A church in North Yorkshire is planning a bid to the National Lottery Heritage Fund with a purpose to help preserve incredibly rare wall paintings dating back over 500 years.
St Peter and St Paul’s church in Pickering features wall paintings which depict the eagerness of Jesus Christ and scenes from the lives of the saints.
It is believed they were first painted around 1470. They are believed to be one in every of only five surviving examples of medieval church wall painting in England.
Over the centuries a few of the wall paintings have been damaged or destroyed. Some of the paintings were rediscovered in 1852 during church renovation work. Attempts were made to conserve them, although one Victorian vicar took the view that the paintings distracted from his sermons.
Speaking to the BBC, Professor Kate Giles, an archaeologist from the University of York, said that no conservation work has been done on the paintings for not less than 50 years, and even what has been done prior to now could have been counter-productive.
“Unfortunately the Victorians and twentieth Century conservators coated them with a preservative medium, they thought they were protecting them from damp however it’s actually been disastrous for the paintings, it’s stopped them from respiration, it’s attracted a whole lot of dirt and dirt.”
Professor Giles added that the underfloor heating system within the church helped combat humidity and create a “really stable environment” for the paintings.
The church’s vicar, Gareth Atha, said he could understand his distant predecessor’s view that the paintings are a distraction, but said that overall they’re “a improbable asset” and that “it’s an actual privilege to be the vicar here and lead worship amongst them”.
In similar news, it was recently revealed that a whole lot of medieval coins were discovered during renovation work in a church in Germany. The find also included various small personal items and a bronze figurine of a monkey.
