Skerne Bridge The world's oldest continuously used railway bridge Overlooking the car park off John Street is the Skerne Bridge, the largest piece of infrastructure on the Stockton & Darlington Railway when it opened on September 27, 1825. Designed by George Stephenson with assistance from the Durham cathedral architect, Ignatius Bonomi, this really is global history: no one had built an industrial-sized railway bridge until this point. Only it didn't really stand up to the early trains as they increased in weight.
By late 1828, dangerous cracks were opening up, so stonemason John Carter, of Heighington, was employed to add the graceful wings that ensure that, 199 years after Locomotion No 1 first went across it, it can still carry trains. In the 1990s, the bridge featured on the back of the £5 note, and today it has been framed so you can take a picture of it. READ MORE: THE FULL STORY OF THE SKERNE BRIDGE Skerne Bridge on an old fiver Edward Pease's couch, on which the railway revolution really began The sofa at the start Edward "the Father of the Railways" lived in Northgate, where Domino's pizza parlour is today.
At about 5pm on April 19, 1821, George Stephenson arrived from Newcastle to discuss Edward's railway plans, but as he did not have an appointment, the butler refused him admission. Edward, though, heard the commotion and let George in, taking him into the kitchen – until recently a kebab shop – where they sat on this cream and rose pink sofa. Amid these very cushions, George persuaded Edward that new-fangled steampower and not old-fashioned horsepower should drive his railway and the rest really is history.
In the new museum, the sofa has George and Edward's cleverly animated heads in deep discussion. READ MORE: HOW STEPHENSON FIRST MET PEASE IN A KEBAB SHOP AND CHANGED THE WORLD Francis Mewburn's staff of office Francis Mewburn's Staff of Office Mewburn's grave in West Cemetery proclaims him as the "First Railway Solicitor", and he did the..
. Chris Lloyd.
