A piece of artwork painted by the infamous graffiti artist Banksy has been destroyed by builders.
The mural, titled Morning is Broken, was located on the outside wall of a derelict farmhouse in the seaside town of Herne Bay in Kent.
It featured a silhouetted young boy alongside a silhouetted cat in a window, opening corrugated iron “curtains”.
But the site has been designated for several new homes and demolition work began on Tuesday.
Contractors say they had no idea that the artwork was by Banksy.
Street art fan Jacob Smith, 30, said he spent two years "badgering" the illusive street artist to stencil graffiti in Herne Bay, Kent.
The artwork could have sold for millions if still fully intact.
The piece, which could be worth as much as £500,000, was inadvertently pulled down by workers and dumped in a skip after it appeared on the wall of a derelict farmhouse.
The authenticity of the piece was confirmed in three photographs posted on the anonymous street artist’s Instagram account.
The final photograph posted on the account shows the wall on which the artwork originally appeared, with the image also showing a digger, a skip and a pile of brick rubble on the ground, alongside a construction worker.
The remains of the mural, called Morning is Broken, have since been fished out of a nearby skip, but it is not known what will happen to the pieces of wall.
Now Mr Smith is set on keeping the piece in the seaside town where it was created, as "the work was done for a purpose - to benefit the town".
Mr Smith said: "I felt disbelief and shock when I heard the news. I worked hard to make this happen - so I'm more heartbroken than most.
"I spent so long badgering him to do a piece - and now be has - but no one can see it."
He believes it would be an "awful coincidence" if his emails were not the catalyst for the street-artist hitting Herne Bay.
The street-art collector and occasional dealer lives just 20 minutes from Blacksole Farm where the work, titled Morning is Broken, went up.
He hopes developers will return the work to the town and display it for all to see.
Mr Smith estimates that after being restored, the art could be worth between £300,000 to £500,000.
He added: "It was created in Herne Bay - It should stay in Herne Bay.
"I still can't believe he did a piece, and I am grateful for that, but I just want it to stay here."
The whereabouts of the recent painting is still unknown, but contractors pulled broken remains out of the skip after realising it's significance.
Shortly after, rumours that the man himself had been spotted at Blacksole Farm stirred after a mysterious chap in a bowler hat was seen.
The skip company said the bin featured in one of the Instagram photographs was at a property in Herne Bay and that the only involvement of the firm in the project was to provide the bin.
George Caudwell, one of the workers, told KentOnline: “We had no idea it was a Banksy. It made me feel sick realising it was a Banksy – we were gutted.
“We started demolishing it yesterday. The landowner watched us do it and didn’t know either.”
It comes after another Banksy work in Margate called Valentine's Day Mascara was dismantled by a local council hours after it appeared.
Later, it was confirmed it would be transferred to the town's Dreamland theme park.
Meanwhile, a Brexit-themed Banksy mural valued at £1 million that was mysteriously painted over is set to be recreated when its wall is rebuilt.
The artwork depicting a huge EU flag appeared overnight in Dover, Kent, in May 2017 - a year after Britain voted to leave the European Union.
But two years later the giant graffiti, featuring a workman off chipping one of the stars, was covered up by paint - leaving a giant square of white in its place.
It is not known who painted over the piece in whitewash, before the building the artwork is on was acquired by Dover District Council in September last year.
