Plan to restore Victorian window with painted mural

A mural of a window could be painted on a Victorian schoolhouse to make the building look like it did in the 1860s.

Old School House in Wick, near Pershore, Worcestershire, was converted into a residential home in 1985, and during the conversion, the arch windows facing School Lane were bricked up.

The building's owner, Mark Heath, who submitted pictures alongside the planning application, has come up with a proposal to paint a "trompe l'oeil" mural on the building of the original windows.

Trompe l'oeil – which means a trick of the eye – is an artistic term for a highly realistic painting of a three-dimensional object on a two-dimensional surface.

The plans submitted to Wychavon District Council said each brick would be painted individually and the mural would depict how the school window would have looked.

Documents said the window had been "unsympathetically bricked up" in 1985 when "planning rules were not as sympathetic to our heritage value".

The building was constructed around 1860 as a small school for village children, papers said, and it was used as a school until the late 1940s to early 1950s - when it became the village general store and post office.

The house is not listed but is classed as an "unlisted building of historical interest" and is surrounded by listed buildings, papers said.

This news was gathered by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, which covers councils and other public service organisations.

Follow BBC Hereford & Worcester on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.