An 89-year-old Mid Wales resident has painted two murals of the Llanfyllin scenery that are now on display at the town’s library.

The Llanfyllin library Building now has two notable Llanfyllin landmarks adorning its wall, both painted by Llanfihangel resident Brian Earp.

On Thursday, February 8, the murals were unveiled at a ceremony organised by Llanfyllin Wellbeing Group.

One of the murals depicts Llanfyllin’s lonely tree. A local landmark, the tree was a Scots pine that stood on Green Hall Hill, overlooking the town, thought to have been approximately 200 years old. The tree was sadly blown over by 100mph winds during a storm in February 2014, but has now been immortalised in Brian’s mural. The second mural depicts the Lake Vyrnwy dam.

According to Sheela Hughes of Llanfyllin Wellness Group, the idea of painting some murals originally came about from Mr Earp’s visit to the warm hub, organised by the wellness group in January 2023 at the library, where they discussed the idea over a cup of tea.

Mr Earp is originally from Liverpool, but moved to the Mid Wales area with his wife upon their retirement. They had spent many holidays in Wales, and decided to follow their dream to move to mid Wales where they spent most of their leisure time fishing and walking in Eryri.

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Having bought six acres of land with a badly silted lake and overgrown vegetation in the village of Llanfihangel, they turned the property into a home within two months, and created a fishery stocked with 200 rainbow trout.

It was in Mid Wales where Brian developed his passion for painting mountains and lakes. He is entirely self-taught and has developed his own style of oil painting, eventually creating his own studio situated on the bank of Valley Dam Lake overlooking the mountains.

For the past few years, he has also been regularly attending Llanfyllin Art Group.

Ms Hughes said: “The Llanfyllin Wellbeing group would like to thank Brian for the murals and for allowing the group to exhibit his paintings in the building.”

“Brian, who will be 90 years young in August is delighted to see his works on display and, as he put it, he is still painting.”