March 8, 2011

by Joanne Butcher

THE JOURNAL, 5 Mar 5 2011 -A PIECE of wartime history has been unearthed at a former Northumberland war hospital.

Workers in Stannington have discovered a unique mural of Winston Churchill buried deep in the bowels of St Mary’s hospital.

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The artwork, believed to date from 1943, is now set to go under the hammer to raise cash for modern-day soldiers.

North East homebuilder Bellway is developing St Mary’s, which was built as an asylum in 1910.

The Grade-II listed building has been empty since 1995, but after a lengthy planning wrangle is now being transformed into apartments.

As they prepared the site, workers came across the unusual picture on a wall under the hospital’s concert hall stage.

The simple sketch, painted onto the whitewashed wall, is instantly recognisable as Churchill, the Prime Minister who was leading the country’s war effort at the time.

“It is a very good image of Churchill and shows him smoking his trademark cigar,” said Bellway’s sales director Rob Armstrong.

So far, Bellway’s research has thrown up only a few more details about the circumstances surrounding the miraculously well-preserved drawing.

And they are appealing for Journal readers who remember the hospital in its war days to help them out.

Read the entire article here at journallive.co.uk

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