Prints and jewellery worth thousands of pounds were stolen from a gift shop and gallery in Saffron Walden last week.

Burglars smashed the lock on the entrance door of The Other One, in The Cockpit, on May 2 and conducted a messy search inside before getting away with thousands of pounds worth of stock.

The estimated value of the products stolen amounts to between £5,000 and £7,000.

Paul Palmer and his partner Kirsty Sinclair opened the shop, which they describe as Saffron Walden’s first ‘eclectic boutique’, in September last year.

The store was broken into at some point between Tuesday evening (April 30) and Thursday morning (May 2) and Kirsty and Paul are appealing to anyone who noticed anything suspicious.

“They took nearly all of our jewellery,” Kirsty said. “I’ve found it really upsetting and it’s hard to keep a business running with all this mess to deal with on top of everything else. We couldn’t open for a few days so we could clean up the mess.

“It’s never happened to us before, at either shop. It feels as though it was hardly worth the hassle. Why would you do it?”

Anyone with information about the burglary should call the Uttlesford local policing team on 101.