Great British Railway Journeys (2010–…): Season 1, Episode 11 - Swindon to Bristol - full transcript
In 1840, one man transformed travel in Britain.
His name was George Bradshaw,
and his railway guides inspired the Victorians
to take to the tracks.
Stop by stop, he told them where to travel,
what to see and where to stay.
Now, 170 years later,
I'm making four long journeys
across the length and breadth of the country
to see what remains of Bradshaw's Britain.
Ever since I was a kid
I've found it exciting to travel by train.
Whether rattling along the high-speed lines
or pottering along the single tracks,
there's something very special
about a railway journey.
Well, now I'm following Bradshaw's
19th-century guide to the railways
to find out how much
the railways changed Britain
and how much Britain has changed since.
Today I'll be finding out about free rail trips.
A whole town was going on holiday
at the same time.
Virtually, yes.
Virtually, the whole town
was coming to a standstill.
I'll be sampling the spa in Bath.
- What is the etiquette?
- Wallowing etiquette.
- Wallowing.
- Isn't this great for wallowing?
Yes.
I could think of various... You could deliver
a nasty blow to someone with one of those.
And I 7! be trying my hand at glass-blowing.
I'm very, very impressed.
I really am truly impressed.
All this week I'm following my Bradshaw's guide
to the West Country
along the Great Western Railway.
Stretching over 300 mites this was one of
the earliest passenger routes in England,
created by the great Victorian engineer
Isambard Kingdom Brunet.
It will take me through Devon and Cornwall
to the end of the line at Penzance.
Starting in Swindon, today I 7! cover
the first 40 miles through Bath to Bristol.
This route was nicknamed the Holiday Line,
because for the first time large numbers
of people could afford to travel by train.
Most people today take it for granted they will
get a holiday away from home at some time.
But before the railways
most people couldn't have dreamt of that.
And the change that occurred in Britain when
suddenly people could take a seaside holiday
must have been quite similar to the
package holiday revolution in our own time.
Nowadays people can go to Spain
or they can go to Thailand,
but in those days
to be able to go to Devon or to Cornwall,
it really changed people's lives.
This is Swindon.
In Bradshaw's day Swindon was the
headquarters of the Great Western Railway,
which built all its locomotives
in the town's colossal workshops.
Bradshaw described it as:
“One of the extraordinary products
of railway enterprise of the present age.
It's a colony of engineers and handicraft men. "
So these clearly are the old railway works.
Bradshaw was awe-struck by them,
they were so vast.
I think they're a bit smaller than they were,
but even so... they're pretty impressive.
This was the hub of the Great Western Railway,
and they attracted skilled people from all over
Britain to build and maintain the engines
for the Great Western Railway.
No wonder Bradshaw was bowled over.
Everyone in Swindon
seems to know about the works.
- How are you?
- Nice to see you.
I watch you on TV all the time,
I think you're quite good.
Thank you. Here we are doing something
about the railways.
- Oh, right.
- Is Swindon a railway town?
- It certainly is. This used to be all the works.
- Yes, I know.
- Quite a lot of it's gone. Is that right?
- Yeah, yeah.
Actually, your government,
Margaret Thatcher, closed most of it.
- And you don't live in one of these, do you?
- I don't, no.
This is the modern village
that was built for the railway workers.
The Great Western Railway Company
was a pioneering employer
and it needed thousands of workers,
so it bum them houses.
But the village does still look very good.
This side looks derelict, but that side looks good.
There used to be workshops along here,
but most of them have shut up now.
- I don't know who even rents it out any more.
- I'm going to have a potter about.
- Good, I look forward to seeing you on the telly.
- Nice to see you. Bye.
- Nice to meet you.
- Very nice to see you. Bye.
As we“ as decent houses
there were other perks tor the workers.
In 1848, the Great Western Railway
began to run free trains every July
for their employees to go on holiday.
It became known as Trip.
- Who's Ron and Mary?
- Hello.
Hi, Mary.
Friends Ron and Mary travelled on those trains
to Paignton almost every summer for 50 years.
- So what was Trip?
- A glorious holiday at the seaside.
The railway works' annual holidays.
We were closed and it was all a build-up
for going away on holiday to the seaside.
A whole town was going on holiday
at the same time.
Virtually, yes.
Virtually, the whole town
was coming to a standstill.
What did the railways workers pay
to go on these trains?
- Nothing. We had free travel.
- Free. Free.
Ron and Mary and most of their families
worked for the railways.
By 1900 the Swindon works employed
three-quarters of the town's population.
Soon almost 30,000 people
were taking Trip trains every year
to resorts all over the southwest.
Were you dressed up in smart clothing
for the trip?
- Yes.
- Oh, yes. Yes, you had to look your best.
And Sunday, even though
you were going down to the beach hut
you still had to be dressed Sunday-best.
Just tell me what it's like to travel in a train
in those days with a steam engine at the front.
- What was that like?
- Oh, lovely. Lovely.
They were so friendly, steam engines.
The rattle of the rails.
- There was always a tune, you know.
- Smoke coming in the windows?
- Oh, yes.
- Grit and din and smoke.
Within a few decades
the railways had turned quiet coastal villages
into bustling holiday destinations.
- What was the resort like?
- Wonderful.
- We had the same beach huts.
- Beach huts next to one another.
We would decorate it when it was her father's
birthday and when it was my mother's.
- Always a week?
- Well, sometimes a fortnight later on.
But previously we didn't get paid for
any holidays, you see, not until after the war.
When they came back from Trip
they used to call it the dry week,
because they had no pay, they couldn't drink.
So the fact you'd been away for a week
meant the following week wasn't paid.
- That's right. No money.
- That's right.
I mean, overall, working for the railway,
was it a good thing?
Ooh, yes.
If you died they'd take you away.
Yes, for your funeral.
A full service. Well, they always used to say,
didn't they, Ron, from the cradle to the grave?
Births, deaths and marriages.
Yes, right the way through.
It's been great talking to you.
Thank you very much.
The railways enabled the workers
to go on holiday to the coast.
They also helped ordinary Victorians
to become tourists
in places previously accessible only to the rich.
One of those attractions is 35 mites away.
So, next stop Bath.
For the next leg of my journey I'm following
Bradshaw's guide from Swindon to Bath Spa.
One section of the Great Western Railway,
Box Hill,
posed a particular challenge
for the line's engineer, Brunet.
The hill was too steep to run the railway over it,
so he decided to go straight through it.
This is the Box Tunnel.
A feat of engineering by Brunei
that Bradshaw was very impressed by.
He writes: “It's upwards of one mile
and three-quarters in length
through the solid heart
and immense mass of Box Hill.
It took 4,000 men almost four years
to dig through the limestone rock,
But when it was finished
it was the longest railway tunnel in the world.
And it caused some controversy.
Brunel had acquired an adversary,
a Doctor Dionysius Lardner.
And he said that if you travel through this tunnel
at the speeds they were going at, nearly 60mph,
the air would be sucked out of your body
and people would die.
And fear spread,
as it does with health scares today,
and so lots of people decided they would get off
the train before it entered the tunnel,
make the journey by road
and rejoin the train the other side.
But...
I seem to be doing fine.
This has to be one of the prettiest approaches
to any railway station in England.
I can see spires and terraces and church towers.
And lovely open spaces.
A magnificent city.
And I'm not alone. Bradshaw says:
“The View from the station is one calculated
to impress a stranger very favourably
With the importance of the city, so renowned
in the world of fashionable invalids. "
So, Bath. Straight away you're struck
by the very beautiful colour of stone.
But right here by the station is not the finest bit.
I want to find those crescents and terraces
I remember
and that Bradshaw waxes lyrical about.
It was the Georgian architecture of Bath
that so impressed Bradshaw.
He wrote of Bath: "Spacious streets, groves
and crescents lined with stately stone edifices
and intersected by squares and gardens,
complete a view of city grandeur
scarcely surpassed
by any other in the kingdom.
The gaieties of Bath
are celebrated all over Europe.
Bath's elegant streets were designed by
the architect John Wood in the 18th century.
His classic, uniform facades
gave simple terraced houses
the grandeur of stately homes.
In Bradshaw's day
Bath was the playground of high society,
but the railways changed a“ that.
For the first time the middle and lower classes
could afford to travel here
and sample what the wealthy
had been enjoying for centuries -
the spas.
This is one of what were three medieval baths.
There was the Hot Bath,
the King's Bath and the Cross Bath.
We'll go in and have a look at it.
Dr Roger Rolls is a GP and medical historian,
who's been studying the medicinal properties
of the waters.
It's a wonderful combination
of the old and the new, isn't it?
Oh, absolutely.
It's been restored very beautifully.
This is where the spring comes up.
Now that's a hot spring coming out
at that temperature from the ground.
It is quite warm. It's kind of blood temperature.
Body temperature. More than body temperature.
That's about 44 degrees.
- Many famous people come to this bath?
- Samuel Pepys used to come here.
He liked to get here early in the morning
at four o'clock,
because he didn't like the crowds later on.
But the most famous person who came here
was Mary of Modena,
who came in order to avail herself
of the property of the water
which was supposed to improve fertility
and fecundity.
Mary of Modena
was married to King James II of England.
They'd been trying to produce an heir
to the throne for 14 years.
She was successful in the following year,
that she gave birth to a son.
But no-one quite knows whether
it was the effect of the waters that did it
or the fact that there was mixed bathing
and er...
quite a sort of licentious attitude to bathing
at that time.
Now what about the whole business
of the magical waters of Bath?
Are there properties in this water
that make them curative?
Well, a lot of people thought there were.
The main reason for that was they thought
water could go through the skin,
through pores in the skin.
- That's been disproved.
- Has it?
One theory is that many of those with paralysis
that came to Bath were due to lead poisoning.
In the 18th century
nobody realised it was lead poisoning.
But by the time the railways came here,
it was well known.
What difference did the water make to that?
Some recent research that was done into
immersing people up to their necks
was able to show that if you have raised levels
of lead in your body
it's excreted more rapidly
if you immerse yourself...
- It's just kind of pressing...
- It's literally pressing.
- It makes your kidneys work harder.
- OK.
But whatever the reason was, people came here
and were happy cos they felt better.
They were very happy and came here in droves,
as they still do.
During the last century the baths' popularity
declined until they were closed in 1978.
But a few years ago, contemporary architects
gave the baths a multi-million pound renovation.
"Fashionable invalids",
as Bradshaw called them and many others
are flocking back to the baths
from an over the country.
Brilliant.
Fantastic.
Lift straight out into an open-air pool.
This is obviously very new.
This is by the architect Nicholas Grimshaw.
But I suppose it's a modern interpretation
of what it's been like to take the waters in Bath
over many centuries.
People are drawn here
by the warm waters all year round,
just as they were in Bradshaw's day
over 150 years ago.
- It's fantastic. Such a warm bath, isn't it?
- Yes.
And somehow to know that it's natural.
It's quite hard to get your heard around that bit.
That it's come out of the earth
at this temperature?
But talk about a pool with a view. Look at this.
- That's half the attraction.
- It's fantastic.
You've been when it's been raining,
haven't you?
And it's still open, still warm.
What's the etiquette, then? Nobody's swimming
up and down, nobody's doing lengths.
- What is the etiquette?
- Wallowing etiquette.
- Wallowing.
- Isn't this great for wallowing?
- Yes!
I could think of various... You could deliver
a nasty blow to someone with one of those.
I guess so!
I do feel rejuvenated by that bath.
But I think it was not just the warm water,
but also the sun.
And that wonderful, unforgettable view of Bath.
When the wealthy came to take the waters
here in the 18th and 19th centuries,
they also needed a place to stay.
The Royal Crescent, Bath. Magnificent.
Don't you love its grandeur,
its elegance, its open spaces?
There's this amazing view.
The Royal Crescent never changes.
It was like this when I was last here.
But I was quite a bit smaller.
And of course your memories
are never exactly right.
I don't remember it being so open.
I don't remember the greenery.
It is...it's magnificent. You don't tire of it.
The Duke of York lived here in the middle
of the Royal Crescent in the 18th century,
and luckily for me
his house has been turned into a hotel.
- Welcome to the hotel.
- Thank you. I've come to stay.
- Only one night, I'm afraid.
- I'm sure we can talk you into more.
Head concierge Mark Hanks
has worked at the hotel for the last 22 years.
Is this really the Grand Old Duke of York's?
Yes, the Grand Old Duke of York frequented
Bath and stayed in this house for some time.
The one who marched his men
to the top of the hill?
And that's the hill behind here
we can see from your room.
- It's really lovely. Thank you.
- Absolute pleasure, sir.
- I'll just place the case for you.
- Thank you.
Enjoy your stay and if there's anything else
you need, give us a call, sir.
- Thank you very much.
- Pleasure.
I've hit the jackpot.
After a night's sleep in a bed fit for a king,
or a duke at least,
I'm off on the third leg of my journey.
Today I'm following my Bradshaw's railway
guide from Bath to Bristol, just 12 miles away.
These days it's easy to plan your route by train,
but when Bradshaw was first writing
it was a real difficulty.
If this were before 1840
I would now be resetting my watch
because the time in Bristol
is ten minutes different from London,
being that much further west.
Now, for Brunel, with his fast-moving
steam trains this was a real problem.
How do you create a timetable
when every city is on a different time?
And so he introduced a standardised time,
a railway time,
so that notionally the time in Bristol and London
would be the same.
The origins of the time zones
that we have today.
Bradshaw used railway time,
also known as London time,
when compiling his timetables in the 18403.
He convinced an the other railway companies
to follow suit.
Within ten years the whole country
was in a single time zone.
Bristol Temple Meads is a fantastic station.
It's got this enormous span.
It's classic Victorian railway architecture.
You see it all over Britain and the world.
But this isn't the original station at Bristol.
Brunel's terminus,
the one Bradshaw would have arrived at,
and the model for many future designs,
is just next door.
I can't believe this.
One of the great wonders of railway architecture,
of historic railway architecture,
is behind this really unimpressive door.
And just look at this, built in the 18303.
This enormous span. This was technology
beyond belief to build a span like this.
The first time that passengers and trains
had been put together under a single roof,
under a single shed.
The design, known as hammerbeam,
is supported by beams on each side
rather than pillars.
And that leaves the floor space clear to allow for
the free flow of crowds and in this case, trains.
Hammerbeam roof- it's quite funny for me, this.
Apparently, this is the widest hammerbeam roof
in the world.
But I'd always been told the widest one
was in Parliament,
and actually it does look like the roof
in the Westminster Hall in Parliament.
It's built in the same manner.
And you can see
where the trains would have come in,
and you can see where people
would have stood on the platform.
They had to climb down from the platform
and wander across to the other lines.
You didn't get a platform for every train.
It's an absolutely fantastic piece of architecture.
But nobody gets to see it.
Brunei's passenger shed is the oldest surviving
railway terminus in the world,
but now it's sadly neglected.
I'm looking at the front of Brunel's engine shed
and it was clearly once a terrific facade.
It's, of course, fake Gothic.
But the building has completely gone to pot.
It's like seeing an old relative
in an old people's home.
Really sad, abandoned, neglected.
I don't suppose anybody
ever gives it a second look.
And yet it's a really important piece
of national heritage.
Really upsetting.
The Bristol of my 18603 guidebook was a global
city with trade links throughout the Empire.
Goods made here were exported
from the man-made inland docks
as far afield as North America
and the West Indies.
50 Bristol was clearly a very important port.
But Bradshaw also lists, as he always does
for cities...what was made here.
Bristol, obviously, was quite important
in manufacturing.
"The chief manufactures" it says, “are engines,
glass, hats pottery, soap and brushes."
Well, most of those industries are gone by now.
Long since gone.
One trade, though, has been revived.
Bristol Blue Glass.
- James?
- Hello.
I'm Michael.
James Adlington and his family started
their Blue Glass company 20 years ago
in a bid to bring back the lost an.
Why is Bristol associated with Blue Glass?
A chap called William Cool-(worthy
discovered cobalt in Germany
and the Bristol Merchant Venturers
bought the monopoly on cobalt.
One of the glassmakers grabbed
some cobalt and threw it into their lead glass.
- With a great result.
- With a great result. A really vibrant blue.
- These are what?
- These are rolling pins.
They're triggers. They'd sell them to the sailors
who were going off in the ships.
And they would give them to their wives,
and their wives would hang them in the window.
A lucky charm.
A lucky charm
to make sure they come back safely.
- And this stuff is still blown, is it?
- Yes.
- Do you mind if I have a look?
- Yeah, of course.
It can take up to seven years to team
how to make glass as the Victorians did.
80 James is showing me
how to make a simple tumbler.
You sit down and I'll bring that back to you.
Pick up your tools again.
- Which one? This one?
- Yes, that one. That's it.
The furnaces reach volcanic temperatures.
They're used to make the molten glass
which can then be gathered onto the blow pipe.
Good hard blow now.
Yes. That's it.
And don't put it all in there. Get it onto
the pick and just let it fall on centre again.
Voilà.
So I'll put into an oven
until about five o'clock tonight.
Then it gets turned off
and it's allowed to cool down overnight.
What would happen if the glass
cooled immediately?
If you just left it on the side...it would just crack.
- Would it?
- Yeah.
- The cooling process would be too brutal for it.
- I really enjoyed that.
Thank you. I'm very, very impressed.
I really am truly impressed.
In Bradshaw's time it wasn't just glass
passing through the docks.
Working with the Great Western Railway,
Brunel developed an integrated
international travel service.
Passengers could take the train
from London to Bristol,
then continue to New York
on the company's steam ship,
the SS Great Britain, also designed by him.
- Hi. You're Tom?
- Hi, Michael.
- Good to see you. How are you?
- Very good, thank you.
Ferry operator Tom Axon is taking me to see it.
How far is it from Temple Meads Station
to the dock from which
the transatlantic steamers would have left?
Well, it's just over a mile
to where the 55 Great Britain was built.
In 1843 the 88 Great Britain was constructed in
the dockyards of the Great Western Railway.
Brunel's design
was the first steam-powered ship in the world.
He managed to persuade the bosses to invest
in a super-ship made out of wrought iron
to cross the ocean and that was unheard of.
We'll be able to see the 55 Great Britain
in a moment?
Yeah, that's it there.
The 88 Great Britain was built for
the transatlantic luxury passenger trade,
carrying just 252 travellers
in first and second class.
But the service didn't make money.
She was eventually converted to carry three
times that number on emigrant runs to Australia.
So the 55 Great Britain, it's an iron-built ship,
it's got propellers,
it's also got six masts - why?
For efficiency. If there's a high wind blowing
he saw a need to harness that as well.
It wouldn't have been able
to get to Australia from Britain...
With the fuel? No, no.
So it's a hybrid.
It's what we would call a hybrid today.
It uses carbon fuels
and it uses natural resources as well.
Yeah.
- Thank you very much.
- It's been a pleasure.
- A real pleasure to meet you. Bye-bye.
- Bye.
Seeing the scale of industry here is a reminder
of what an important port Bristol was.
Up until the late-19th century the city had routes
to India, the Americas and Australia.
Really impressed by the Victorians' ambition.
Their vast stations and steam ships
and exports to the world.
But, of course, when Bradshaw was writing
the British Empire was near its peak.
Much of the world map was coloured pink.
No wonder the Victorians thought globally.
Bradshaw's handbooks
documented a new era in British travel.
The infrastructure built by the Victorians
we still use massively today.
But the position they gave Britain in the world
slipped away gradually in the decades since.
Next time I'll be finding out how the railways
created a national delicacy.
The train was perfect. You could put
a strawberry on there and it was so smooth.
And it would go all the way to the north
without being damaged.
I'll be asking
what our ancestors got up to in Cheddar.
The bones of three adults and two children
with cut marks to drop the jaw out
is all evidence of cannibalism.
And I'll be exploring one of Britain's oldest piers.
The other thing, of course,
with piers in their early days was
it was somewhere you could promenade.
In other words, you could be seen.
His name was George Bradshaw,
and his railway guides inspired the Victorians
to take to the tracks.
Stop by stop, he told them where to travel,
what to see and where to stay.
Now, 170 years later,
I'm making four long journeys
across the length and breadth of the country
to see what remains of Bradshaw's Britain.
Ever since I was a kid
I've found it exciting to travel by train.
Whether rattling along the high-speed lines
or pottering along the single tracks,
there's something very special
about a railway journey.
Well, now I'm following Bradshaw's
19th-century guide to the railways
to find out how much
the railways changed Britain
and how much Britain has changed since.
Today I'll be finding out about free rail trips.
A whole town was going on holiday
at the same time.
Virtually, yes.
Virtually, the whole town
was coming to a standstill.
I'll be sampling the spa in Bath.
- What is the etiquette?
- Wallowing etiquette.
- Wallowing.
- Isn't this great for wallowing?
Yes.
I could think of various... You could deliver
a nasty blow to someone with one of those.
And I 7! be trying my hand at glass-blowing.
I'm very, very impressed.
I really am truly impressed.
All this week I'm following my Bradshaw's guide
to the West Country
along the Great Western Railway.
Stretching over 300 mites this was one of
the earliest passenger routes in England,
created by the great Victorian engineer
Isambard Kingdom Brunet.
It will take me through Devon and Cornwall
to the end of the line at Penzance.
Starting in Swindon, today I 7! cover
the first 40 miles through Bath to Bristol.
This route was nicknamed the Holiday Line,
because for the first time large numbers
of people could afford to travel by train.
Most people today take it for granted they will
get a holiday away from home at some time.
But before the railways
most people couldn't have dreamt of that.
And the change that occurred in Britain when
suddenly people could take a seaside holiday
must have been quite similar to the
package holiday revolution in our own time.
Nowadays people can go to Spain
or they can go to Thailand,
but in those days
to be able to go to Devon or to Cornwall,
it really changed people's lives.
This is Swindon.
In Bradshaw's day Swindon was the
headquarters of the Great Western Railway,
which built all its locomotives
in the town's colossal workshops.
Bradshaw described it as:
“One of the extraordinary products
of railway enterprise of the present age.
It's a colony of engineers and handicraft men. "
So these clearly are the old railway works.
Bradshaw was awe-struck by them,
they were so vast.
I think they're a bit smaller than they were,
but even so... they're pretty impressive.
This was the hub of the Great Western Railway,
and they attracted skilled people from all over
Britain to build and maintain the engines
for the Great Western Railway.
No wonder Bradshaw was bowled over.
Everyone in Swindon
seems to know about the works.
- How are you?
- Nice to see you.
I watch you on TV all the time,
I think you're quite good.
Thank you. Here we are doing something
about the railways.
- Oh, right.
- Is Swindon a railway town?
- It certainly is. This used to be all the works.
- Yes, I know.
- Quite a lot of it's gone. Is that right?
- Yeah, yeah.
Actually, your government,
Margaret Thatcher, closed most of it.
- And you don't live in one of these, do you?
- I don't, no.
This is the modern village
that was built for the railway workers.
The Great Western Railway Company
was a pioneering employer
and it needed thousands of workers,
so it bum them houses.
But the village does still look very good.
This side looks derelict, but that side looks good.
There used to be workshops along here,
but most of them have shut up now.
- I don't know who even rents it out any more.
- I'm going to have a potter about.
- Good, I look forward to seeing you on the telly.
- Nice to see you. Bye.
- Nice to meet you.
- Very nice to see you. Bye.
As we“ as decent houses
there were other perks tor the workers.
In 1848, the Great Western Railway
began to run free trains every July
for their employees to go on holiday.
It became known as Trip.
- Who's Ron and Mary?
- Hello.
Hi, Mary.
Friends Ron and Mary travelled on those trains
to Paignton almost every summer for 50 years.
- So what was Trip?
- A glorious holiday at the seaside.
The railway works' annual holidays.
We were closed and it was all a build-up
for going away on holiday to the seaside.
A whole town was going on holiday
at the same time.
Virtually, yes.
Virtually, the whole town
was coming to a standstill.
What did the railways workers pay
to go on these trains?
- Nothing. We had free travel.
- Free. Free.
Ron and Mary and most of their families
worked for the railways.
By 1900 the Swindon works employed
three-quarters of the town's population.
Soon almost 30,000 people
were taking Trip trains every year
to resorts all over the southwest.
Were you dressed up in smart clothing
for the trip?
- Yes.
- Oh, yes. Yes, you had to look your best.
And Sunday, even though
you were going down to the beach hut
you still had to be dressed Sunday-best.
Just tell me what it's like to travel in a train
in those days with a steam engine at the front.
- What was that like?
- Oh, lovely. Lovely.
They were so friendly, steam engines.
The rattle of the rails.
- There was always a tune, you know.
- Smoke coming in the windows?
- Oh, yes.
- Grit and din and smoke.
Within a few decades
the railways had turned quiet coastal villages
into bustling holiday destinations.
- What was the resort like?
- Wonderful.
- We had the same beach huts.
- Beach huts next to one another.
We would decorate it when it was her father's
birthday and when it was my mother's.
- Always a week?
- Well, sometimes a fortnight later on.
But previously we didn't get paid for
any holidays, you see, not until after the war.
When they came back from Trip
they used to call it the dry week,
because they had no pay, they couldn't drink.
So the fact you'd been away for a week
meant the following week wasn't paid.
- That's right. No money.
- That's right.
I mean, overall, working for the railway,
was it a good thing?
Ooh, yes.
If you died they'd take you away.
Yes, for your funeral.
A full service. Well, they always used to say,
didn't they, Ron, from the cradle to the grave?
Births, deaths and marriages.
Yes, right the way through.
It's been great talking to you.
Thank you very much.
The railways enabled the workers
to go on holiday to the coast.
They also helped ordinary Victorians
to become tourists
in places previously accessible only to the rich.
One of those attractions is 35 mites away.
So, next stop Bath.
For the next leg of my journey I'm following
Bradshaw's guide from Swindon to Bath Spa.
One section of the Great Western Railway,
Box Hill,
posed a particular challenge
for the line's engineer, Brunet.
The hill was too steep to run the railway over it,
so he decided to go straight through it.
This is the Box Tunnel.
A feat of engineering by Brunei
that Bradshaw was very impressed by.
He writes: “It's upwards of one mile
and three-quarters in length
through the solid heart
and immense mass of Box Hill.
It took 4,000 men almost four years
to dig through the limestone rock,
But when it was finished
it was the longest railway tunnel in the world.
And it caused some controversy.
Brunel had acquired an adversary,
a Doctor Dionysius Lardner.
And he said that if you travel through this tunnel
at the speeds they were going at, nearly 60mph,
the air would be sucked out of your body
and people would die.
And fear spread,
as it does with health scares today,
and so lots of people decided they would get off
the train before it entered the tunnel,
make the journey by road
and rejoin the train the other side.
But...
I seem to be doing fine.
This has to be one of the prettiest approaches
to any railway station in England.
I can see spires and terraces and church towers.
And lovely open spaces.
A magnificent city.
And I'm not alone. Bradshaw says:
“The View from the station is one calculated
to impress a stranger very favourably
With the importance of the city, so renowned
in the world of fashionable invalids. "
So, Bath. Straight away you're struck
by the very beautiful colour of stone.
But right here by the station is not the finest bit.
I want to find those crescents and terraces
I remember
and that Bradshaw waxes lyrical about.
It was the Georgian architecture of Bath
that so impressed Bradshaw.
He wrote of Bath: "Spacious streets, groves
and crescents lined with stately stone edifices
and intersected by squares and gardens,
complete a view of city grandeur
scarcely surpassed
by any other in the kingdom.
The gaieties of Bath
are celebrated all over Europe.
Bath's elegant streets were designed by
the architect John Wood in the 18th century.
His classic, uniform facades
gave simple terraced houses
the grandeur of stately homes.
In Bradshaw's day
Bath was the playground of high society,
but the railways changed a“ that.
For the first time the middle and lower classes
could afford to travel here
and sample what the wealthy
had been enjoying for centuries -
the spas.
This is one of what were three medieval baths.
There was the Hot Bath,
the King's Bath and the Cross Bath.
We'll go in and have a look at it.
Dr Roger Rolls is a GP and medical historian,
who's been studying the medicinal properties
of the waters.
It's a wonderful combination
of the old and the new, isn't it?
Oh, absolutely.
It's been restored very beautifully.
This is where the spring comes up.
Now that's a hot spring coming out
at that temperature from the ground.
It is quite warm. It's kind of blood temperature.
Body temperature. More than body temperature.
That's about 44 degrees.
- Many famous people come to this bath?
- Samuel Pepys used to come here.
He liked to get here early in the morning
at four o'clock,
because he didn't like the crowds later on.
But the most famous person who came here
was Mary of Modena,
who came in order to avail herself
of the property of the water
which was supposed to improve fertility
and fecundity.
Mary of Modena
was married to King James II of England.
They'd been trying to produce an heir
to the throne for 14 years.
She was successful in the following year,
that she gave birth to a son.
But no-one quite knows whether
it was the effect of the waters that did it
or the fact that there was mixed bathing
and er...
quite a sort of licentious attitude to bathing
at that time.
Now what about the whole business
of the magical waters of Bath?
Are there properties in this water
that make them curative?
Well, a lot of people thought there were.
The main reason for that was they thought
water could go through the skin,
through pores in the skin.
- That's been disproved.
- Has it?
One theory is that many of those with paralysis
that came to Bath were due to lead poisoning.
In the 18th century
nobody realised it was lead poisoning.
But by the time the railways came here,
it was well known.
What difference did the water make to that?
Some recent research that was done into
immersing people up to their necks
was able to show that if you have raised levels
of lead in your body
it's excreted more rapidly
if you immerse yourself...
- It's just kind of pressing...
- It's literally pressing.
- It makes your kidneys work harder.
- OK.
But whatever the reason was, people came here
and were happy cos they felt better.
They were very happy and came here in droves,
as they still do.
During the last century the baths' popularity
declined until they were closed in 1978.
But a few years ago, contemporary architects
gave the baths a multi-million pound renovation.
"Fashionable invalids",
as Bradshaw called them and many others
are flocking back to the baths
from an over the country.
Brilliant.
Fantastic.
Lift straight out into an open-air pool.
This is obviously very new.
This is by the architect Nicholas Grimshaw.
But I suppose it's a modern interpretation
of what it's been like to take the waters in Bath
over many centuries.
People are drawn here
by the warm waters all year round,
just as they were in Bradshaw's day
over 150 years ago.
- It's fantastic. Such a warm bath, isn't it?
- Yes.
And somehow to know that it's natural.
It's quite hard to get your heard around that bit.
That it's come out of the earth
at this temperature?
But talk about a pool with a view. Look at this.
- That's half the attraction.
- It's fantastic.
You've been when it's been raining,
haven't you?
And it's still open, still warm.
What's the etiquette, then? Nobody's swimming
up and down, nobody's doing lengths.
- What is the etiquette?
- Wallowing etiquette.
- Wallowing.
- Isn't this great for wallowing?
- Yes!
I could think of various... You could deliver
a nasty blow to someone with one of those.
I guess so!
I do feel rejuvenated by that bath.
But I think it was not just the warm water,
but also the sun.
And that wonderful, unforgettable view of Bath.
When the wealthy came to take the waters
here in the 18th and 19th centuries,
they also needed a place to stay.
The Royal Crescent, Bath. Magnificent.
Don't you love its grandeur,
its elegance, its open spaces?
There's this amazing view.
The Royal Crescent never changes.
It was like this when I was last here.
But I was quite a bit smaller.
And of course your memories
are never exactly right.
I don't remember it being so open.
I don't remember the greenery.
It is...it's magnificent. You don't tire of it.
The Duke of York lived here in the middle
of the Royal Crescent in the 18th century,
and luckily for me
his house has been turned into a hotel.
- Welcome to the hotel.
- Thank you. I've come to stay.
- Only one night, I'm afraid.
- I'm sure we can talk you into more.
Head concierge Mark Hanks
has worked at the hotel for the last 22 years.
Is this really the Grand Old Duke of York's?
Yes, the Grand Old Duke of York frequented
Bath and stayed in this house for some time.
The one who marched his men
to the top of the hill?
And that's the hill behind here
we can see from your room.
- It's really lovely. Thank you.
- Absolute pleasure, sir.
- I'll just place the case for you.
- Thank you.
Enjoy your stay and if there's anything else
you need, give us a call, sir.
- Thank you very much.
- Pleasure.
I've hit the jackpot.
After a night's sleep in a bed fit for a king,
or a duke at least,
I'm off on the third leg of my journey.
Today I'm following my Bradshaw's railway
guide from Bath to Bristol, just 12 miles away.
These days it's easy to plan your route by train,
but when Bradshaw was first writing
it was a real difficulty.
If this were before 1840
I would now be resetting my watch
because the time in Bristol
is ten minutes different from London,
being that much further west.
Now, for Brunel, with his fast-moving
steam trains this was a real problem.
How do you create a timetable
when every city is on a different time?
And so he introduced a standardised time,
a railway time,
so that notionally the time in Bristol and London
would be the same.
The origins of the time zones
that we have today.
Bradshaw used railway time,
also known as London time,
when compiling his timetables in the 18403.
He convinced an the other railway companies
to follow suit.
Within ten years the whole country
was in a single time zone.
Bristol Temple Meads is a fantastic station.
It's got this enormous span.
It's classic Victorian railway architecture.
You see it all over Britain and the world.
But this isn't the original station at Bristol.
Brunel's terminus,
the one Bradshaw would have arrived at,
and the model for many future designs,
is just next door.
I can't believe this.
One of the great wonders of railway architecture,
of historic railway architecture,
is behind this really unimpressive door.
And just look at this, built in the 18303.
This enormous span. This was technology
beyond belief to build a span like this.
The first time that passengers and trains
had been put together under a single roof,
under a single shed.
The design, known as hammerbeam,
is supported by beams on each side
rather than pillars.
And that leaves the floor space clear to allow for
the free flow of crowds and in this case, trains.
Hammerbeam roof- it's quite funny for me, this.
Apparently, this is the widest hammerbeam roof
in the world.
But I'd always been told the widest one
was in Parliament,
and actually it does look like the roof
in the Westminster Hall in Parliament.
It's built in the same manner.
And you can see
where the trains would have come in,
and you can see where people
would have stood on the platform.
They had to climb down from the platform
and wander across to the other lines.
You didn't get a platform for every train.
It's an absolutely fantastic piece of architecture.
But nobody gets to see it.
Brunei's passenger shed is the oldest surviving
railway terminus in the world,
but now it's sadly neglected.
I'm looking at the front of Brunel's engine shed
and it was clearly once a terrific facade.
It's, of course, fake Gothic.
But the building has completely gone to pot.
It's like seeing an old relative
in an old people's home.
Really sad, abandoned, neglected.
I don't suppose anybody
ever gives it a second look.
And yet it's a really important piece
of national heritage.
Really upsetting.
The Bristol of my 18603 guidebook was a global
city with trade links throughout the Empire.
Goods made here were exported
from the man-made inland docks
as far afield as North America
and the West Indies.
50 Bristol was clearly a very important port.
But Bradshaw also lists, as he always does
for cities...what was made here.
Bristol, obviously, was quite important
in manufacturing.
"The chief manufactures" it says, “are engines,
glass, hats pottery, soap and brushes."
Well, most of those industries are gone by now.
Long since gone.
One trade, though, has been revived.
Bristol Blue Glass.
- James?
- Hello.
I'm Michael.
James Adlington and his family started
their Blue Glass company 20 years ago
in a bid to bring back the lost an.
Why is Bristol associated with Blue Glass?
A chap called William Cool-(worthy
discovered cobalt in Germany
and the Bristol Merchant Venturers
bought the monopoly on cobalt.
One of the glassmakers grabbed
some cobalt and threw it into their lead glass.
- With a great result.
- With a great result. A really vibrant blue.
- These are what?
- These are rolling pins.
They're triggers. They'd sell them to the sailors
who were going off in the ships.
And they would give them to their wives,
and their wives would hang them in the window.
A lucky charm.
A lucky charm
to make sure they come back safely.
- And this stuff is still blown, is it?
- Yes.
- Do you mind if I have a look?
- Yeah, of course.
It can take up to seven years to team
how to make glass as the Victorians did.
80 James is showing me
how to make a simple tumbler.
You sit down and I'll bring that back to you.
Pick up your tools again.
- Which one? This one?
- Yes, that one. That's it.
The furnaces reach volcanic temperatures.
They're used to make the molten glass
which can then be gathered onto the blow pipe.
Good hard blow now.
Yes. That's it.
And don't put it all in there. Get it onto
the pick and just let it fall on centre again.
Voilà.
So I'll put into an oven
until about five o'clock tonight.
Then it gets turned off
and it's allowed to cool down overnight.
What would happen if the glass
cooled immediately?
If you just left it on the side...it would just crack.
- Would it?
- Yeah.
- The cooling process would be too brutal for it.
- I really enjoyed that.
Thank you. I'm very, very impressed.
I really am truly impressed.
In Bradshaw's time it wasn't just glass
passing through the docks.
Working with the Great Western Railway,
Brunel developed an integrated
international travel service.
Passengers could take the train
from London to Bristol,
then continue to New York
on the company's steam ship,
the SS Great Britain, also designed by him.
- Hi. You're Tom?
- Hi, Michael.
- Good to see you. How are you?
- Very good, thank you.
Ferry operator Tom Axon is taking me to see it.
How far is it from Temple Meads Station
to the dock from which
the transatlantic steamers would have left?
Well, it's just over a mile
to where the 55 Great Britain was built.
In 1843 the 88 Great Britain was constructed in
the dockyards of the Great Western Railway.
Brunel's design
was the first steam-powered ship in the world.
He managed to persuade the bosses to invest
in a super-ship made out of wrought iron
to cross the ocean and that was unheard of.
We'll be able to see the 55 Great Britain
in a moment?
Yeah, that's it there.
The 88 Great Britain was built for
the transatlantic luxury passenger trade,
carrying just 252 travellers
in first and second class.
But the service didn't make money.
She was eventually converted to carry three
times that number on emigrant runs to Australia.
So the 55 Great Britain, it's an iron-built ship,
it's got propellers,
it's also got six masts - why?
For efficiency. If there's a high wind blowing
he saw a need to harness that as well.
It wouldn't have been able
to get to Australia from Britain...
With the fuel? No, no.
So it's a hybrid.
It's what we would call a hybrid today.
It uses carbon fuels
and it uses natural resources as well.
Yeah.
- Thank you very much.
- It's been a pleasure.
- A real pleasure to meet you. Bye-bye.
- Bye.
Seeing the scale of industry here is a reminder
of what an important port Bristol was.
Up until the late-19th century the city had routes
to India, the Americas and Australia.
Really impressed by the Victorians' ambition.
Their vast stations and steam ships
and exports to the world.
But, of course, when Bradshaw was writing
the British Empire was near its peak.
Much of the world map was coloured pink.
No wonder the Victorians thought globally.
Bradshaw's handbooks
documented a new era in British travel.
The infrastructure built by the Victorians
we still use massively today.
But the position they gave Britain in the world
slipped away gradually in the decades since.
Next time I'll be finding out how the railways
created a national delicacy.
The train was perfect. You could put
a strawberry on there and it was so smooth.
And it would go all the way to the north
without being damaged.
I'll be asking
what our ancestors got up to in Cheddar.
The bones of three adults and two children
with cut marks to drop the jaw out
is all evidence of cannibalism.
And I'll be exploring one of Britain's oldest piers.
The other thing, of course,
with piers in their early days was
it was somewhere you could promenade.
In other words, you could be seen.