Bridge Postcards of 2025

A selection of vintage postcard views of bridges acquired in 2025, beginning in Dresden with a record low water level on the River Elbe. A crowd of locals enjoy the novelty of exploring the river bed on foot. In August 2025 all river transport was suspended when the Elbe fell to its lowest level ever recorded. Next is from Ironbridge in Shropshire where the pioneering cast iron bridge manufactured by Abraham Darby has crossed the River Severn since 1779. Equally famous is the ancient Roman aqueduct built in the first century near Nîmes that follows. The River Trent at Gunthorpe, Nottinghamshire was first crossed by this cast iron toll bridge in 1875 - it was replaced in 1927 by a three arch concrete structure.  Constantine is Algeria’s third city, built on a high plateau above the River Rhumel and is known as the City of Bridges. The El-Kantara stone bridge of 1863 is one of the oldest to span the spectacular gorge and the colonial French influence is very apparent in this unusual elevated view. When completed in 1889 the Sukkur railway bridge over the River Indus was the longest cantilever bridge in the world. Later renamed the Lansdowne Bridge (in honour of the Viceroy), it’s still in use as a rail link between the city of Lahore and the port of Karachi on the Arabian Sea. 

Next is a single track railroad bridge in the Pacific Northwest of the US, completed in 1912 and still crossed today by freight trains - in 1957 a vertical-lift section was added. Another railway subject follows - this card shows what was in 1905 a common method of testing the loading capacity of new bridges by running multiple locomotives over the top and monitoring the impact. In Melbourne the River Yarra is spanned by the Queen’s Bridge, completed in 1889 and protected by listing on the Victoria Heritage Register. Hydraulically powered lifting bridges are very much an American thing - two more examples here from Portland, Oregon and Chicago. The final card is an elevated view of the second Tay Bridge opened in 1887 to replace the one that collapsed in a storm in December 1879 - everyone on board the train crossing the bridge at the time lost their lives. There’s something peculiarly Victorian about the action of the North British Railway in recovering the submerged locomotive and returning it to service. 

 

Bridge Postcards of 2024

Another annual selection of pontine postcards - the products of hours of rummaging through bulging shoe boxes stuffed with unsorted postcards, priced at 4 for £1, at Postcard Fairs where the average age is about 75.  Most of the cards inspected are depressingly dull but now and then something different will startle the eye - it may be an unorthodox composition, or an inventive viewpoint, or a remarkable quality of printing, or a subject you never expected to see celebrated in this way. The physical discomforts are many - an aching neck, a weary eye and the close proximity of fellow collectors, some of whom lack any concept of boundaries or interest in personal hygiene but the compensation is a growing stack of visual treasures.  The show begins with three examples where a viaduct intrudes into an urban setting - Newcastle, Morlaix and Truro. It concludes with some elaborate ironwork from Ohio and Littlehampton. In between are railway viaducts from California and Fontainebleau, a pair of bridges spanning the Niagara River, urban river crossings from Berlin and St. Louis and a primitive wooden bridge over which three young women display their traditional Dutch costume. My favourite example comes from Preston where an enormous viaduct marches over river and countryside alike, foregrounded by neo-classical parkland.

 

Bridges of 2024

This year’s choice of bridges (mostly) crossed and photographed would be very modest but for a visit to Newcastle, which it must be admitted has some fine specimens. From west to east along the Tyne, our first is the High Level Bridge designed by Robert Stephenson (1845-49), with T E Harrison - the rail deck is supported by cast-iron box columns while the road deck is suspended from the rail deck by wrought-iron hangers encased in the box sections. Grade I listed by Historic England. Next is the Swing Bridge of 1868-76, designed and built by W G Armstrong & Co. - a wrought-iron structure supported on cast-iron rollers to allow free movement of shipping, operated by the original Armstrong-built hydraulic engines and controlled from the cupola that spans the deck. Listed by Historic England as a Scheduled Monument and last opened in November 2019. The New Tyne Bridge (1925-28) comes next, built by Dorman & Long of Middlesbrough and designed by Mott, Hay & Anderson - the profile of its single span is often employed as a symbol of the city.  The design is a reduced version of the 1916 design produced for the Sydney Harbour Bridge - the four massive pylons, faced in Cornish granite were intended to house warehouses with freight and passenger lifts, none of which came to pass.  Grade II* listed by Historic England.  Finally to the only bridge over the Tyne designated for pedestrian and cyclist use - the Gateshead Millennium Bridge (1995-2001) designed by Wilkinson Eyre. The deck is suspended from an elegant parabola that can be rotated through 45 degrees to permit the movement of passing ships - a major element in the riverside regeneration project as an artistic and cultural quarter that in turn led to the conjoined coinage of Newcastle-Gateshead.

Finally, two views of the Scarborough Cliff Bridge, a pedestrian footbridge opened in 1827 when it was known as the Spa Bridge, it's an unusual example of a multiple-span cast iron bridge. Connecting the town centre with the Spa, it originally operated as a toll bridge. In the view from the deck the imposing bulk of Cuthbert Brodrick's Grand Hotel looms over the scene. Grade II listed structure.

 

Bridge Postcards of 2023

We begin the annual round up with less familiar views of London’s Tower Bridge followed by a pair of medieval-themed examples from Germany (Bonn and Berlin). The double-decker arched viaduct at   makes a splendid sight.  A pair of bucolic scenes from the Peak District (Monsal Dale and Hathersage) follow - I’ve a soft spot for Hathersage having first seen it from the top deck front seat of a Sheffield City bus in 1978 that had just made a spectacular winding descent from the viewpoint known as Surprise View that very much lives up to its name.  Next is a distant view of Saltash and the river Tamar followed by much steelwork on a single span railway bridge in Costa Rica. There are more rail bridges from Riga, Jutland, Porto, Florida and Texas.