CAMPAIGNERS who fought to ensure the Zurbaran paintings stayed in Auckland Castle, County Durham, reacted with anger and disbelief over the secret plans to sell them.

In 2001, when the Church Commissioners voted, in principal, to sell the paintings, a strongly-fought campaign by the then bishop and the Bishop Auckland Civic Society led to the granting of a five-year reprieve in 2005.

The society’s chairman, Dr Robert McManners, played a key role in the campaign to keep the collection at Auckland Castle, and received widespread support from across County Durham, including the backing of The Northern Echo.

Dr McManners, whose book called Zurbarans at Auckland Castle was released this year, described the departure of retiring Bishop Tom Wright and the disbanding of the Auckland Castle Enterprises trustee group earlier this year as “leaving the fort unattended”.

He said: “It does not surprise me that the Church Commissioners have seen that as an opportunity to swoop in there.

“The moral issue here is that they (the Church Commissioners) were put as custodians of these paintings and now they are planning to sell them off. It is appalling that they are even thinking along those lines. “This will cause a furore. It is quite simply wrong.”

Dr McManners said that Bishop Richard Trevor, who bought the portraits of Jacob and his 12 sons in 1756, could only get 12 of them and was unable to get the 13th, which would complete the set.

So keen was he to have the full collection, he commissioned an artist to paint a copy of the 13th, at almost the same cost as one of the original dozen.

He said: “Those paintings are not just the collecting whims of a rich man. Bishop Trevor did not buy another painting in his lifetime.

“His message was about political, social, ethnic and religious tolerance, which is so important, especially nowadays.

“He gave them to the castle expecting them to always stay there.

“The collection just cannot be destroyed.”

Elizabeth Conran, former curator of Bowes Museum, in Barnard Castle, and a Spanish art expert, accused the Church Commissioners of acting without any moral concerns.

She said: “They have been longing to get to the paintings for two decades. There is a strong legal argument that they should not be removed from the castle.

“I think they have acted stealthily and kept mum about what they were doing.

I think if the paintings were sold it would be a huge loss to County Durham in terms of history, local heritage and tourism in the area.

“It is a disgraceful act, in my opinion, in terms of the history of all of the Bishops of Durham.”

John Lethbridge, county councillor for Bishop Auckland, said: “This is devastating news.

“Since the true value of the paintings was discovered, a lot of people have wondered what will happen to them.

There has been a lot of speculation about whether they would be kept or be sold.

“The collection is part of Bishop Auckland’s heritage and a cultural treasure.

“You cannot put a value on those paintings. They belong to Bishop Auckland, not to a gallery outside of the town.

They belong to the people in the town and to County Durham.

“They need to stay at Auckland Castle, this is where they belong.”