The Matthew Murray memorial railings in Holbeck were given a new lick of paint on Saturday (14 March 2015).
John Cummins from Groundwork led the team which included active residents: Lauren Butler, partner Conor Sheader and myself. This restorative project comes from the City Connect initiative Groundwork is involved in, which aims to get more people out and about in the community. Public street audits with Holbeck in Bloom helped to identify things that were hindrances to people walking to the city centre. These railings will help lift this part of the walkway.
The rain held off but the cold weather kept us on our toes as Lauren and I squeezed through the gap in the railings to paint from inside the monument. Our fetching onesies were surprisingly warm, but it didn’t keep passers by from coming over and having a look what we were doing. One resident was interested and thought at first we were on community service. I think he was surprised when we said we doing it out of the sheer pleasure of improving the area. I didn’t forget to plug the Holbeck Neighbourhood Plan forum on 25 April 2015 at St Matthew’s Community Centre.
Painting the railings was fulfilling once they were done. But what was more enjoyable was being together for that short period of time doing something different. We had a laugh just chatting and sharing our stories within the area. Holbeck in Bloom, through City Connect project are planning to put up finger posts to show the route(s) to the city centre from Holbeck and the Matthew Murray Monument is a key place to that route.
I’m looking forward to walking past when the sun shines and glistens off the new paintwork on my way into town.
I really liked and enjoyed reading your post about Matthew Murray .to be honest with you i didn’t know any things about this person and what you ware doing that day painting the raillings .untill now i did little bit research about Matthew Murray on Wikipedia website .i didn’t know he was an engineer.I love engineering and i am so appreciated what these people did for us in the past .we owe them our technology we have now .