Join Blystra Arts at the Headland Hotel in Newquay for an evening of curated performance, poems, extracts and film to celebrate 200th anniversary of the modern railway. This evening event will celebrate the amazing milestone moment, when the first passenger train travelled on the Stockton and Darlington railway on Tues 27th of September 1825. In 2025 Blystra Arts was awarded funding from Great Western Railway’s Customer and Community Improvement Fund to deliver a project called Stories from the Station which explores Newquay’s railway, its branch line, and the huge impact the railway had on the development of the town, its tourism and people. During 2025 and into 2026 Blystra is working with a number of groups in the community to create films, performance, creative writing and art which explores the railway and its huge impact on the town.
The celebration event on the 27th of September 2025 will involve Blystra Arts, Groundswell CIC, Tretherras School, Bounce Dance Academy, Cornwall Youth Theatre Company, and with premiere films made by Rooted Media alongside the community. It will be an evening of fascinating stories and information about the impact of the railway presented and performed by local people. Newquay Museum will also attend this event, and special thanks must be given to them as a main partner of the project, supporting us to pull out stories and information about Newquay Railway Station and the people whose lives have been changed by it. This event is made even more poignant as 1825 is also the 125 year anniversary of the Headland Hotel, built as a result of the railway coming to the town by iconic Cornish Architect Silvanus Trevail, who’s own link with the railway was both positive and negative in his lifetime.
Join us for this evening of celebration of the railway.