RESIDENTS on Gorleston's Magdalen estate will have become familiar with a brightly-coloured mural celebrating the area's rich culture on the side wall of a prominent pub.

RESIDENTS on Gorleston's Magdalen estate will have become familiar with a brightly-coloured mural celebrating the area's rich culture on the side wall of a prominent pub.

However, the artwork on the side of the Cap and Gown in Magdalen Way has been taken down and stored in a safe place after plans were unveiled to demolish the pub and replace it with 15 new houses.

Now an appeal has been launched to find a new home for the mural, which was created by pupils at Oriel High School with help from Cobholm artist John Dashwood in 2004.

Mr Dashwood and another artist Jack Baldwin ran a workshop at the school and invited pupils to sketch and draw anything relevant to life on the Magdalen estate, and Magdalen Square in particular.

In response, the students drew the Cap and Gown pub and St Mary Magdalene Church in Magdalen Way, as well as council houses, people and the estate's green.

The artists then adapted the drawings on a computer to be mounted on exterior ply, which was then fixed to the side of the pub wall overlooking Magdalen Square.

In the centre of the mural, a cyclist passes a church and in the foreground is a group of people including a man with a sailor's tattoo.

Plans for the re-development have been submitted to the borough council.

The mural was dismantled and put onto a lorry to be stored safely, by workmen as well as local Cllr Patricia Page and John Dashwood.

If approved, the pub will make way for 12 three and four-bedroom homes built in an L shape facing Magdalen Way and Magdalen Square. A further two three bedroom homes will be built facing Windsor Way.