£1 Coin Designs 04-07

Even the Royal Mint likes bridges. And since they are 'royal' this obviously means that the Queen likes bridges too. Therefore, you could say that Chair Club is endorsed by the Queen. You could probably more acurately say it wasn't endorsed by her too.

In a press release from the Royal Mint, 19th June 2003:

A series of four new £1 coin designs, representing England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, is due to be introduced in the United Kingdom from 2004.

The coins will have on the reverse bridge designs representing England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. (The Forth Bridge for Scotland, The Menai Straits Bridge for Wales, MacNeill's Egyptian Arch for Northern Ireland and The Millennium Bridge, in Gateshead, for England.) The reverse designs are by wood engraver Edwina Ellis, who won a limited competition judged by the Royal Mint Advisory Committee.

The images above are of 'pattern pieces', ie proposed coins that consequently have no status as current or legal tender coins. They have plain edges and differ from the legal tender versions of the coins, which have a decorative design on the edge - 'an incuse decorative feature symbolising bridges and pathways'

2004 - Scotland, Forth Railway Bridge

Quite a lot of information about the Forth Railway Bridge can be found on the net already. Rather than spend my time copy and pasting it I'll just post this link and you can read all about it for yourself.

2005 - Wales, Menai Strait Bridge

White Knight says to Alice,
'I heard him then, for I had just completed my design.
To keep the Menai Bridge from rust.
By boiling it in wine.'

Lewis Carrol, Through the Looking Glass

We went to Menai for a couple of days at the beginning of the 6th form because...well, I think mostly because the teachers wanted a couple of days holiday. I think it was supposed to be some kind of team building thing, but mostly we just sat on the bridge in the adventure playground and developed hearing difficulties whenever the teachers yelled to get us inside to do some 'planning your future' work or some other nonsense. That's all I can remember about that trip. Oh, and Mrs Shaw reading far too much from my 'be poor' plan whilst being at university.

Anyway, some info about the Menai Straight Bridges can be found here.

2006 - Northern Ireland, Egyptian Arch Bridge

coming soon

2007 - England, Millennium Bridge

coming in quite a while

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