A 400-year-old bronze bell stolen from Otorohanga's Anglican Church has been discovered in Auckland this morning.
Otorohanga police Sergeant Andy Connors said an Auckland scrap metal dealer noticed the bell in his yard this morning after reading about its theft on Stuff and waikatotimes.co.nz.
Although police were yet to sight the bell, Mr Connors understood it was still in a reasonable condition.
Police feared the 150kg bell would be sold for its value on the copper market.
Reverend Christine Scott, Vicar of St Bride's, was ecstatic when the Times broke news of the recovery to her.
"Yah that's absolutely brilliant, that's amazing," she said. "I'm just absolutely delighted. Although I guess we're going to have to work out some way of securing it better now."
Reverend Scott made the heartbreaking theft discovery yesterday morning.
"Every service we have it rung. We take out the clapper after each service because they were concerned about that being stolen, but never, ever envisaged the bell would be stolen."
St Bride's was built in 1962 and Mrs Scott believes the bell was gifted around that time.
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