Returned artefact unveiled by Australian sleuth

An Australian solicitor who helped recover a church artefact stolen in England has unveiled it in its rightful home.

Richard d'Apice, a Sydney-based heraldry expert, spotted the 17th Century painted wooden panel while browsing an English auction house catalogue online.

He identified the piece as a memorial board belonging to St Leonard's Church in Flamstead, near Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, which had been stolen in 1996.

On Thursday, he attended a ceremony where the item was returned to a wall hook that had remained empty for nearly three decades.

The item, which is worth about £3,000, honours George Cordell, who served three monarchs beginning with Queen Elizabeth I.

The Reverend Jo Burke said: "George was the gentleman who looked after the monarch's tablecloths... and he was buried somewhere in this church."

She admitted the memorial had been "entirely forgotten" by the local community over the years, and she had never heard of it in the four and a half years she had been at the church.

It was only when d'Apice saw it online and did some cross-referencing that it was identified and eventually returned to Flamstead.

The 80-year-old said: "They were pretty swiftly able to convince the police and the auctioneer that it belonged to the church and it had never left legally, and [they] were able to reclaim it, so here it is back in the church."

The vicar said: "I'm still astonished. I'm absolutely delighted. It fits neatly back into some of what we already knew about the families who are buried in this church and lived here back in the 17th Century.

"So it's a surprise, it's a delight, and we are immensely grateful."

Speaking at the unveiling ceremony, d'Apice described the reaction as "quite surprising".

"I didn't expect the level of interest that it seems to have generated," he said.

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