>the mural was painted onto the Royal Courts of Justice building, which is a Grade I preserved building, putting it in the same tier of building preservation as

>the mural was painted onto the Royal Courts of Justice building, which is a Grade I preserved building, putting it in the same tier of building preservation as the Tower of London and the Palace of Westminster. The section in question is not a Grade I preserved building, it's Grade II, which is a significantly less stringent standard. That building is in fact a quasi-brutalist tower built in 1968[0], adjacent to a much older building. The site of the mural is visible here: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/40/Queen%27s_Court_Building_of_the_Royal_Courts_of_Justice%2C_December_2022_01.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/40/Queen%27... Ironically, in that picture you can see that the wall just above the mural was already badly defaced by the installation and removal of security cameras during several decades. The scars and drilled holes from old, removed cameras and wiring are still plainly visible. Contrary to its rapid reaction to the mural, the government has made no attempt to repair this self-inflicted damage, which calls into question the whole argument about protecting the building (You can verify that the damage has been there for decades, by looking at older Google Streetview pictures back to 2008). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Courts_of_Justice_(Banksy_mural) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Courts_of_Justice_(Banks...