A vicar has slammed “mindless” vandal who tagged a grave in The St Mary’s Tower remembrance garden in Hornsey Village.

The grafitti was sprayed on a grave in the 500-year-old grade II-listed remembrance garden between Thursday and Friday night.

Fr Bruce Batstone, of Hornsey Parish Church said: “I was as shocked as everyone one else with a love for St Mary’s Churchyard to see the pictures of the recent vandalism on the grave there.

“I feel sad and angry at the selfishness of one or two people in our community who vandalise what is important and worthy of our respect.

“This churchyard is cared for by people with a selfless regard for other members of their community.”

Local businessman Chris Arnold expressed anger at the disrespect of the tagger for desecrating a grave.

Mr Arnold, who sits on the St Mary’s Tower steering group has contacted police to investigate in the hope they can recognise the tag,

He has appealed on social media for anyone who knows the tagger to contact police

“This is mindless vandalism and so disrespectful..The idiot won’t be hard to track down as the police also have a database of all tags.

After the graffiti’s discovery on Friday Hornsey ward councillor, Adam Jogee – a supporter of St Mary’s and member of the church tower’s working group – contacted Haringey Council deputy chief executive Tracie Evans asking when cleaning work would start.

By 10am on Monday the grave had been fully restored.

Cllr Jogee said: “I’m really pleased. But we now need to look at preventative measures. We want to keep the site open to the public, but we need to make it clear to whoever desecrated the grave that Hornsey is not the place for that kind of behaviour.”

The churchyard was used for burial from the medieval period until 1892 when it was finally closed to all new burials.

In the early 1950s the garden of remembrance was created.

More recently, the St Mary’s Tower Long View group is working towards making St Mary’s Tower and gardens the centre of the Hornsey Village community and recently ran a series of Sunday concerts and picnics there,