Tudor wall paintings uncovered in Yorkshire ‘discovery of a lifetime’

Pristine' 16th-century work found beneath plaster in bedroom at Landmark Trust's Calverley Old Hall

Removing plaster in an old house and being surprised by what you find is not unusual. But discovering 16th-century paintings of fantastical laughing birds, roaring griffins, and little torsos of men sat on vases, all based on a decoration that Nero had in his Golden Villa is, historians have admitted, jaw-dropping.

The Landmark Trust has announced that it has found one of the most sophisticated schemes of Tudor wall paintings found anywhere in Britain. It is, said its director, Anna Keay, the discovery of a lifetime".