Stockton & Darlington Railway Skerne Bridge Foil Greetings Card

Description

This is a bespoke greetings card featuring the Stockton & Darlington Railway at Skerne Bridge in Darlington about 1827. The card features Locomotion No.1 hauling waggons over the Skerne Bridge with a horse drawn passenger coach to the rear. The building on the left is the Merchandising Station of 1826-7. The card is blank for your own message and the wording on the front is in silver foil.

The Skerne Bridge was going to be designed and built By George Stephenson using ironwork, but his other railway bridge further west (The Gaunless Bridge) had suffered problems in bad weather and the price of iron had rocketed, so confidence was low. The S&DR decided to bring in Ignatius Bonomi instead to design the bridge. He was the County Architect for Durham and designed the bridge in stone. The bridge needed some additional support within a short space of time, but remains in use today; it even featured on the British £5 note in the 1990s. It is the world’s oldest continuously operated railway bridge.