Third 'Banksy' appears in Hull in a week

Banksy has already claimed another artwork on one of the city's bridges

The image of a miserable young girl references the city's Dead Bod artwork (SWNS / Steve Chatterley)

A third piece of art believed to be by graffiti artist Banksy has appeared in the same city in the space of just seven days.

The new work features a young girl sitting next to a dead bird, and has appeared on the side of a mechanic's workshop.

Passersby are adamant it is one of Banksy's works because it is a direct reference to famous Hull graffiti piece 'Dead Bod'.

Richard Dewhurst, 40, joined a small crowd of people who had driven to see the spectacle in Hull's old town.

Mr Dewhurst said: "There are just too many things which have happened over the last few days which means this has got to be the real deal.

"This is Banksy's tribute to Dead Bod - it has got to be. Everyone is saying it."

Banksy himself confirmed one piece of art on his instagram which was a mural of a boy holding a toy pencil tagged onto the side of a disused bridge.

The anonymous graffiti artist has not yet confirmed two more Banksy-esque stencilled paintings in the city.

Mr Dewhurst said he was adamant it was the art of the elusive artist.

However, another on-looker admiring the mural painted on the side of a mechanic's workshop in Bromley Street disagreed.

The man in his 30s, who wished to remain anonymous, said: "I don't think it could be 'a Banksy' his because he usually puts a little bit of colour on it."

The East Yorkshire city's very own 'Dead Bod' was saved from being destroyed after being deemed 'art' and has since been captured in local folklore.

The art work started off as a drunken prank when skipper Len Rood and engineer Gordon Mason took a pot of white paint and graffitied a crude image of an upturned dead bird on to a corrugated iron shed in the city's Alexandra Dock in the 1960s.

Invisible to most except those fisherman who would see it from the estuary, it became one of those familiar sights which symbolised home and is now one of the oldest known pieces of contemporary graffiti in the UK.

Dead Bod featured heavily last year in events as Hull won the accolade as City of Culture 2017.

SWNS