THIEVES “desecrated” a historic Little Stanmore church where the composer Handel was once in residence and left it with a £70,000 bill.

The Grade I listed Church of St Lawrence has been hit three times in as many months by scavengers stealing lead from its roof to sell for scrap.

The most recent raid, discovered on Thursday last week, stripped out so much metal that, if it had rained, water would have leaked down into the church building, threatening to ruin the priceless interior.

St Lawrence, one of the first places where music was composed in English, is the only church in the country built in the continental Baroque style and dates back to the 900s.

Handel was made composer-in-residence in 1717 and the organ he played, thought to be worth in the region of £500,000, remains in the church hall.

The Reverend Paul Reece, rector of Little Stanmore, said: “If any water had got in the priceless interior would have been ruined and lost to the nation, or there would have been a very expensive repair bill.

“As far as I'm concerned it's been desecrated three times in the last 10 weeks.”

The church had already covered the lead on its roof with property marking liquid SmartWater in the hope it would prevent the thieves from trading in the material and allow police to prove it was stolen.

It has now been forced to shell out for CCTV and alarm systems to stop further thefts bringing the total cost, along with replacing the lead from all three incidents, to around £70,000.

The last two thefts alone hit the church to the tune of up to £15,000 each, although the lead itself is not likely to have attracted anywhere near as much if sold for scrap.

Father Reece said: “We are about to rebuild our church hall for the benefit of the wider community. It's money that we would have put towards that which will now have to be put towards combating opportunistic thieves.

“It seems strange that we have to spend thousands of pounds protecting ourselves against something like this. You would expect there would be respect for a place of worship.”

The borough has been hit by a spate of recent metal thefts, including at a house in Buckingham Road, Edgware, between midday Saturday, April 16, and midday the following day.

A 3ft section of copper piping was stripped off the side of the house.

Anyone with information can contact police on 0300 123 1212, or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.

Anyone who sees a theft taking place should call 999.