Archive: Painted swastikas
Archive: Painted swastikasGershon Elinson/Flash90

A large swastika and racist graffiti were discovered on a bridge in northern England.

The railway bridge, located in Harrogate, a town in North Yorkshire, is considered a local landmark and the vandalism has left residents dismayed, reported Yorkshire Live.

The offensive graffiti was spray painted over a mural of foxes. A local man was able to remove the graffiti without damaging the artwork.

Residents say that this is the second time vandalism of this type has occurred but this incident was more severe.

"I am Jewish, and my young children coming across a large swastika, as well as anti-Pakistani racism, on one of their favourite local landmarks was very upsetting,” Benjamin Skinner told Yorkshire LIve.

"I know the vandals' hatred not only doesn't represent our town, but they are in fact wholly at odds with our real community spirit.”

He added that there had been “small groups on noisy bikes racing in the evenings. One could speculate that it could be the same group, but there's no direct evidence.”

The graffiti was reported to police. There were some tags left with the graffiti that Skinner hoped would help identify the vandal.

There has been a recent surge of incidents in the UK involving swastikas.

At the beginning of the month, swastika graffiti was spray painted on an information sign near a racecourse in Durham, UK, a city in northeast England.

In July, a man with a record of previous anti-Semitic discrimination pleaded guilty in court to defacing a war memorial in a coastal town in North Wales with Nazi and anti-Semitic messages.

In May, the front door of a religious institution in Norwich, UK was vandalized with an anti-Semitic slur, the phrase “Free Palestine” and a swastika in black spray paint.