SAD news last week for one of the region’s historic landmarks: the wonder of Whorlton has been closed to walkers and cyclists, as well as cars, due to safety fears. Whorlton suspension bridge over the Tees is a great survivor – it is almost to suspension bridges what Locomotion No 1 is to railways. It was built in the earliest days of its era when other bridges all around it were collapsing. It is a testament to the brave faith of the villagers and investors and now, 189 years later, it is the UK s oldest road suspension bridge with its deck supported by its original iron chains, and it is the UK s earliest surviving iron chained suspension bridge with pylons at each end.
THE world of archaeology has been alive this week with the news that a 5,000-year-old lost artefact from the Great Pyramid has been discovered in a cigar tin in a university collection. The fragment of cedar wood was discovered in a secret passage leading from the Queen’s Chamber in 1872 by engineer Waynman Dixon, a man with Cockfield in his blood who now rests in Great Ayton. Waynman placed the five-inch long piece of wood in the cigar tin with two other relics, a small stone ball and a bronze hook. The ball and the hook ended up in the British Museum, but the wood was presented in the tin to Aberdeen university in the 1940s after which it was lost – until this week .
SAD news this week for one of the region’s historic landmarks: the wonder of Whorlton has been closed to walkers and cyclists, as well as cars, due to safety fears. Whorlton suspension bridge over the Tees is a great survivor – it is almost to suspension bridges what Locomotion No 1 is to railways. It was built in the earliest days of its era when other bridges all around it were collapsing. It is a testament to the brave faith of the villagers and investors and now, 189 years later, it is the UK s oldest road suspension bridge with its deck supported by its original iron chains, and it is the UK s earliest surviving iron chained suspension bridge with pylons at each end.