Mystery riddle solved as artwork to be restored

Wrought iron "postcards" within which lies a mystery riddle will become solvable again after they are restored.

The 23 designs, which have been in place on Redcar seafront since 1995, are to be repainted and brought back to their former glory by the council before being placed back in their original order.

During previous restoration work the scenes were accidentally jumbled, making the riddle harder to solve and Labour councillor, Carl Quartermain, said it was "hard to figure out" the puzzle.

He said Redcar and Cleveland Council had agreed to unmount, "shotblast, zinc and powder coat them and give them a good paint".

Within each postcard there are letters, which when combined in the correct order, spell 10 words on the same theme.

Quartermain said several of them had been damaged and they needed the "professional" touch.

Chris Topp won a competition to make the postcards and carried out their last refurbishment in 2012/13.

He died in October 2024, but his company Topp and Co said it would be interested in being involved in any restoration work.

No-one who worked on the postcards more than three decades ago is still with the company, but staff know the original sequence of panels and order of clues.

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Quartermain said: "We have been looking at the postcards for quite some time, we want to get them looking pristine.

"We want to create a new postcard as well and get a local school involved."

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