These are exciting times for Tile Map fans. The ceramic wall charts show the North East’s rail network circa 1910. Up to 2024, nine railway stations in Yorkshire had one on display, some original, some replicas (such as Hunmanby’s, installed in 2021). I cycled them all in 2023.
Nine… until now. Because today Driffield unveiled its own newly-made replica, and two more 2024 recreations – at Filey and Cottingham – now exist, too.
Obviously, I cycled to Driffield station to join the grand opening ceremony at 2pm today. Getting there, on a leisurely sightsee over and around the gentle hills of the Wolds, was a delight. Part of the last act of the Way of the Roses cycle route, it’s a sequence I’ve cycled many times.
Indeed, the first stretch – along NCN’s kicks-filled Route 66 from York to Stamford Bridge – I rode only last week. But this time, my route took me through Pocklington and into the niches, nooks, crannies and crevices of the dry wolds valleys round Millington. The sinuous little lane, somehow picking its way between sheep-filled hillsides, was virtually devoid of traffic in today’s sunshine.
From Huggate the slightly mainer road is a long gentle downhill almost all the way to Driffield. I stopped at a farm’s roadside honesty box to buy a half-dozen free range organic eggs for a quid. I had already met the producers. They’d been wandering along the verge and clucking a couple of hundred yards back. But why did one cross the road? I’ll never know.
There was still very little traffic. At one point on the empty roads I spotted a cyclist coming the other way who I knew – hello, Gary – and we could stop to chat in the middle of the road without having to step aside to allow traffic through. Maybe this is the middle-aged man’s equivalent of playing football in the street like we did when I was a lad.
In Driffield I had a quick lunch at Highfield House’s cosy country-inn-like bistro, Yarn, and then as a rather cheaper contrast, a quick pint at Wetherspoon. And then, tadaa, it was time to join the grand Tile Map Opening celebrations at Driffield station.
A good crowd of maybe fifty people bunched up on Platform 1 to see the new Tile Map unveiled by Rachel Osborne and Peter Myers of the Yorkshire Coast Community Rail Partnership.
If the curtains look like they came from Dunelm and were hurriedly rescued from a garage and rigged up on some metal poles from the garden shed, that’s because they sort-of were. Last-minute changes meant Rachel had to improvise (rather effectively, too).
Rachel and Peter made stirring speeches reminding us of the way volunteer organisations like these can make a real positive difference to our community spaces, particularly public transport ones.
And then it was time for the Grand Reveal. (Though, actually, the tile map had been in place since 20 September. Still, it was nice to have some drama.)
The new tile map, like the others around Yorkshire, was made by Craven Dunnill of Jackfield in Shropshire. Commissioning one is pretty straightforward: you simply contact Eden Blyth of the Northeastern Tile Company, who can organise it all.
I chatted to Eden – who, like everyone else I talked to this festive occasion, is excellent company and clearly right-thinking on matters of public transport and its role in a good society. (And, incidentally, cycling, too.)
I was astounded to learn that, in addition to the maps on public display in stations, there are over a hundred in private houses or businesses around the country. Most are a scale model, compressed to fit a domestic bathroom or loo, but if you have fourteen-foot-high ceiling in an Edinburgh town house, a full-size showpiece map is the one for your wall.
The world’s press was here – well, a snapper from the Driffield and Wolds Weekly, anyway – and with the map grandly inaugurated, we could all enjoy the free tea, coffee and cakes, and amuse ourselves by taking informal bets on which delayed train would arrive next.
Tile Maps are wonderful things. Driffield’s, once unveiled today, had us all excited, wanting to point at it. Nothing like a ceramic map of the early 20th century network to get people’s index fingers out. Stations, lines, towns, villages, all connected in that elusive, sepia-toned, pre-Beeching era, and all connected to us and our families.
And Yorkshire’s list of Tile Maps in stations is growing. As well as Driffield, there’s one already installed in Filey. It was commissioned at the same time, but isn’t visible until the current renovations of the Filey station are complete. I’ll find an excuse to cycle there when it is, obviously.
There’s also a small one in the cafe at Cottingham station, which I’ll also get along to soon. And there are more to come: Hessle is said to be keen on getting its own tile map. Though as a frequent user of the place I’d prefer them to get toilets first.
Watch this space…