This artful collage, entitled Sailing into the Sunset, was discovered during recent restoration work at Number 4. Painted onto half-inch builder's fibreboard, the ground of oil-based primer and green wall paint probably dates from the late nineteen-thirties, if the report found on a fragment of newspaper under the skirting concerning Mr Chamberlain is anything to go by. This was a high lead content paint and the quality of the lime-emerald wash still shines with its original intensity. Its preservation may also be due in part to the thoughtful application of a layer of wallpaper put on after WWII which has protected it ever since.

This particular wallpaper, a popular design of Woolworth's at the time, shows a pair of light fishing vessels leaving the harbour as seagulls flock around them. The pennants indicate that they are sailing into the breeze, but it is nonetheless a relatively calm day as evidenced by the reflection of the first boat in the foreground. A third boat in full sail can be seen in the distance, while another appears to be turning with sails furled.

Note that the lighthouse on the left is partially obscured by the addition of a faux Art-Deco design paper in cream and grey. This must have been added in the nineteen-fifties, but unfortunately the adhesive doesn't appear to have been of a sufficiently high quality to prevent water and moisture seeping through to the layer below. Although not particularly attractive in themselves, the stains seem to lend an atmospheric quality to the panel as a whole, representing clouds above the harbour wall and perhaps seaweed below the waterline.

With an appreciative nod to both French Empire style and Jacobean (an unusual mix, it must be said) the most recent layer of wallpaper is both bright and engaging with its orange and yellow fan shapes and curlicues. Since this is clearly pre-Habitat and bears no mark of the Conran influence, it can be assumed that this was added in the early sixties.

No further alterations were made after that. Throughout the nineteen-seventies and eighties, the panel continued to gather steam marks, soap smears, mould, encrusted toothpaste, and traces of shaving foam, much of which was preserved intact by regular coatings of hairspray.

The original panel has since been destroyed.