The Watercress Line Heritage railway near Winchester is currently working with over 100 individuals and community groups across Hampshire and further afield to create a series of textile panels depicting two hundred years of train travel in the UK. Each group has adopted a year, theme, topic or key date in train and railway history to focus on and interpreting these in their own way.
Individuals and community groups have been meeting monthly in person at Ropley station (home of the railway’s locomotives and carriages) as well as online since the project started in May 2024 to share their knowledge, skills, passion and enthusiasm for the project and everyone’s work.
The finished series of panels, each measuring 1 metre tall by 0.5 metres wide will together form a three-dimensional depiction of railway history. The groups and individuals are progressing on working on their panels as shown in the photos below.
The panels from next April will tour local libraries and venues across Hampshire until March 2026. These venues include local libraries such as Alton, Fordingbridge, Gosport, Fareham, and venues such as Hollycombe steam collection, Hedge End railway station and Hampshire Archives in Winchester. Please see www.watercressline.co.uk and the railway’s social media channels for more details about the locations and dates of when and where the panels will be displayed.
To accompany the textile panels a series of interpretation information banners are also being created by local graphic designers which will showcase the history of each topic, theme, date, or railway.
‘The Alton Ladies Lounge are working on 1930s railway marketing and have almost finished the marketing posters, we just need to add the poster wording and frames. The wording for the top panel was added with fabric pens but this caused some problems with the ink bleeding into the fabric so we will try applique wording or stiff felt for the next two. We have also been reviewing the overall layout with or without an Art Deco style fabric background but have decided that a plain white background was better to highlight the train track that will be added between each poster as we move up/down the country from Devon to Snowdonia to the Yorkshire Moors’
Photo above: The Railway in music and poetry’ panel created by members of Community Spotlight and the Ripple Pond veterans groups in Portsmouth
Photo above: The Art of Railway marketing panel created by members of Alton Ladies Lounge group.
Photo above: ‘The Hayling Island Billy Line’ created by the Hayling Island Piece makers
The Meon Valley Line
It was by chance that I came across an article asking for volunteers to take part in The Watercress Line’s Railway 200 Community project to make craft panels depicting 200 Years of Railway History. As I have walked the Meon Valley Trail for many years this became the topic for my Panel from 1914 -1945 that will include the many rural industries that relied on the railway, from thatching to farming to Winston Churchill’s famous visit in the build up to D-Day! But meeting likeminded groups of crafting people in this community project, has been a real privilege and great fun encouraging and seeing the progress of everyone’s panels! I look forward to seeing this amazing project finished knowing that I played a very small part in it its construction!
Photo above: some of the 18 individually crafted pieces from members of the Hayling Island Piece makers group who created the Hayling Billy Panel.
Jane Varrall and the Alresford group: ‘The opening of the Alresford, Alton and Winchester’ Railway in October 1865’.
‘I am about to hand paint the overall background fabric in preparation for creatively free machining the design of the original station and porter; Linden is now going to work her magic with amazing hand embroidery and collaged fabrics of the railway cartography. Her daughter Hannah has joined us and is preparing to machine the lettering for ‘The Grand Opening’ using a specialist embroidery machine. Yvonne is creating the raised framework of the station section in beautiful black hand embroidery.
We will be attaching Victorian figures, vignettes, train, and the logos from railway companies further down the panel. Exciting work ahead
Photo above: extra details on the Alresford group’s panel
Photo above: Kay Grey’s ‘1847 – Its Railway Time’ . The small section is a sample of how I am going to develop it. Next stage is to stitch the pieces on and then add more detail.
2025 marks the 200th anniversary of the railway revolution, the celebrations are being spearheaded by the rail industry and heritage railways across the country. To mark the anniversary, with funding from The Arts Society Alresford, the Watercress Line is working with over 20 individuals and community groups across Hampshire and further afield to create a textile timeline of train travel including depictions of Hampshire’s lost railways including the Sprat and Winkle line (Romsey to Andover), the Meon Valley Line, the Hayling Island Billy Line and the Watercress Line across the middle of Hampshire. Other groups are depicting the last generation of steam, railways in popular culture, and music and song, as well as how the railways standardised time and some of the early pioneers of the railways.
As well as the textile project the railway is currently undertaking a poetry project in collaboration with Winchester Poetry festival. We are inviting people of all ages to create their own poetry inspired by Britain’s railway heritage and the railway 200 themes which can be viewed at: History of rail – Railway 200
These themes can be used as inspiration to create their own works of poetry and prose. Everyone will be able to submit 2 pieces which will then be included in an anthology of works next may. A copy of the anthology will be available to view on the watercress line website later in 2025. All works submitted will be included within the collection, works submitted must be your own work and a maximum of 1 side of A4 and can be any type of poetry.
Closing date for works is 25th February 2025, works can be any type of poetry but must be inspired by the railway 200 anniversary and themes on the railway 200 timeline and must be emailed to education@watercressline.co.uk for inclusion.
Author: Daniel Ball
Bio: Dan is the education and outreach coordinator for the Watercress Line heritage railway, and has been in post for just over two years. He has a strong background in museum and heritage learning and community engagement through his previous posts which have included working in a number of museums across Hampshire, including the Army flying museum near Andover, Winchester military museums, Sea City Museum and the National Museum of the Royal Navy in Portsmouth. He has coordinated a wide range of community projects in many different museum roles including knitting a giant scarf for HMS Alliance at the royal navy submarine museum to working with community groups to co-curate mini exhibitions as part of the Army flying museums project eagle