A unique collection of art created by an eccentric Wirral artist could be lost forever if the house where it stands is sold.
Ron's Place in Oxton, Birkenhead, is named after Ron Gittins, who before his death created an amazing museum of his own artwork in the ground floor flat which he rented.
After his death and the discovery of the grotto he created behind closed doors, a group called Wirral Arts & Culture Community Land Trust was formed to preserve it, as part of its wider brief to bring more arts and culture to Wirral.
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The group has won support from a wide range of figures from the arts world, including Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker. The ground-floor flat once occupied by Ron Gittins comprises a collection of rooms with their walls, ceilings and even sometimes floors decorated with vivid murals, Egyptian hieroglyphics, underwater scenes and portraits of historic leaders.
An "emergency" post on the group's Saving Ron's Place Facebook page read: "The landlord of Ron's Place is selling the building, meaning this unique art environment may soon be lost forever, smashed apart and magnolia'd. We can’t let that happen, and need your help to make sure it doesn't.
"Ideally we could find a sympathetic buyer to refurbish the upstairs flats and work with us at Wirral Arts & Culture Community Land Trust to manage Ron's Place - the ground floor flat - as a community asset.
"We want to use Ron's Place to inspire creativity and enrich lives. Times are becoming increasingly grim in the UK and making and engaging with art can help us all navigate these changes, giving a sense of hope, community, empowerment and wellbeing.
"Ron's Place is an internationally acclaimed Outsider Art environment with huge potential to contribute to the cultural life of Birkenhead, Wirral, Liverpool and beyond."
Martin Lawrence, a trustee of the group trying to save Ron's Place said: "Our plan was to lease the whole house for a year. Then the landlord decided he was going to sell it.
"The price of the building is very expensive as it's in Oxton, with a guide price of £465,000, so we're not in a position to buy it from the landlord. We were given first opportunity to buy it, but now he can't wait any longer.
"Ron's Place occupies the whole of the ground floor. We have been renting it out and paying all the bills to keep it intact, but just to stand still is costing a lot of money. Ron's Place is very important, it's an inspiring place and we want to inspire other people to be creative. There's a social value to it. At present there is managed access to the place, taking particular groups in."
Ron died in September 2019, a month away from his 80th birthday. Although he had always displayed unusual behaviour, he had become more eccentric in his later years.
He was a familiar sight in Oxton Village, where he would walk along the streets dressed in a series of homemade military costumes, pushing an old-fashioned pram filled with the bags of cement he used to build his enormous fireplaces.
Ron's sister Pat Williams told the ECHO in January 2020 : "When we first went inside (the flat) after he died I had the shock of my life because it was absolutely full of all sorts of stuff. How he coped in there I just don't know.
"I don't appreciate all his art but what he's done is incredible. The fireplaces are extraordinary."
A boy soprano who later became a Buddy Holly impersonator, Ron showed promise as an artist from an early age and studied at the Laird School of Art in Birkenhead. He was a powerful orator and could quote scenes from Shakespeare in a manner that would, Pat says, "give Richard Burton or Laurence Olivier a run for their money".
For more information or to donate to Saving Ron's Place, please visit here.
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