Published on: Thursday, 15 June 2017
Last updated: Monday, 18 December 2017
A team of local volunteers have opened a museum in a redundant building at Reedham rail station to tell the story of the first railway in Norfolk.
Local residents and station adopters, Catherine Ford, Colin Brown, Mike Stoker, Mike Warner and Ann Thompson have converted an old waiting room at the station into a museum.
The room on the Great Yarmouth / Lowestoft bound platform, was built in the late Victorian era and has been repainted in LNER heritage.
Memorabilia and artefacts from the village’s past are now on permanent display in the museum, telling the story of the Great Yarmouth – Norwich railway line.
The artefacts are all from the volunteers’ own personal collections, including a bier which Mike Stoker discovered in a dilapidated state whilst doing some work on a local church in Cantley. He rescued and restored it, pushing it the three miles back to his home in Reedham.
The museum is open every Tuesday and on Sunday afternoons during the school summer holiday. However, visits can sometimes be arranged outside of these times by emailing [email protected].
The station adopters have also recently transformed the overgrown bank at the front of the station, planting roses and summer blooms and trimming the hedging to create a stunning welcome to the station.
Mike Stoker commented, “We’re delighted that the museum is now open and look forward to developing the displays and information to tell the story of the line. We hope local people will pop in from time to time and it’s been very rewarding opening up the old waiting room again and giving it a new lease of life.”
Greater Anglia’s Area Customer Service Manager, James Reeve, said, “Reedham station continues to go from strength to strength thanks to this huge community effort and we are very grateful for all their hard work and creative ideas that have transformed the station.”
The ‘Adopt a Station’ scheme started in 2003 and enables individuals or groups to adopt their local railway station and contribute to its presentation and welfare for the benefit of the local community.
The voluntary scheme was originally created to improve lines of communication between the train operator and station users however, over the years it has grown to become much more, with station adopters now playing an active role in keeping stations looking good through inventive gardening projects, creative community art projects, taking part in station ‘health checks’ or being the eyes and ears of their station.
Over the years, station adopters have also played a key role in raising money for new initiatives, such as improved waiting facilities or planting beautiful station gardens.