Exeter Nightingale Hospital Murals

by Kate Crawfurd

The murals painted throughout the Nightingale hospital have been funded by the Royal Devon Hospitals Charitable Fund.

They were designed and painted by Kate Crawfurd, a mural and theatre scenery artist with over 30 years experience.

Explore my website and discover how your home or business could be transformed with a beautiful mural. Murals are a competitively priced exciting alternative to wallpaper!

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Sea Fever

A Devon beach for you to explore

in the Diagnostic Waiting area

Where do you like to explore?

What makes you happy?

I love nothing more than a day on the beach, poking about in rockpools.

This scene is based on Wembury beach near Plymouth, but could be any of our local beaches. The slanted rocks and triangular headlands are so familiar along our coast.

Take a look in the rockpool. What can you see?

Rockpool life

Hiding in this rockpool are many local seaweeds and animals

Can you find them all?

Snakelocks anemone, Strawberry anemone, Hermit crab, Prawn, Herring gull, Conger eel, Velvet swimming crab, Spiny starfish, Cushion stars, Sea Urchin, Plaice,Top shell, Dog whelk, 3-bearded Rockling, Limpets, Barnacles, Star Ascidian, Bladder wrack, Kelp, Sea lettuce, Red, green and brown seaweeds, Thongweed

Answers at the bottom!

Did you know?

Sea creatures are amazing! Many animals look like plants and most sea creatures have different life stages, sometimes a seashell will have grown up from a free swimming larva.

Snakelocks anemone

This is an animal which has a "plant" living inside it! The green tentacles are filled with photosynthesising algae which produce food from sunlight. The anemone uses this food as well as catching prey with its tentacles

Barnacles

When they are underwater barnacles open up and sieve food out of the water with a feathery hand!

They start life as a free swimming larva, then they headbutt a rock, stick on and metamorphose into a small shell.

Their penis is the longest, compared to their body size, of any animal. Up to 8x their length so that they can reach a mate!

Spiny Starfish

If starfish loses an arm they can regrow it, but it can take a whole year. They can live about 35 years. They have no blood or brain but have 2 stomachs. They can push one stomach out of their mouth to digest prey inside shells and then slurp up the smoothie-like dinner. They have eyes on the ends of their arms which sense light and dark.

I love this poem:

Sea Fever
by John Masefield

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;

And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,

And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;

And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,

And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,

To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;

And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,

And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

Answers to the rockpool challenge!

Flower Wards

These murals were painted in 2020 when The Nightingale hospital was first created as a COVID 19 emergency hospital. The wards all have flower names and the murals depict the flowers in local Devon scenery. They were designed to bring light and beauty into the white, windowless shell of the hospital and also help patients to navigate around the hospital.