onionbagblog

With a big heads up to @MatthewLinley, here’s something rather lovely that you can find down at Wivenhoe Station right now. The Crab and Winkle Gallery is open for your viewing pleasure as you wait for the next train to take you out eastwards and the bright lights of Great Bentley.

Blimey.

As part of the wider Off the Rails arts project, the Crab and Winkle Gallery is a pop up art space in the perfect local location. Named lovingly after the Wivenhoe to Brightlingsea line (last seen around these parts just before the savage Beeching Axe) the idea is to give local artists a public space in which to exhibit.

As the Off the Rails website explains:

“Off the Rails’ have adopted Wivenhoe railway station using National Express’ Adopt a Station voluntary scheme with the assistance of Community Rail Partnerships.

Off the Rails is about celebrating and sharing Wivenhoe’s creative talents by hosting a rolling exhibition of visual art and writing that travels down the line.”

It’s not just visual art either - poetry and prose are also part of the project, with verses being sent up and down the line that connects us with our Colchester friends.

With the railway being responsible for such a historic shift in fortune for the town, Off the Rails is also keen to explore the legacy of the Beeching axe, and the memories of the old Crab and Winkle line that use to run all the way along to Brightlingsea.

A request has been made for any old tickets, timetables and photos, to try and piece together as many physical artifacts as possible in memory of the ghost line that has now given the gallery its name.

Opportunities for Wivenhoe artists to become involved are also explained in more detail on the website. There is an educational value as well, with the Colne Community School and College booked in to take part in future Crab and Winkle Gallery projects.

It’s almost enough to make me get out my old CSE Art (Grade 3, natch) notebook, and take up random paintings of all life that passes by. I think however that the *ahem* artist within is probably more suited to sticking with The Station pub.

Chin chin.