The giant mural around the offices of Russell & Co solicitors in Newtownards combines legal imagery with famous north Down sites and people.
There are two main parts, in High Street and in Lower Mary Street.
In Lower Mary Street, from behind Scrabo Hill, Lady Justice weighs scales each containing Rodin’s statue The Thinker. We also see a modern agricultural tractor, as designed by Harry Ferguson; a portrait of James Russell who founded the solicitors’ firm in 1948; a Cessna light aircraft, presumably at Newtownards airport, the first purpose-built airport on the island (Ulster Flying Club); the former Ards Maltings; a sack of Comber Earlies.
In High Street (below), we see Blair “Paddy” Mayne; the Jordan ‘Hissing Sid’ Formula 1 race-car (Eddie Irvine, who is from Newtownards, drove for Jordan until 1996); a weaver working a loom (the image is from Waringstown, but is perhaps meant to represent local mills such as Walker’s or Ards & Webb); an image of the Ards TT.
Acting as a shared motif on both sides of the building are roses from Dickson Nurseries.
The mural was painted by Mark Ervine. The partially-completed mural was featured in the Financial Times all the way back in November 2018; it was eventually finished in 2021 and given an anti-graffiti coating in the summer of 2022.
With thanks to Colin Haddick of Russell & Co.
High Street and Little Mary Street, Newtownards
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2023 Paddy Duffy
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