A lottery ticket is set to hit the jackpot - almost 200 years after it was issued.

The draw was held in 1816 for shares in a famous Iron Bridge of the River Wear, in Sunderland.

The shares were held by County Durham MP Rowland Burdon and the winner would have been entitled to a hefty share of the lucrative bridge tolls.

From the day it opened in 1796 until 1846, when tolls on pedestrians were scrapped and other charges were cut by half, fees amounted to almost £80,000.

Now, a surviving ticket from the lottery has surfaced among lots in a book sale at Boldon Auction Galleries in East Boldon, South Tyneside.

Burdon, who lived at Castle Eden in County Durham and was the son of a Newcastle banker, invested £30,000 in the Iron Bridge - the then biggest single-arch bridge in the world. .

But Burdon was later involved in bankruptcy after a disastrous investment in the Lemington Iron Works on Tyneside and a lottery was arranged through an Act of Parliament for his bridge shares.

A total of 6,000 tickets, at £5 a time, were issued with a series of back-up money prizes ranging in value up to £5,000.

The bridge was remodelled by Robert Stephenson in 1859 and in 1929 it was replaced by the Wearmouth Bridge.

Andrew Tavroges, of Boldon Auction Galleries, said: "Items like the lottery ticket rarely survive and this is the first time we have heard of one being auctioned. It's a living piece of Sunderland history.