Featured Mural - Garibaldi St, Grimsby - Needhams Butchers

Featured Murals

'The Great Wall Of Grimsby'
Garibaldi St, Grimsby

The ‘Paint The Town Proud’ heritage initiative is providing a cross-generational and extensive programme of visual artwork and impactful multimedia that combines creative technologies such as digital design and photography alongside community-led murals and graffiti.

About the project

Mural Lead Artist

Dale Mackie - View Profile

Mural Support Team

A massive thanks to Sam Delaney and all the volunteers from Creative Start CIC's Initiative 'The Comeback' Addiction Recovery Drop-In Studio in Grimsby who supported the mural painting.

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Thanks to all the local artists that turned out to help, Matthew Kay, Dan Braid, Justin Fancourt and a massive thanks to Kathleen Smith who made such an amazing job of Tom Taylor's storefront!

This piece of artwork was partly commissioned by East Marsh Ward Councillors and has been contributed to by local schools. Thanks to @eastmarshinvolve and the East Marsh Ward Councillors, in particular Steven Beasant and Nicola Aisthorpe.


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A final shout out to commercial decorator Kristinn Haith for the use of his van (with the very important cherry picker on top) and Mick and Elayne who rocked up in the Valkyrie support vehicle to provide regular fresh brews!

Mural Sponsors

About The Garibaldi St Mural

Artists and volunteers have created a giant mural depicting the lives of people living in a North East Lincolnshire town.


Started on September 26th with the handing over to the local community on December 7th, the mural is dedicated to the heritage of the local high street and features some of the East Marsh most iconic buildings and businesses.


Painted on the side of locally renowned Needhams Butchers on Garibaldi Street, this giant piece brings much needed colour and vibrancy to the area.


This artwork is the vision of renowned local artist Dale Mackie with support from fellow artists Sam Delaney, Matt Kay and Kathleen Smith as well as many talented and dedicated volunteers and is one of the largest, hand painted, outdoor mural artworks in the UK.


Its over a year since Sam Delaney asked if Dale wanted to design a mural for a wall somewhere in Grimsby as part of the Paint The Town Proud project.

He said 'yes' immediately, not even knowing where the wall was or even the size of it. He was excited as it would be his first attempt at a mural in a public space.

When Dale finally saw the wall for the mural which was on the side of 'Needhams Butchers' on Garibaldi St he  knew that he was in for a long haul! At over 70ft long and 22ft tall this was as big as they come!


The brief was to paint a mural that depicted scenes of the East Marsh in Grimsby, so Dale wanted to create a montage by piecing together buildings

from the East Marsh that would flow as a street scene, one that you could actually walk down.


He immediately knew what he wanted the first building to be, the apex at the end of the mural wall pretty much matched the shape of the building of Tom Taylor's which is still a working shop on Grimsby Docks.


Finding the rest was going to be trickier.


He started to come up with a few ideas, ones that initially involved Freeman St Market and St Andrews Church which was demolished in the early 60s. As good as it sounded though, he thought it just wouldn't work.

He wanted a dock scene next to match the Tom Taylor shop and after a few attempts a number of buildings from the docks came together including a horse and cart, a typical docks lorry and of course the Dock Tower.

The middle of the wall had to be a spectacular building as being central it needed to stand out. Dale came across a photo of Barclays Bank on Riby Square, a beautiful building that had been demolished in the 60s to make way for  a flyover.

So he was halfway across the wall (on paper anyway).

A Freeman Street scene was next and to finish the street off, came Burton's the tailors that was used by so many fishermen who had their tailored suits made there. A 'number 6 bus to the bathing pool' was added as well as a hand cart like the ones local fish merchants would use to travel around town.

By adding the names of numerous local fish merchants to the boxes on the cart Dale created a homage to many of  the local fish companies that have made their mark over the years!


Finally, instead of filling the Burton's windows with mannequins and dummies, he opted to leave them to a number of local schools for the children to create posters of what makes them proud of Grimsby, which he printed on to canvas and stuck to the wall.


Finishing off a piece of art that really shouts out to the local community...

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