“On the other side.. would be the damned… On that side of the painting you’d have devils, the jaws of hell, depiction of eternal suffering.”
The “ephemeral” paintings were now viewed as “very, very important”, he added.
“They’re very easy to lose. It’s just plaster on wall and paint on that plaster,” he said.
“They are wonderful pictures of our history how people lived and how people depicted things.”
Church Warden Ann Cooke said it was beautiful and accepted restoration and cleaning work was needed which would likely cost about £50,000 and a “huge” fundraising campaign was needed.
“We’ve had concerts, people have given us generous donations, we had money form the fete,” she said.
“We also raise money to keep the church going and for our insurance and things like that and this is just extra.”
She said they were lucky as some paintings were varnished over in Victorian times so “this one has remained as it was”.