If by no means the most famous of the crossings that link Newcastle and Gateshead, the King Edward VII Bridge has managed to fulfil a crucial role carrying trains across the River Tyne for nearly 120 years.
And although its profile might fail to match those of, say, the nearby Tyne and Millennium Bridges, its official opening in the summer of 1906 sparked huge interest among the folk of Tyneside. Five years into his reign, the new bridge would be opened by King Edward VII himself (the son of the late Queen Victoria) and there was a desperate clamour to set eyes on the popular monarch in an age before the rise of moving pictures, and before photographs began to regularly appear in newspapers.
The construction of the King Edward VII Bridge was motivated by the growing need to take the pressure off the nearby High Level Bridge, opened in 1849, which was now carrying 800 train and light engine movements every day. Financed entirely by North Eastern Railways, the new crossing would follow a functional design by Charles Augustus Harrison, and would be built by Cleveland Bridge and Engineering Company of Darlington.
