Wylam Winter Tales is a community Arts Festival run by volunteers in Wylam, Northumberland. Using village venues we aim to ‘bring light through the arts at the darkest time of year’. Our 10th anniversary as a Festival in 2025 happily coincides with national “Railway 200” celebrations.
Wylam is the birthplace of George Stephenson – ‘Father of the Railways’. It is also the birthplace of railway pioneer Timothy Hackworth, has associations with other significant railway engineers and is the location of historically important railway origin sites. Our current local railway station for example has claim to be the oldest passenger station in continuous use anywhere in the world.
To join with national Railway 200 celebrations Wylam Winter Tales Festival in partnership with Wylam Parish Council and Tyne Valley Community Rail Partnership is running a community arts project called “Wylam Winter Tales : Railway 200” in three strands throughout Autumn/Winter and up to the Festival itself in early February 2025.
‘The Wylam Song Cycle’ will produce five songs about our railway heritage to be arranged for community choir. “The Wylam Story” will tell an over-arching tale of river and railway and “The Wylam Welcome” will produce artwork marking Railway 200 for Wylam Station.
Our commissioned artists are running a series of workshops with our local first, middle and high schools and there will be a Railway 200 Artist Open Day at Wylam Railway Museum on Saturday 16th November 2024, 10.00am to 3.00pm. Villagers and the general public are very welcome to come and meet the artists, talk about the project and share memories of Wylam’s history. This will be a great opportunity to visit the museum and learn more about Wylam’s Railway heritage.
During our Festival week on Saturday 8th February 2025 we will be holding a special Gala concert to debut the songs, the story and unveil the artwork. Tickets for the Gala concert and other Festival events will go on sale in mid-November.