Billinton Hill mural part 1 – painted by Chris Shea | East Croydon Community Organisation

The mural on the wall at Billinton Hill was created in two parts, with blocks 1-9 painted by local artist Chris Shea (pictured below) in April 2026. Chris followed on from the work of Yvonne Tran further down the slope (blocks 10 – 28) by including local wild flowers such as the common poppy and foxglove. However, he also embraced the concept of Ellie Sandover, who had initiated this part of the project and who wanted to represent the people who keep Croydon moving. He did this by including two stylised images of workers from Southern Railway, who can be seen every day at East Croydon station, either side of our postcode “CR0”. Southern Railway manage East Croydon station and are the main train operation company who run the trains passing through the station. They are part of Govia Thameslink Railway Ltd, who part funded the project.

Chris Shea was born and brought up in Shirley, but now lives in Warlingham. He is a self-taught artist, perhaps best known for his “rainbow boy murals”. He painted the latter during the COVID pandemic in exchange for donations to buy personal protective equipment (PPE) for the NHS & support St Christopher’s Hospice – raising nearly £30,000. He was inspired by local children painting rainbows as a sign of hope, adding an image of his son watering the rainbow to “grow the hope”. You can still see many of these paintings, including the one below on the wall of the Little Bay restaurant, Selsdon Road.