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Church gets £1m to restore medieval wall paintings

James DiamondWest of England
News imageNational Lottery Heritage Fund The photo shows the inside wall of a church. On the right is a small stain glass window, while to the left of it can be seen the faded detail of a painting on the wall. The outline of several figures can just about be made out.National Lottery Heritage Fund
Adoration of the Magi, itself badly faded, covers over another mural thought to date back to Saxon times

Work to examine and conserve medieval paintings on the walls of a church is finally going to start, after a six year campaign to get funding.

Signs of the old artwork, some of which is thought to date back as far as Saxon times, have been known about in St Mary de Crypt in Gloucester since the 1800s, but no major work has ever been done to study them.

That is set to change after the National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF) agreed to provide £1m for the project.

"The wall paintings in particular are really of international significance," said Stuart McLeod, NLHF area director.

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St Mary de Crypt is thought to be one of the oldest and smallest churches in England, of Saxon origin, and has been a place of worship for more than 1,000 years.

Inside, on the back wall of the sanctuary is a Tudor wall painting called Adoration of the Magi, but underneath it is another mural, which it is thought dates back to medieval times.

Helen O'Connor, operations manager at St Mary de Crypt, said: "I first came up with the broad project [to study the paintings] six years ago during Covid, when I was sitting there on my own, looking at them, thinking, why doesn't anybody know about them.

"Visitors couldn't really appreciate them. And it has been six years of getting small grants to get reports done to then apply to the Heritage Lottery."

Thanks to the money, experts will now be able to create a separate, replica image of the mural, including 3D versions so visitors will be able to touch them.

News imageNational Lottery Heritage Fund The photo shows the inside of the church, with the art visible on the wall in the distance. Next to it, on the left, is the organ. In the foreground is a cloistered wall, which the wall painting is behind.National Lottery Heritage Fund
St Mary de Crypt is thought to be one of the oldest and smallest churches in England

McLeod said the "extraordinary importance" of the artwork led them to provide the money.

"There's a lot of scope, I think, for more research to find out more about the story behind them, even the techniques that were used in the paintings, which were believed to be Flemish.

"Possibly there are no other examples of those in England.

"So it's very, very special, the heritage that's there."

Community engagement as part of the project will also see students visit to learn about the conservation techniques being used.

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