Manchester Sheffield and Lincolnshire Coat of Arms

Whilst helping a friend clear out his Grandads house and workshop, I was shown this piece of board and asked if it was anything I knew about. It is a coat of arms of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire railway, hiding under quite a thick layer of varnish. The board behind seems to be a separate piece, the thick varnish is not applied to it. The Coat of Arms itself is about 1mm (40 thou) thick. This seems too thick to be a transfer, but not thick enough to be a cut out from a piece of panel. In addition, the shape of it is very neat. The only thing I can think of that it might be is some kind of table mat?
My mates Grandad was an incredibly talented model engineer, having built some beautiful steam engines and aero engines, including a Championship Cup winning A4.
Can anyone shed any further light on this? Apologies for the poor quality photo, I'm no photographer and my camera is pretty basic.

 

No light to shed, sorry, but, I have seen carpets bearing railway company crests and other floor coverings with imprinted logos, so could this be a vintage piece of lino that has been mounted on a board to preserve it?

 

I've given the coat of arms a light clean up with T cut, and found a better camera and some sunlight. These photos are a bit clearer. You can see the details. I tried carefully scraping some of the varnish off to see more clearly in a couple of tiny areas, it does seem to be slightly softened by methylated spirits but I don't want to risk damaging it. The material does look like some kind of linoleum/leatherette, but again I don't want to do anything to damage it.