THE awestruck tribal chief who described the newly-built Victoria Falls bridge as being held up by "the finger of God" would no doubt approve of the Cleveland Bridge motto - Creating Landmarks Worldwide.

Born out of financial adversity, the group, (which is based in Darlington, despite its name) has created some of the most distinctive man-made structures in the world.

In 1877, employees of the Skerne Ironworks in Darlington's Albert Hill area saw the writing on the wall. Their employer had enjoyed a healthy order book in the railway boom but now faced falling orders and cash flow difficulties.

They quit to set up their own bridge-building operation. Their view would prove to be remarkably prescient; Skerne, which had built railway bridges in Scandinavia, folded two years later.

Cleveland Bridge and Engineering Company was built on the site of a strawberry field on the outskirts of Darlington. In its first year the company returned a profit of only £1-5s-9d.

Those early days saw the company existing from month to month. By 1883, the game seemed to be up and the group was in liquidation.

Henry Dixon, who had led those 11 employees out of Skerne Ironworks, and his family bought the enterprise back from the liquidator and set about an aggressive sales promotion abroad. Orders for bridges in Brazil and New South Wales, Australia, followed.

Since then, the company has completed a major bridge somewhere in the world for each of its 125 years.

The Victoria Falls Bridge, built in 1905, cemented the company's reputation - a genuine international landmark spanning a gorge 450ft deep that ran so close to the falls that, in Cecil Rhodes' words, "the trains as they pass, catch the spray."

The falls contract made up for the loss of the Sydney Harbour Bridge to Middlesbrough rival Dorman Long.

Ironically, Cleveland had the last laugh. In 1982, Dorman Long was bought by the Trafalgar House consortium which merged it into Cleveland Bridge.

From 1964 to 1981, the pioneering firm went through a prosperous period which began with the building of the first major suspension bridge outside the US - Scotland's Forth Road Bridge.

The Severn Bridge, the first aerofoil deck suspension bridge, followed two years later, before Cleveland Bridge was bought out by Trafalgar House in 1969.

Its international standing was raised further when the Dubai works opened in 1976.

By 1982, Cleveland Bridge and Dorman Long were in common ownership and a new Darlington works launched.

The start of the 1990s saw the two famous steel construction names of Cleveland Bridge and Dorman Long merged into a single organisation. But far from heralding a prosperous new age, trouble lay ahead.

It was renamed Kvaerner Cleveland Bridge in 1996, on the takeover of Trafalgar House by Kvaerner ASA.

Darker days followed, fears for the future among workers and dozens of redundancies ultimately leading to the loss-making Anglo-Norwegian giant, on the verge of collapse, putting the business up for sale as part of a global shake-up in 1999.

Step forward Australian civil engineer Tony Rae, the man who would lead Cleveland Bridge to stability, sealing an £8.4m management buy-out in 2000 after a year of painstaking negotiations.

Today, its topsy-turvy period of ever-changing ownership in the past, the firm is again on a sure footing.

As the UK's only suspension bridge builder, it recently clinched a contract to work on a £118m suspension bridge across the Carquinez river in California, the first in the US for more than 30 years.

Its work in America continued last year, albeit in the most tragic of circumstances, at New York's Ground Zero, in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

Four Australian-born engineers used specialist equipment to repair a 25-metre high slurry wall, which was damaged in the World Trade Centre attacks and was used to protect the building from underground flooding.

In the latest phase of the revival, prospects across the Atlantic were boosted this month with the news that the Saudi Arabian Al Rushaid Investment Group had raised its stake in the firm to 88.5 per cent.

Chairman Sheikh Abdullah Al Rushaid said the move reflected the group's "high level of confidence in the organisation's future".

Now, on its 125th anniversary, Cleveland Bridge is looking to the 21st Century with a steely determination to succeed.

And while it would take a huge turnaround to bring back the glory days of yesteryear, the firm has come back to its roots and is again building on the reputation for quality which first made its name