Skegness Magazine

Workmen find Michelangelo masterpiece painting Skegness

Source: Skegness Standard 13th May 1970
Photo: Norman Beckett

Workmen stop to admire masterpiece

A Michelangelo masterpiece, which one would have to travel to the Vatican to see on view briefly to passers-by in Alexandra Road, Skegness.

Lots of people hang pictures in their bedrooms. Few paint Biblical scenes across the entire wall.
Workmen knocking down a row of 12 cottages in Alexandra Road, Skegness, on Wednesday, were surprised to come across the Cross being carried to Calvary, David slaying Goliath, and an Old Testament battle, all beautifully painted on the plaster of a wall at No 74.
The figures were 5ft 6in tall and appeared to have been painted with water colours and varnished over. Another fresco was a portrait of Churchill.
Said Mr A C Davies, a Bradford demolition expert in charge of the work: “I’ve never come across anything like this. It was a shame to pull it down.”
The artist was Mr Harold Edward Spray, who copied the mural from a Michelangelo fresco in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel. He now lives at 6 The Close, Skegness.