Murals

Henry and Joyce Collins – Untitled, Bexhill

Listing: Unlisted
Condition: Good condition
Material Type: Concrete
Building Type: Commercial / Industrial
Artist / Designer: Henry and Joyce Collins
Owners: Sainsbury's
Date: 1976
Address: Sainsbury's, Buckhurst Place, Bexhill-on-Sea TN39 3NY
Local Authority: Rother District Council
County: East Sussex
Country: England

Three concrete murals depicting  significant moments in the local history, customs and culture of Bexhill are installed on Bexhill’s Sainsbury’s store which opened in 1976. They include depictions of gilded coins from the Iron Age, Roman Empire, the reign King Offa of Mercia, who granted permission for the first church at Bexhill in 722, and the era of  William the Conqueror – victor at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Also featured are a Norman Longship on the Sussex coast, elements taken from the Bexhill coat of arms (a Martello Tower, Demi-Lion, and the crest for the Sackville family), and sun motifs that echo the town’s motto ‘Sol et salubritis’ – ‘Sun and health’. Lynn Pearson’s Post War Murals database (2015) estimates that the Collins’ undertook approximately 28 commissions for public and corporate work from the 1960s into the early 1980s. It is unknown how many of the Collins’ public works survive, though many are thought to have already been lost. In 2014 the Firstsite gallery in Colchester funded the restoration and relocation of three 1976 reliefs by Henry and Joyce Collins, originally from Colchester BHS to 15 Queen Street, Colchester.

The Bexhill murals were restored in 2024 thanks to local volunteers from the Bexhill Heritage conservation group with advice from Orbis Conservation.