What is outside it is beautiful?
outside it is beautiful is an artist intervention. It is a public and communities art and stories project set on the Bentham train line (Leeds to Morecambe) with an emphasis on nature and heritage.
In late 2025, coinciding with the 200th annivesary of the modern railway in the UK, communities living on and around the Bentham train line will write stories, rap or poetry about "icons"; natural elements and places of interest to them which can be seen from the train window. The stories will be curated for an audio phone app and will be pinged onto passengers' phones as they approach the icons.
Knitting all these stories together will be an audio adventure written by the project's lead writer and facilitator Sarah Hehir about a hen harrier and osprey who follow the train's route. There will be contributions by co-facilitators and local writers Becky Cherriman and Erin Craine as well as well known environmentalists and scientists.
We are inviting groups local to the area to participate, including schools and climate groups.
The finished audio art will be a mass tapestry of sounds and words all linked by a love of nature, place and people.
The project aims to encourage a deeper sense of connection and presence to landscapes and communities people pass through on their train journey - if only briefly. It hopes to inspire a celebration of and responsibility towards the land in which we live and the nature around us.
Presence is attention and attention is love and the need for this to inspire careful caretaking of our planet is often overlooked in national and international debates about nature, heritage and climate change.
In October 2024, outside it is beautiful completed R&D along the train route and in its communities from Leeds to Morecambe. Art sessions led by Becky Cherriman and Sarah Hehir and assisted by verity healey, were held with Ripon House, members of the Kurdish community in Leeds, people living with dementia at Pioneer Projects, Settle Stories' writers group and SELFA children. Two public library sessions were held at Bolton-le-Sands and Morecambe. Year 6 pupils from Bolton-le-Sands Primary School also attended a 90 min workshop at the library. In Morecambe we worked with dad and kids, who were attending a M.A.T.C.H session. The team also met with the Forest of Bowland National Landscape and the Yorkshire Peat Partnership/ Yorkshire Wildlife Trust.
Please go here for further information about the R&D project. To listen to Sarah Hehir's audio adventure, Ghost of the Sky, set on the Bentham Train Line and voiced by people living around it, go here
Our funders for our R&D were:
public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England
Northern Community Fund
Our partners
Our partners include Cultrapedia, Pioneer Projects, Settle Stories, the Bentham Line Community Rail Network.
Our partners for 2025 also include
Railyway 200, Letters to the Earth, Poetic Consultations.
We are actively looking for educational partners to help develop our association with schools, families and youth communities.
Our ambassador is the naturalist, writer and Wainwright Prize Winner 2023 Dr Amy-Jane Beer.
about us
outside it is beautiful is a new project from a small team of freelancers. Led by creative producer, writer, arts journalist and filmmaker verity healey, lead writer and facilitator Sarah Hehir ( the BBC's The Archers, Doctors), co-facilitators Becky Cherriman (My sisters hugged me to work) and Erin Craine (featured on BBC Radio One and BBC Radio Three) and development and PR Jenn Reynolds, the project aims to encourage people to look out of the window and celebrate and engage with and identify more with what they see.
The audio stories will offer alternative ways of thinking about and engaging with the communities and landscapes the train passengers are journeying through and will act as connectors between invisible unseen groups (communities and passengers) unknown environments and nature, as well as promote looking out of the window on a train journey as a dreamy act of the imagination.
We want to create positive visions for the future as well as connect the anonymous and almost always invisible train passengers with the sometimes equally invisible communities and landscapes through which they are travelling.
People often don't know what their feelings are, until they are prompted. And that is what we aim to do here. Prompt feelings.
Please email verity healey at collcreative@yahoo(dot)co(dot)uk for more information.
The research and development stage of outside it is beautiful beginning in October 2024 is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England. It is also supported by Northern.
with in kind support from
