Today's Object of the Week is a structure which has stood the test of time.

It was built more than 40 years before Captain James Cook's voyages of discovery to Australia and the French Revolution.

It pre-dates the Battle of Trafalgar by some 80 years.

And it was completed almost 100 years before the completion of the famed Stockton and Darlington Railway.

But this structure, a marvellous feat of engineering and still standing after almost 300 years, is much less well-known than all of the above.

Read more: BBC Look North presenter gives update after being forced 'off air' during show

Causey Arch, near Stanley in County Durham, is the world’s oldest surviving single arch railway bridge.

The arch has a span of more than 100ft and it stands majestically 85ft above the Causey Burn.

The Northern Echo:

It was built in stone by a master mason named Wood in 1725/26.

Ralph Wood was commissioned by an alliance of coal owners to build the bridge to take horse-drawn carts across a gorge.

It was the largest single span bridge in the country and remained so for 30 years.

But although the bridge is still standing, the fate of its creator is a less than happy tale.

This was the first time anyone had tried to build a stone arch like this since the Romans.

The first structure collapsed before it was finished and it seems that Ralph Wood grew increasingly worried that the second arch would go the same way, when people were actually on it.

His behaviour got more and more odd and he seemed to be losing his marbles.

Eventually, he just disappeared - some reports of the time suggested he jumped from the bridge to his death into the gorge below, even before it was completed.

The Northern Echo:

His story was recounted in a musical play - Arch Enemies - which toured school across County Durham in 2003, celebrates the creation of the Causey Arch.

The colliery at Tanfield was the reason for building the arch. But the colliery was destroyed by fire just 14 years later and use of the arch as a railway bridge declined.

The Arch has been Grade I listed since 1950 when it was in a state of disrepair.

But in more recent years it has been restored and repaired and now forms part of a popular woodland path.

A replica of an 18th century coal waggon stands at one side of the bridge, which leads to a circular walk through the gorge.

The Northern Echo:

Some previous 'Objects of the Week:

If you want to read more great stories, why not subscribe to your Northern Echo for as little as £1.25 a week. Click here