Facelift for much-loved mural in East Cleveland

The Christmas and New Year holiday period was brightened up after volunteers from ICL Boulby mine gave a clean-up to a sixty-year-old mural in the East Cleveland coastal village of Skinningrove.

Mayor Barry Hunt at the mural.

Called “Evolution of Life in the Sea” and created in 1964 by Phillipa Threlfall it was originally installed at the now demolished Rosecroft School in Loftus whose pupils gathered materials from Skinningrove beach which were included in the ceramic and stone feature.

As the school was being taken down it was removed and sited in a play park in the village. But it, and the area around it, had become unsightly until Loftus Mayor and Councillor Barry Hunt decided something needed to be done.

Using his long-standing links to the mine and its workforce he asked for help and a group of willing volunteers turned up to clean and restore the monument to its former glory.

Thanking them for their efforts the Mayor said; “This is a unique, one-off piece of artwork that the whole village is proud of,” he said. “The involvement of the local children who gathered materials from the beach which are included in the finished work makes it very special to me, and to the community as a whole.”