Plans to enhance local biodiversity through the creation of an extensive new garden at the Locomotion railway museum in Shildon are steaming ahead thanks to a £20,000 grant from North East employer the Banks Group.
The Locomotion Railway Garden will run across the length of the museum’s kilometre-long site and will include a range of habitats that are designed to encourage pollinators while complementing its existing wildflower meadow and self-seeding flora.
As well as being somewhere for visitors and local people to relax and engage with nature, the new garden is also being designed to encourage a population of the rare Dingy Skipper butterfly, which is listed as a Priority Species under the UK Biodiversity Action Plan, to thrive.
The site boundary will be planted with a new native hedgerow, expanding habitats for hedgehogs, while existing trees will be fitted with bat boxes.
Work on the project is now underway, with Locomotion hoping the new garden will be in full bloom early next year, in time for the 2025 bicentenary of the Stockton and Darlington Railway.
The garden, which is being developed on an area of wasteland, will create new outdoor volunteering opportunities for around 70 adults, young people and children in the first year, with family learning activities being linked to the project, including free bug hotel and seed bomb workshops.
Once complete, the museum’s volunteer gardening team will care for it alongside maintaining existing raised beds and developing new planters for Shildon Station which complement the pollinator work taking place at Locomotion.
Locomotion, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, is the sister museum of the National Railway Museum in York and welcomes around 200,000 visitors every year.
It was founded to recognise the world-changing impact of the origin of the railways and Shildon’s pivotal place as the birthplace of passenger rail, and aims to inspire the scientists and innovators of tomorrow by using its world-class collection of railway vehicles and the unique railway landscape around the museum to spark their imaginations.
The Railway Garden, which has also been supported by the Northumbrian Water Branch Out Fund, is part of the larger masterplan for the transformation of the Locomotion site and will surround its new collections building, New Hall, which opened earlier this year.
Sarah Price, Head of Locomotion, said: “The railway revolution had a significant impact on the natural environment, with new railway routes creating a corridor in which certain plants and animals could thrive.
“The planting design for the Railway Garden draws inspiration from the self-seeded railway lines found across the UK and will be supported by interpretation to engage visitors with this distinctive habitat.
“This project will deliver substantial benefits for both wildlife and the local community, transforming an area that was previously wasteland to create new volunteering and learning opportunities for local people and museum visitors.
“We’re hugely grateful to the Banks Group for making such a substantial contribution towards its creation.”
Lucy Hinds, executive assistant at the Banks Group, added: “Locomotion is one of the region’s most important cultural and heritage venues, and demonstrates the huge impact that the railways had on the development of both our home county and the wider world.
“The Railway Garden is a key part of the Locomotion team’s ambitions to provide an even better museum experience and we can’t wait to see how it looks when it opens next year.”