The owners of a historic manor house have been left devastated after a gang of thieves broke in and stole four valuable bronze statues in a brazen overnight raid.
A large statue of She-Wolf with Romulus and Remus, including the plinth, two Roman fawns and a bust of Antinous were plundered from Iford Manor, Wiltshire, in the middle of its jazz festival.
Police have launched an urgent investigation after the four replica classic statues - some of which had stood in the grounds for more than a century - were taken from the manor's gardens in the early hours of Friday morning.
The She-Wolf bronze statue had stood in the grounds for more than 120 years, after it was cast from the original for Harold Peto - the Edwardian architect and garden designer whose family acquired the manor in 1899.
A pair of symmetrical fawns, copies of the originals at the ancient Roman Villa Dei Papyri, and a bust of Antinous - Emperor Hadrian's Greek lover who was deified after his death in Egypt - were also stolen.
