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.
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The first foundations were dug in July 1902 at the Newcastle end of the bridge. The foundations under three large river piers were laid by divers working in caissons (large watertight chambers) underwater in compressed air. It was dangerous work. No-one under the age of 40 could be employed, and men spent just four hours a shift in the caissons. One worker died and many were taken ill during the foundations' construction.
Although not fully complete, the bridge was opened by King Edward VII on Tuesday, July 10, 1906, from a temporary platform at the Gateshead end. The following day, the King, accompanied by his wife Queen Alexandra, travelled through the city in a horse-drawn carriage to officially open Armstrong College (later the university) and the Royal Victoria Infirmary. They were given a rapturous reception by the people of Newcastle.
The Evening Chronicle reported how thousands had started to assemble in city centre streets in the middle of the night, despite rain pouring down across Tyneside. “By the time the king and queen went past giving, after all, but a fleeting glimpse of their presence, these people had been standing for hours – they began to assemble at three o’clock in the morning – waiting for the coming of royalty, careless of the discomfort that always accompanies such a crowd.
“All along the route the king and queen kept bowing graciously from their covered carriage in acknowledgement of the tremendous cheering of their subjects ... and the procession passed on amid a renewed fluttering of handkerchiefs.”
With the dignitaries and official business out of the way, work on the bridge continued. On September 27, its efficiency was tested by running 10 locomotives (weighing 100 tons each), coupled together in two sets of five, over the bridge at a speed of six to eight miles an hour. The locomotives ran side-by-side to put maximum strain on each of the girders.
At 350m long and 15m wide, the steel-lattice crossing was the first to carry four main tracks, (although the gaps between the tracks have sometimes proved too narrow for modern, high-speed trains). The bridge was opened for use on Monday, October 1, 1906, at a cost of £500,000.
The King Edward VII Bridge was Grade II-listed in 1994 and has been described as “Britain’s last great railway bridge”. Our photographs show the bridge on a grey Tyneside day 95 years ago in January 1928, and in more recent times.
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