A church closed by roosting bats
Bats have driven out the worshippers from the 1,000-year-old church of St Hilda, Ellerburn, in Ryedale, North Yorkshire. For a decade volunteers have striven to keep the altar and woodwork clean, but the droppings from the bats have proved too powerful.
“The smell is appalling,” Liz Cowley, a churchwarden told the BBC, “it’s a combination of ammonia from the urine and a musty smell from the droppings that catches at the back of the throat.” The roosting bats have soiled the interior, damaging the furnishings, including the altar. “You can see the urine marks on the altar, they won’t go away,” Mrs Cowley said.
It is an offence for anyone intentionally to kill, injure or handle a bat, to disturb a roosting bat, or to damage, destroy or obstruct access to any place used by bats for shelter, whether they are present or not. It is even illegal to be found in possession of a dead bat....