At a time when horse-drawn carriages still dominated the streetscape, well-to-do citizens gathered here on a Bank Holiday to get a taste of the future. For the price of 2 shillings and 6 pence, thousands of visitors arrived by special steam train from Waterloo Station to admire roaring engines and daring feats of aviation.

The bold typography and the dynamic illustration of the driver behind the wheel capture the sheer excitement of a new, mechanical era.

The driver in the centre

The large, bold letters (such as "BROOKLANDS" and "2/6") were usually printed with wooden type (wood type) in that period (early 20th century). For large poster letters, wood was lighter and cheaper than lead.

If you look closely at the poster, you can see that the red-grey image of the driver with the steering wheel is printed on a separate white piece of paper and then pasted over the top. This was done to save time and costs.

The London printing house

Williams & Strahan, Printers, was a well-known London printing house. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries they were known for printing this kind of commercial ephemera, such as posters for circuses, fairs, theatres, musical performances and, of course, sporting events at the Brooklands circuit.