Vandals have desecrated the gravestone of famous Falmouth based artist Patrick Woodroffe at his final resting place in a peaceful Mawnan Smith cemetery.

The artist's widow Jean was horrified to find marks scratched all over the back of the artist's blue slate headstone on a visit to Mawnan Old Church last Tuesday.

On the back of the grave, which was made from stone quarried from a favourite holiday spot at Blaenau Ffestiniog in Wales and engraved with the artist's signature in gold on grey, taken from one of his paintings, vandals appear to have scratched the name Oscar and several lines.

Jean said: "It's a bit upsetting. I guess you could call it criminal damage."

Patrick died, aged 73, in May last year, and his grave was marked with a wooden cross until April, when his family had the stone ready to put in place.

Jean,74, said she visited around three weeks ago and found some scratches around the artist's signature on the front, and returned last week to find much more damage had been done.

She said: "I wonder whether it's a fan, or whether it's children, someone who has just seen the word artist [on the stone] or or whether it's someone who is just sick.

"You get odd people that need to make their mark."

Jean and Patrick's two children, Daniel and Rosie, both live in Cornwall although they have yet to see the damage to the headstone.

"They will see it," Jean said, "and they will be extremely upset."

She added: "Patrick was very meticulous and liked everything perfect. We went to a lot of trouble to get his signature rather than 'dearly beloved,' we had it copied from a painting just to make it exactly what he would have liked and now somebody has spoiled it.

"If it's a child where are the parents, if it's an adult they must be disturbed."

Although he lived in Falmouth, Patrick was buried in Mawnan Smith after he fell in love with the graveyard while working on a series of paintings along a nearby stretch of the coastal path.

He came into the graveyard with his daughter Rosie, and said it would be a great place to be buried, so after his death the family were able to secure one of the very last plots before the churchyard was closed for burials.

Jean said: "It just fitted in with his character and his work. It's just so sad."

"They could have drawn something and put it on the grave, if it was a fan," she said, "but this just looks like vandalism."

Jean said she had notified the vicar, and that she had been told there had been reports of other "odd" occurrences in the churchyard.

The vicar, the Reverend Stewart Turner, said he was aware of the vandalism, but knew nothing more about it, and churchwarden Mike Cockeram said all he knew was that the vicar had been told.

He added that reports of strange occurrences in the churchyard had been "going on for years," but that any talk was "merely conjecture."

A police spokesperson said the force was investigating "reports of criminal damage to a gravestone," which was noticed on September 16 "but could have taken place anytime within the past three weeks since the grave was last visited."

Officers have asked anyone who witnessed the crime or has seen anything suspicious at the churchyard recently to get in touch by calling 101 or on 101@devonandcornwall.pnn.police.uk, quoting crime reference CR/64952/15.

  • Patrick Woodroffe was born in Halifax, Yorkshire, in 1940, and studied languages at Leeds University, and moved to Cornwall in the 1960s, never receiving any formal training as an artist
    He was well known for his magical and fantastical paintings, and for his technique of tomography - combining backgrounds and real life objects with cut outs of his illustrations.
    He became famous in the 1970s and 1980s for illustrating the covers of science fiction and fantasy books and designing album covers for bands such as Judas Priest and Pallas.
    Last year Falmouth Art Gallery hosted a posthumous exhibition of his work, including a recreation of his studio.