Boundary marker, Great Northern Railway and Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway, cast iron, "GNR/LYR", traces of paint, black lettering on a white ground. From Ingrow, West Yorkshire.

Cast iron sign marking the boundary between the Great Northern Railway and the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway, made at some point between 1847 and 1922.

Boundary markers were used to clearly identify the limits of railway land and to distinguish them from adjacent property. Markers such as this delineated one railway company’s territory from another’s, for instance to make it clear who was responsible for maintaining a particular stretch of line.

The Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway was formed by the amalgamation of several railway companies in 1847. It served the industrial centres of the two counties, particularly in its heartland of the West Riding. The railway eventually stretched from the Irish Sea to the North Sea. It was taken over by the London & North Western Railway in 1922.

The Great Northern Railway was established in 1846 to build a line from London to York and then expanded its routes into the Midlands and Yorkshire. It was absorbed into the London, Midland & Scottish Railway in 1923.

The boundary marker is a simple design in cast iron, incorporating the initials of the two companies. The sign is supported on a column in rectangular section. It was probably made in a foundry at one of the two railways’ works in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century. This one was installed at Ingrow, near Keighley in West Yorkshire.