We Create: Mexborough

We Create: Mexborough brought together local people, struggling with mental health issues, through a two-year programme of free arts and cultural sessions, co-designed with local GPs, health partners and residents.

Creative activities were hosted by Mexborough Station and venues across the town, exploring themes such as the local railways, community, and heritage as well as strategies to build and maintain good mental health and increase confidence.

They borrowed historic rail artefacts from Heritage Doncaster’s Moving Museum and created everything from podcasts, soundscapes, heritage boards, allotment art sessions, historic word rambles with Ian McMillan, plays (including The Great Mexborough Train Robbery, The trial of Joan Jurdie and vikings in Doncaster!) and poetry. 

Here is one of those poems, written by John Beal and inspired by the time Mexborough-born British Heavyweight Champion James William "Iron" Hague (6 November 1885 – 18 August 1951) travelled home by train to be greeted at the station by crowds of elated local people:

Mexborough Station

When Thomas Schofield walked along

the platforms of Mexborough Station

he heard the elated locomotive song

when Thomas Schofield walked along

as the train halted beside the throng

united, they greeted Iron Hague in jubilation

when Thomas Schofield walked along

the platforms of Mexborough Station

Heritage boards, created as part of the project, are on display in Mexborough Station’s waiting room and depict key events in the town’s history including a snapshot of how the War Years affected the area, a profile of local young lady Miss Alice Lavender Lee – the very first Miss World - and the Great Mexborough Train Robbery!

We Create: Mexborough is a partnership project led by darts, with Cast and Heritage Doncaster, funded by Doncaster Clinical Commissioning Group and supported by the Volunteers of Mexborough Railway Station. 

For more information on this project please visit We Create: Mexborough