{"id":2050773,"date":"2026-07-18T06:17:44","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T03:17:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2050773"},"modified":"2026-07-18T06:17:44","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T03:17:44","slug":"irreplaceable-durham-county-hall-mural-could-be-lost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2050773","title":{"rendered":"‘Irreplaceable’ Durham County Hall mural could be lost"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/b667\/live\/1487f1e0-81ea-11f1-b7bc-5dd9ae7a9918.jpg”]<\/p>\n

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\"SuppliedSupplied<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The council says the mosaic had been photographed and documented for people to see in cultural venue The Story<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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A mosaic mural depicting a county’s history could be lost when an ageing council headquarters is knocked down, campaigners have warned. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The artwork sits on the side of Durham County Hall, which is being vacated ahead of its demolition next year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The council’s strategic manager of culture Dr Sarah Glynn said the mural had become “cracked” and moving it without causing more damage would be “almost impossible”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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But Bennett Zon, who is leading a campaign to save it, said the artwork was “irreplaceable” and called to “stop the rollers from demolishing the mosaic”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“In its current position it is slightly hidden but it needs to be moved somewhere where everyone will see it,” the Durham University professor said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“It needs to become the icon of the city that really it was designed to represent in the 1963 building.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"SuppliedSupplied<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Professor Bennett Zon said the mural was a “potent symbol” of Durham<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The artwork depicts key moments and figures from the county’s history, including the Venerable Bede and the founding of Durham Cathedral. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Zon said the mosaic was one of the earliest examples of digital design in the country and its imagery “anticipated” the look of video arcade games from the 1970s.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“If they demolish this, that’s it,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“I just think it’s such a potent symbol of Durham as a city and as a county and as a county within a country.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“If they destroy it, there aren’t going to be little saplings that grow back from it.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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‘Likelihood of asbestos’ <\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Glynn said conventional conservation methods were not viable for the artwork.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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She said the only option would be to cut it into sections, which carried “significant risk” of damage and “health and safety concerns due to the likelihood of asbestos”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“Logistically, transporting, reconstructing, and reinstalling the mural would be highly complex and come with considerable costs, with no guarantee of achieving a sympathetic final result,” she added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A petition to the council to protect the artwork runs until 27 July. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Campaigners are trying to raise \u00a3250,000 to remove, restore, and relocate the mural following a meeting with the local authority earlier this week.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The C20 Society, Durham City Trust, the Tiles and Architectural Ceramics Association, City of Durham Parish Council and Jackfield Conservation Studio have also backed the rescue efforts.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“I think at the moment what we need to do is to just take a breath, stop the rollers from demolishing the mosaic, take stock of what we can do, have some reports from genuine specialists, and then move to the next phase,” Zon said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"A<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Another mural inside the building will not be preserved for similar reasons<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Glynn said a “comprehensive” recording of the mosaic, including high-resolution photography and detailed documentation, had been carried out and would be publicly available at cultural venue The Story.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The artwork shares a similar fate to a”3D” map mural inside the building, which could not be moved for similar reasons.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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However, the local authority has said it was not believed this artwork “held any design or historical significance”. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Follow BBC North East on <\/i>X<\/i>, <\/i>Facebook<\/i>, <\/i>Nextdoor<\/i> and <\/i>Instagram<\/i>. <\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

[analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/cj9g9edgywxo”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/b667\/live\/1487f1e0-81ea-11f1-b7bc-5dd9ae7a9918.jpg”] Supplied The council says the mosaic had been photographed and documented for people to see in cultural venue The Story A mosaic mural depicting a county’s history could be lost when an ageing council headquarters is knocked down, campaigners have warned. The artwork sits on the side of Durham County Hall, which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[35,226],"class_list":["post-2050773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-bbc-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2050773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2050773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2050773\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2050773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2050773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2050773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}