THE campaign to save a "unique" Wirral house hailed as an "unbelievable" example of 'outside art' has heightened after it was revealed it could be sold. 

Ron Gittins' ground floor flat in a Victorian house in Birkenhead, which has become known as 'Ron's Place', is full of giant sculptures and murals, including a minotaur and a 3m high lion's head fireplace. 

Ron sadly died in 2019 at the age of 79 and it was not until his death that the extraordinary interior of his rented flat came to light.

Ron’s obsession with ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome and all things romantic had led him to transform his flat into his very own highly ornate classical ‘villa’. 

Since then, Ron's Place has been kept alive by family and supporters who have somehow found the rent and other payments to preserve the flat as an inspiration to others with hopes they can establish a cultural base and creative community asset to benefit those locally and beyond. 

These hopes are now at risk with the news that the owners of the house, which contains more flats in the floors above, have put the house up for auction on March 1 for a guide price of £325,000.

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The Wirral Arts and Culture Community Land Trust (WACCLT) which had already been set up to take the campaign forward is seeking either donors to fund the purchase price on their behalf or a partner who would acquire the house and lease Ron's ground floor flat to them. 

 

Jan Williams, Ron’s niece and founder of the campaign to save Ron’s Place, said: ''It would be criminal to lose such a unique and special place that enchants and inspires so many people. Ron's Place is a testament to the power of imagination and resourcefulness and proves you don’t need loads of money to be creative’’

"This has come as a horrible shock after all the time and effort we’ve put into protecting Ron’s legacy but we’re not ready to give up without a fight.

"Ron’s is a unique and internationally acclaimed example of an ‘Outsider Art’ visionary environment right here in the UK with the potential to inspire people in the local community and beyond.

"We don’t just want to preserve Ron’s Place in aspic – we want it to be a dynamic space that opens people’s eyes and minds to the joy of creativity and power of imagination."

Celebrity supporter, Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker, has become a patron of the campaign and has spoken out in defence of Ron's Place.  

He said: “With environments like these, you get a complete work of art that somebody is living in and that they’ve established the rules. It’s like a personal universe.

“Everybody decorates their house in some way, Ron has just gone that extra mile. That lion's head fireplace is unbelievable really.

Wirral Globe: Jarvis Cocker Jarvis Cocker (Image: Yui Mok/PA Wire)

"I have always been interested in the art of people who haven’t gone through the normal channels, they haven’t gone to art college and stuff like that. They have an idea and they follow it through. We all have creativity within us.”

Martin Wallace is an award-winning filmmaker and one of the volunteer group hoping to preserve Ron's Place for future generations.  

He directed the Channel Four series, Journeys Into the Outside with Jarvis Cocker, in which he and Jarvis travelled the world looking at extraordinary places like Ron’s, built by otherwise ordinary people.

He added: “Jarvis and I filmed at about thirty amazing sites across the globe, from Mexico to India.

"Places where people had felt compelled to create something very personal and idiosyncratic. Ron’s Place is up there with the best of them. I’d say it’s in the top five places of its kind in the world and certainly the best in the UK, so we can’t let this go; it would be so short-sighted.”