Friends of Heaton Chapel Station (FoHCS) welcomed MP Navendu Mistra to the station at the end of November to officially unveil their new artwork, ‘Bridge to Nowhere’.
This is the latest piece of art to be installed at the station as part of wider, long term efforts to make the environment a comfortable and stimulating one.
The artwork, ‘Bridge to Nowhere’, is on the landing of platform two. The piece was commissioned by the FoHCS and supported by Northern, Transport for Greater Manchester, and the Crewe to Manchester Community Rail Partnership. It is the ‘ghost’ of an old bridge, which has been identical to the Victorian footbridge at Altrincham Station.
A member of FoHCS committee and previous chairman, Phil Rowbotham, was instrumental in the artwork’s creation. He explains:
“The Heaton Chapel footbridge was identical to the Victorian footbridge at Altrincham Station. I took a high resolution photo of it at Altrincham in 2013 before the bridge was replaced. The image is heavily Photoshopped, replacing the florescent lights for gas lights, and the image changes from Northern blue to Victorian black and white, with some ghost-like Victorian figures using it. The notice at the end is to ‘The Up-line’, as trains on platform 1 head ‘up to London’.”
In case younger passengers were not aware, Phil mentions that “Heaton Chapel Station also has a secret platform, 1 3/4, through which the scarlet steam engine Hogwarts Express passes at night taking students to and from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry…”
Heaton Chapel Station has won awards for its artistic efforts, picking up the Arts Project Award in 2018 and 2021. It also won the Transport for Greater Manchester Award in 2023, 2022 and 2017.
Visit the station to enjoy this new artwork or watch a video that the FoHCS shared on YouTube.