A PROJECT to highlight one of North Yorkshire’s hidden gems is being launched.

Pickering Parish Church is aiming to conserve its wall paintings and improve visitor facilities through a Heritage Lottery Fund Project - “Let there be Light”.

Father Antony Pritchett said: “The present church has stood in the town for almost 1,000 years, and painted on to its walls are what have been described as Yorkshire’s hidden gem – medieval images of saints and sinners, of kings and conquerors.

The wall paintings were painted about 1450 but then covered over at the Reformation. Rediscovered in 1852, they were then painted over again, only to be restored in the 1880s.

Fr Pritchett said: “Visitors enter the church, and just gasp out loud at seeing the paintings because they’ve probably never seen anything like them before.

“Pickering has one of the most complete sets of medieval wall paintings in the country, and increasingly they are being considered one of the most important examples of their kind in northern Europe.”

The launch meeting will be held on February 23 at 7.30pm, in Pickering Parish Church.