Paintings by WW2 soldiers found under wallpaper at care home

World War Two paintings hidden for years beneath wallpaper have been uncovered at a care home.

The pictures are believed to have been done by American soldiers based in Bristol during the 1940s.

They were only found because staff were refurbishing a room ready for a new resident to move in.

The pictures left staff at Stokeleigh Residential Care Home, in Bristol, confused and wondering whether the room was once used as a gentleman’s lounge.

Intrigued, the home’s managing firm Hartford Care put out an appeal to a local history group.

Historian Anthony Beeson said he believed American G.I’s were stationed in the building during Wolrd War Two.

One of the clues indicating they were done by Americans is that a woman in the painting is being handed a bottle of Rye – an American whiskey.

Stokeleigh Care Home’s manager, Alex Mazur-Kruszynska, said it was a ‘really exciting’ discovery – and ‘the best thing’ to happen to the home.

She said: ‘We had no idea they were there until we started refurbishing the room and our maintenance man was taking the woodchip off the walls.

‘It was very interesting to find out what they really were.

‘Finding the murals is the best thing, really. The residents find it fascinating as well,’ she added.

Bristol-based historian Anthony Beeson told Stokeleigh that the works are ‘certainly’ the work of American G.I’s.

He said: ‘Several of the large houses in the area like Pitch and Pay were requisitioned for troops.

‘Note that the bottle has ‘rye’ written on it which no Englishman would do. I suspect it was their mess room or the like.’

A second painting shows what appears to be a bulldog holding a bone, beside a musical stave with some musical notes painted on to it.

Mr Beeson added: ‘The bulldog probably refers to the song ‘Knick Knack paddywack…give a dog a bone, this old man came rolling home’, which would be very appropriate for a bar and also account for the notes.’

Sadly, Alex said that the home will need to continue painting over the murals in order to prepare the room for its next resident.

But she said: ‘We’re planning on putting plasterboard over the mural and painting on to that, so that we can preserve the painting itself.’