moral code, we are seeing a total moral degeneration and no one does anything to protect you.
“There should be some standards somewhere, if you don’t have that, then what do you have?”
Ms Cork believes the theft would have required two men because of the sheer size and weight of the statue, adding that it would be too large to fit in a car, so she suspects the robbers loaded it into a van.
She said: “It could have been opportunistic or a planned robbery. Criminals steal the electric car charging cables for the copper filament, so a life-size bronze stag would be a gift from god in their eyes.”
Ms Cork believes the Berkeley hotel home may have captured CCTV footage of the incident and is checking with hotel staff.
The Metropolitan Police was contacted for comment.