GRAFFITI has been daubed on cliffs at Durdle Door beach - leading to condemnation from bosses of the iconic attraction who have slammed the 'destructive' behaviour of the vandals responsible.
A witness captured video footage of two people spraying a 'we were here' tag on rocks at the Jurassic Coast World Heritage site, which is run by the Lulworth Estate.
A spokeswoman for the estate: “This is an act of wanton (deliberate and unprovoked) vandalism of the World Heritage Site at Durdle Door, possibly causing criminal damage, about which we will refer to Dorset Police."
“Such brazen behaviour is not only destructive, but time consuming to remove from our iconic arch and is entirely inappropriate at such a site.”
Mairi Macleod, 47, captured footage of two people allegedly spraying graffiti on the rocks on Tuesday and has passed it on to police.
She said she could not believe what she had seen.
“Who is so dire to come to a beauty spot and do that?” said Ms Macleod, a health worker from Hampshire.
“I parked at Lulworth Cove and walked across to Durdle Door with my friend, when on the beach I saw two people start to graffiti.”
Ms Macleod says with no one else on the beach, except her friend Aisa who had gone for a swim, she did not feel comfortable approaching them and began to film the duo instead.
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Ms Macleod added: “I got closer and closer and they were not bothered by me as I filmed.
“My friend came out of the water and they began walking around and kept taking different pictures.
“It is pretty mindless and awful. I could not believe it.”
Upon inspecting the rocks Ms Macleod says she saw that they had sprayed a tag which said, ‘we were here 30/11/2021’ with a smiley face.
In a statement a spokesperson for Dorset Police said: “At 4.29pm on Tuesday November 30 we received a report that a man and a woman were spray painting rocks at Durdle Door. The circumstances of the incident are being looked into.”
The vandal attack comes just over a year since a social media influencer was slammed after daubing cliffs at the site with graffiti.
London-based influencer Alexandra Milam scrawled her Instagram account handle into the white cliffs in August 2020. She later apologised for her actions and set up monthly payments to a charity fundraiser set up by volunteer beach cleaners as a way of making amends.
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