Rainhill Civic Society have been looking at the two overmantel wall painting in the Manor Farm Pub
In June 2023 we asked Lisa Shekede and Stephen Rickerby, world famous wall painting conservators to look and assess the paintings.
In their report they noted with great excitement that the manor paintings are rare survivals- few overmantel paintings are now known to be in existence anywhere in the country, but particularly in this area where very few historic domestic paintings of any type survive, perhaps reflecting the destruction of many older buildings as communities changed and cities expanded during the industrial revolution.
The Manor Farm paintings are particularly rare because of their very early date and type. The tradition of overmantel painting began in the C17th and continued into the early C19th. Those that survive tend to be costly later works painted on wooden panelling in the grand houses of the wealthy. The earliest examples are usually found in humbler dwelling, are artisanal in execution, and often imitate the framed old master paintings that hung in the grand houses of the gentry and nobility. Hardly any of this type survive, perhaps because they would have been more likely to be executed in less durable techniques, suffer from abrasion and other forms of damage through daily usage, be more prone to destruction during building adaption, and be more likely to be covered over or removed due to changes in taste.
The paintings are of immense historical importance as social documents of the otherwise rarely recorded lives and aspirations of ordinary people, reflected in the concept of fictive framed high status paintings in a possibly slightly archaic style, and in the subject matter- respectively a bucolic river scene and a vigorous boar hunt. Both scenes may be derived from known sources, and it is an intriguing possibility that the river scene (which is very detailed) may represent a real place of significance to the original owner of the property.
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