A piece of art thought by some to be a Banksy was vandalised less than 36 hours after being noticed.
The piece is on the wall of an empty bus depot toward the top of Eastcott Hill, and was noticed by members of the public on the morning of Tuesday, 9 March.
By the evening of the following day it had been defaced.
The style of the stencilled piece, showing a young man in an old-fashioned flat cap carrying a sandwich board, immediately drew excited social media speculation that it was a new work by enigmatic guerrilla graffiti artist Banksy.
Further excitement was generated by the message on the sandwich board: "Wild £ man on the run Heading for BRISTOL."
A confirmed previous Banksy work appeared on the wall of the former Reading Gaol, where Victorian writer and wit Oscar Wilde was famously confined.
A yellow van was parked in front of the piece yesterday - 10 March - and a white one this morning. The driver of the white van, which also carried a dog, identified himself as a security guard working for former depot occupants Stagecoach.
Banksy, who shuns publicity and keeps his identity a secret, has yet to claim or disclaim the Swindon mural.
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