Preston student brightens city pub with murals to the delight of Guild Wheel users

Hannah Browne, 28, has painted beautiful decorative botanical and bouquet murals on boards over the windows at The Continental pub, transforming it into a work of art.

Its owners are hoping the colourful artwork will give the message the pub, which is on the Guild Wheel, has not simply been abandoned.

The lockdown has led to many pubs looking dilapidated as owners are forced to block up windows with drab boards for security reasons.

Hannah, who is a painter and decorator, was hoping to start a Fine Art degree in September, before the coronavirus crisis struck.

The pub, which is keen to tell the public it will reopen after the restrictions are lifted, approached her with the idea of painting six large boards over the windows.

It took her around a week, on and off, to transform them into colourful bursts of flowers.

Hannah, who lives in the Broadgate area with her partner and her Lurcher, Sid, said: “ It’s been really good because the pub is on the Guild Wheel, which lots of people are using for daily exercise, so lots of people have seen the murals.

“A lot of them have stopped - at a safe distance - to ask questions about it.

“The pubs owners are really keen to make clear it will reopen.”

It isn’t the first time an eyecatching mural has been used in the city.

In February Slingers Ironmongers commissioned a graffiti artist to create an 8m by 2.5m mural outside their offices at the Ribble Saw Mill in Paley Road.

In November, an awe-inspiring mural honouring the country’s servicemen and women was unveiled in Preston on one side of The Northern Way pub in Friargate.

And in 2016, Preston character Terry Ashcroft, also known as Toxic Terry - was depicted in a mural in the Solita restaurant on Winckley Square.

(VIDEO: courtesy of Nick Elsby)