Recreation and Restoration

Evelyn Gibb’s Mural

The recreation of part of the Evelyn Gibb’s mural of the Annunciation at St Martin’s Church, Bilborough, Nottingham.

Evelyn Gibbs Annunciation at St Martin’s Church, Bilborough, Nottingham

In 1946 Evelyn Gibbs painted the Annunciation mural at St Martin’s Church in Bilborough, Nottingham. In the 1970’s a lowered false ceiling was inserted, the window bricked up and the bottom half of the mural painted out. In 2014 the ceiling was removed, the window reglazed and the Evelyn Gibbs murals were cleaned and conserved. We then recreated the missing areas of Mary and Gabriel so that the mural could be read as a whole once more.

The archive image shows the complete mural when it was first painted. We used this image to create full size cartoon of Mary and Gabriel before transferring the designs to the walls to be painted.

This project was awarded the SPAB John Betjeman award in 2015 for conservation and recovery of the wall paintings.