My latest carte-de-visite purchase via a well-known auction site caught my eye for a number of reasons.

The gentleman featured in this full-length portrait has a magnificent beard, is wearing a smart suit and waistcoat complete with watch chain and is carrying a silk top hat which has caught the light.

But it was actually the painted background in front of which the gentleman is standing that particularly attracted my attention.

Those familiar with Newcastle and the north east of England will recognise it as the lantern tower of the anglican Newcastle Cathedral, England’s most northerly.

Until 1882, it was known as St. Nicholas’ parish church, but the building’s distinctive lantern tower has been part of the city’s skyline since the 15th century.

The verso of the cdv confirms it to be by “W. & D. Downey of 9 Eldon Square, Newcastle upon Tyne” and states the firm is “Patronized By Her Majesty.”

This locates it to a period between March 1862 when Downey opened its studio in Eldon Square, and September 1866 when the firm took its first portrait of Queen Victoria.

After this point, it used the slogan “Photographers to Her Majesty” on its products even though its first Royal Warrant was not granted until 1879.

What I hadn’t realised until looking at the cathedral’s website is that in 1865, the celebrated architect Sir George Gilbert Scott was commissioned to underpin and rebuild the lantern tower after it started to lean as a result of nearby building work.

This dating suggests that Downey’s use of the landmark in its branding was not merely a sign of its arrival in Newcastle from nearby South Shields where it started in 1856.

Work to correct the leaning lantern tower would have meant St. Nicholas Church was a talking-point and customers having their portrait taken may have wished to mark their connection with Newcastle and its revitalised skyline accordingly.

It also might inform the dating in the mid-1860s of another Downey cdv in my collection (erroneously titled by an unknown hand in pencil as “St. Peter’s”) in which the then St. Nicholas’ Church takes centre stage.