Cambridge’s clandestine climbers struck again this week as steeplejacks were hired to remove two Santa hats from the spires of King’s College Chapel.

Using a series of ladders and ropes the men from Rodell Steeplejacks in St Albans took two days to complete the job of scaling the 150ft spires at a cost believed to be in the thousands of pounds.

Richard Sayer of Rodells said: “It’s a lengthy process as the turrets are about 70ft high, so you can’t just whip up there. It has taken two men half a day to rescue each hat using specialist ladders. We get a lot of odd requests but we’ve never been asked to retrieve Santa hats before.”

Although no culprits have been apprehended, the prank is widely believed to be the work of Cambridge University students.

Hats were also found placed on the spire of Pembroke College Porters Lodge, on the chapel of Corpus Christi, in Clare and Sidney Sussex, as well as in several buildings in the Downing and New Museums Sites.

This is not the first time stray objects have appeared on seemingly unreachable parts of the university buildings.

In 1958 University administration staff arrived to work at the Senate House to find an Austin Seven placed on the roof. Previously another car was left dangling from the Bridge of Sighs in St John’s College.

One climber said: “It’s not dangerous if you know what you are doing. There have been a few broken legs over the years but no one has ever died climbing at Cambridge.”