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Friday 1 May 2020

Super-mural appears in railway arch to pay tribute to our health service heroes

Region & Route:

Southern

Network Rail and street artist Lionel Stanhope have teamed up to pay tribute to our NHS heroes with a mural in a railway arch in Southwark.

The artwork on Cornwall Road sits underneath Waterloo East railway station, round the corner from St Thomas’ Hospital and was completed today (Friday) using strict social-distancing guidelines.

It follows a mural painted on a footbridge in Brockley by Artmongers, depicting the NHS rainbow.  Lionel himself has produced a series of murals with Network Rail across South East London, from Hither Green to Brockley and Forest Hill and most recently in Charlton, bringing the total number of murals the company has completed in the area to 30.

He said: “Network Rail saw a small version of this mural I had done just for myself and gave me the opportunity to do a much bigger version on a wall, to say thank you to all our incredible NHS staff. The location means I can do the work and can still distance myself so this is really the least I can do.

“I’m just painting at the end of the day and there’s thousands of doctors and nurses who are doing incredible work saving lives, and this is for them.”

Network Rail’s Eddie Burton works with communities across the region on using public art to improve railway arches, bridges and other locations.

He said: “We’re really proud of our job carrying NHS workers to their jobs and our stations at Waterloo, Waterloo East and London Bridge are next to key hospitals in London.

“We hope seeing this gives our health workers a boost as we know what an unbelievable job they have been doing.”