Great British Railway Journeys (2010–…): Season 1, Episode 8 - Windermere to Kendal - 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.
Using my 19th-century Bradshaw's guide,
I'm continuing my journey north,
into Cumbria,
to the Lake District,
where the arrival of the railways
was at first extremely controversial.
But like Victorian travellers before me,
I'm looking forward to spectacular scenery.
On my journey today, I'll be finding out
why Victorian tourists flocked to Windermere.
Roger, what a lovely spread.
And this is the height of elegance.
I 7! be learning a thing or two about Kendal.
Kendal mint cake, please.
We don't stock Kendal mint cake.
It isn't actually a cake.
- Well, that has thrown me.
- I'm so sorry.
And I'll be finding out how the railways
changed farming life.
You would bring all that abundance of food
to the population to sell,
and I think railways
have changed farming considerably.
I'm almost half way through my journey north
from Preston to Scotland.
After a detour along the Settle to Carlisle route,
I'm rejoining the West Coast mainline
before crossing the border
and heading for my mother's hometown
of Kirkcaldy.
Today I'm leaving Garsdale
and travelling across Cumbria to Windermere,
before continuing to Kendal.
Bradshaw recommends various routes
around the Lake District
depending on how much time the visitor has.
So I'm following his two-day tour,
which includes a cruise on the lake
and a visit to Grasmere.
The first thing you notice about the Lake District
is that it is intensely green.
And you don't get that colour
without a lot of water.
On a day like today,
it's tempting to think that the Lake District
is best viewed
from the warmth of a railway carriage.
But I do need to get out at Windermere.
In the early 19th century,
poets like Wordsworth and Coleridge
made the Lake District popular
amongst the educated eiite.
When the railway arrived at Windermere
in 1847,
large numbers of ordinary people
began coming here too.
The railway company even changed the name
of the station from Birthwaite to Windermere
to attract more visitors.
I'm looking for the view
that Bradshaw says is really rather impressive.
"From Windermere Station,
the lake appears in view,
with its beautiful islands
and grassy well-wooded fells round its borders.“
But clearly this isn't the railway station
that was here in Bradshaw's time.
And my guess is that it's that thing
that is now apparently a supermarket.
The original station is next door,
and this is where Bradshaw
and those early tourists would have arrived.
Morning. I'm assuming that this used to be
the railway station. Is that right?
This was the terminus of
the Kendal to Windermere line.
- Lovely building.
- It is. It's grade II listed.
Ah. My 19th century guide says,
when I arrive at Windermere Station,
I will have a wonderful view of the lake.
You don't get it from the new station.
Any idea whether I can get it from behind here?
You won't get it from behind here.
Oh, dear. It seems more difficult than I thought.
- But I'm going to keep trying. Thank you.
- OK.
If there's any view, it's going to be from here.
No. Nothing.
With all this new building here,
you just can't see the lake.
Which is a pity, really, because otherwise
this would be one of the great views
from an English railway station.
Good morning.
- How are you?
- I'm very well.
- I recognise the face.
- It's lovely to see you.
I'm using an old guide book
and apparently there used to be a lovely view
from the railway station of the lake.
Oh, yes, there did. In the old days, there did.
But it's just the general build-up.
Because the numbers have increased, they've
had to extend the facilities, haven't they?
And this used to be just a field over here.
- This car park?
- More or less.
You could see the lake from here quite easily.
It's incredible, the number of people
that do come here.
How do you feel about that?
Do you welcome them
- or are you a bit upset at the way it's changed?
- I feel pleased for the business people.
But not being a business person myself,
we keep out of the way.
The arrival of the railways in the Lake District
was hugely controversial.
At the time, the locals feared
for their beautiful countryside.
150 years later,
Windermere has indeed become so bum up,
I need to get right out of the town
to get a glimpse of its most famous attraction.
Now at last I've got the view that I was promised
from the railway station
of Lake Windermere spread out before me,
with its islands, with the woodlands
coming down to the water's edge,
and still actually quite recognisable
from the picture that appears in Bradshaw's
150 years ago.
As the trains brought ever more visitors,
the railway companies began to provide
an integrated steamboat service
to take the tourists across the take.
The Victorian booking office where you could
purchase tickets is still here,
although it doesn't look much like one today.
- Could I have a cup of coffee, please?
- You can indeed.
I believe this building used to be
a railway booking office.
- Is that right?
- Yes, it did, a long time ago.
It was built in 1858 by the Kendal
And Windermere Railway company
and leased to a John Garnett,
who was a printer and post-master general
for Windermere.
He printed all the railway tickets for the steam
trains and for the steamers on the lake.
So you could get tickets for a steam train
and a steamboat all from this place?
Yes, that's right.
I'm really pleased. I've found a lot of people here
know their local history. It's really nice to know.
- Would that be a pound?
- A pound, please.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
You never told me that.
(Laughter)
The steamboats were very popular,
and no wonder.
As Bradshaw says, “The lake itself should be
seen from the water as we“ as the shores
to take in all its beauties."
Day one of my Bradshaw mini-tour
suggests a trip out on the lake.
The most well-to-do Victorian visitors
hired private steamboats
to enjoy the views and take afternoon tea.
And We managed to find one that's still working.
Roger, I can't believe it. I have never seen
such a beautiful vessel in my life.
- It is nice, isn't it?
- It's lovely.
And, of course, smelling of steam
like all the steam engines I've seen recently.
This is how they should smell, isn't it?
- Just shove it in, Roger?
- Yes.
Roger Mallinson takes people onto the water
in his 100-year-old boat, Shamrock,
the last steam-powered cruiser on Windermere.
Roger, I'm using this 150-year-old guide book
and of course it talks about
going out on the lake.
Now, would this sort of steam launch
have been available 150 years ago?
150?
Not this class, no. An earlier version.
- An earlier version?
- Yes.
Every detail on this boat is beautifully kept.
Every inch of brass is polished.
The wood is beautifully kept.
It must be really almost a life's commitment
to keep this boat in such pristine condition.
It certainly takes a lot of care, yes.
The rivers that feed fresh water into Windermere
are at the north end of the take.
So it's here that we find the cleanest water
for our tea, just as the Victorians did.
Now, that device there, your Windermere kettle,
is going to heat that pretty quickly, isn't it?
Yeah.
(Hiss of steam)
I think my boiler pressure's down a bit.
But you are taking steam from your engine...
From the boiler,
condensing it in a coil inside the kettle,
and the exhaust goes down, as hot water,
down into the ash pan.
Beautiful.
Roger, a delicious cup of tea.
And a most elegant way to spend the afternoon.
Have you been doing this for long?
I've been doing it all the
years I've had the boat,
and all my life I've been coming out here.
This is the area that has been used
for taking tea
since the steamers came 150 years ago.
The traditions may be the same,
but the area's changed quite a lot
since Bradshaw's time.
Today Roger's concerned that the levels
of tourism have simply gone too far.
It's just become a car park.
And you don't think Windermere
should look like a marina?
It's almost every part of the lake
that is shallow enough to keep an anchor
or to get a mooring down
is full of moorings.
I think it's been absolutely
exploited to ruination.
Despite all your worries, Roger,
I must say this is
one of the most beautiful spots in England.
And this, I believe, has been one of the best teas
I've ever had in my life.
Once the railways provided easy access,
England's largest natural lake
proved a big draw.
Attractions built along its shore
soon became very popular.
This fenced-off derelict folly
was a Victorian tourist hotspot.
The tourists would have come on
the steamboats from the other side of the lake.
They were encouraged, not just to see the view,
but to appreciate the aesthetic values
of the lake.
They could do that by looking through different
coloured glasses to appreciate the seasons -
looking through green glass
to appreciate spring,
and orange glass to appreciate autumn.
This ruin on the west bank is Claife Station.
Bum in the 17903,
it was designed to frame
the best views of the take
for visitors to sketch.
The big contrast between tourism then
and tourism now
is that then you had to concentrate and think
and appreciate and remember.
Because in those days you couldn't go... click.
Before the railways,
Windermere was just a farming village.
Since the 18503, it's become
heavily dependent on tourism.
Over ten million visitors every year
help to keep many small businesses alive.
But there's a downside.
The south end of the lake has become polluted.
Despite still being very beautiful,
you might be less keen on making tea
with this water.
- Good morning, John.
- Morning, Michael.
- What a lovely location this is.
- It's splendid, isn't it?
Environmental Manager, John Pinder,
monitors the water quality.
I've been following a Victorian railway guide
on my journey around Britain.
I have a feeling that the railways
are partly responsible for your problems.
They brought mass tourism to the lakes.
JOHN: You're absolutely right.
The sewage system that's here,
a combined system that takes
all road drainage and waste water,
it's all in the same pipe work.
So that Victorian sewage system
has stood up well,
but now we've had expansion -
more hotels, more housing -
and that system is no longer satisfactory.
The sewage system now regularly overflows,
stimulating the growth of algae.
That causes a raft of problems
for the lake's wildlife.
All of those algae, when they die,
fall to the bottom of the lake,
start to rot and take out valuable oxygen out of
the bottom of the water, which the fish need.
For the last two years,
John has got the whole community involved
in trying to clean up the lake.
- Hello.
- Morning.
Hello.
His colleague Helen
regularly checks their progress.
- Morning, I'm Michael.
- Helen. Helen. Environment agency.
What are you on the boat to do?
We've come to look at
water quality measurements.
We do it routinely throughout the year.
So we're coming to do routine monitoring.
- You dip a bucket over the side?
- It's not very hi-tech but it tells us a lot.
- That is what we're looking at.
- Oh.
Well, it looks clear enough
but it's got a distinct colour.
HELEN: It has, and that's part of the problem.
As we" as checking the colour of the water,
she also monitors the visibility
with a very simple test.
It's a Secchi disk that we lower down
into the lake.
You can see the colour of it.
We just lower it down until it disappears
and that gives us the transparency of the lake.
That's it.
Some of the lakes we can get -
well, Wast Water - we can get ten-plus metres.
- Still there. We're about two metres down.
- Yes.
Keep going.
- So now it's gone, yeah?
- Yeah.
- So we just measure...
- So I just measure them.
- Each one being a metre.
- Right.
Three... four... five...
Six metres.
- Six metres and it disappeared.
- Yes.
That's not terribly good, is it?
Compared to some of the lakes,
it's not good.
We have lakes where you can see it
down to 20-30 metres.
Over 150 years of tourism
have taken their toll on the lake.
Bradshaw could never have predicted
that the sheer number of visitors,
spurred on by the railways,
would affect the Lake District in this way.
But he wasn't the first person
to attract visitors to the area.
Bradshaw celebrated the tourist charms
of Windermere,
but before him William Wordsworth had
opposed the railways coming to the Lake District
on the grounds that it would bring labourers
and artisans
and a humbler class of shopkeepers
to ramble in the Lake District.
Well, it's certainly busy today,
and the irony is that probably no-one did more
to attract huge crowds to the lakes
than the poet with his idyllic verses.
“L wandered lonely as a cloud
that floats on high o'er vales and hills
And an at once 1 saw a crowd
A host of golden daffodils."
Poems like that one
made people tong to visit the Lake District.
As the father of the railway timetables,
Bradshaw just told them how to get there.
And where there were no trains,
he told you about the omnibuses.
“Coaches run to Grasmere,
being four or five miles,
amidst fine trees and beautiful scenery.
Surprisingly,
today Grasmere is still relatively tranquil.
The village is obviously
pretty much devoted to tourism.
It's all hotels and restaurants.
But it is still very, very pretty.
This is the church of St Oswald at Grasmere
and Bradshaw mentions
that William Wordsworth and his wife
are buried in the churchyard.
So I will try to find them.
Ah, here every headstone
bears the name Wordsworth.
William. Dorothy.
Having more or less been brought up
on William Wordsworth's Daffodils,
it's very moving to see the place
where they rest.
They were so completely associated
with Grasmere.
Really made the Lake District famous,
I suppose.
As part of my two-day tour,
Bradshaw recommends a few places
to stay for the night.
He says, “Lake Hotel, Swan Inn and Red Lion
are also several respectable lodging houses
all at Grasmere."
Fortunately, one of them
is stilt open for business.
- Hello. Michael Portillo checking in, please.
- Yes, sir.
- I saw the quote from Wordsworth outside.
- Yes.
- Do you have a strong Wordsworth connection?
- We do.
His sister and himself
used to live at Dove Cottage,
which is literally a ten-minute walk.
And he used to sneak out for breakfast
to the Swan.
- Oh, really?
- He did.
- Fantastic. Breakfast still good?
- Absolutely.
Eight till ten for the breakfast.
And, fortified with a Wordsworthian breakfast
the next morning,
it's time to head off
on the next leg of my journey.
I'm leaving Windermere and travelling
eight miles down the line into the tells.
The Lake District isn't just about lakes,
not just about water.
I'm on my way to Kendal now
and Bradshaw comments
that the population engaged in carpet,
woollen, linseed, worsted, clog, comb, bobbin,
fish hook, leather, rope, woollen cord
and marble works.
He has a lot to say
about the surrounding countryside, too.
“The valleys through which the rivers flow
are tolerably fertile,
and in the north-eastern quarter,
there is a considerable tract of cultivated land."
It seems that neither the countryside
nor the customs
have changed much since Bradshaw's day.
Bradshaw's guide normally tells you
for each place which day is market day
and, in his times, market day in Kendal
was on Saturdays.
Today is Saturday and here is the market.
And the only thing I know about Kendal
is that it's famous for its mint cake.
- Lovely-looking cake stand.
- Oh, thank you.
Um, Kendal mint cake, please.
We don't stock any mint cake.
It isn't actually a cake.
It's quite confusing. It's a sweet.
- Well, that has thrown me.
- I'm so sorry.
- I think of Kendal mint cake.
- We've lots of other things.
- You certainly have.
- We do the Lakes Tea Loaf, which is local.
The Lakes Tea Loaf? That sounds like it.
- Is that this thing here?
- Yes.
- That looks lovely.
- It'll last for ages.
We sell a lot to walkers going up the fells.
They cut a slice of that. Lots of fruit in it.
Guaranteed to get you
to the top of the highest hill.
- Absolutely.
- OK. That's the one for me.
Rightio. Thank you very much. Thank you.
In Bradshaw's time,
the railways transformed our cities.
But they also changed the countryside
and farming, too.
For the first time,
fresh food could travel all over the country.
Farms that once supplied
only their local markets
suddenly became national enterprises.
At Sillfield Farm, Peter Gott's family
has lived through those changes.
Peter.
Hello.
- I've got my wellies on.
- How do you do?
- Nice to see you.
- Nice to meet you.
(Calls to dog)
They've been farming the local breed
of Herdwick sheep for hundreds of years.
Today, Peter works with
shepherd Ian Grisedale.
(Whistles)
Fantastic work, Ian. Fantastic.
Did that take about a minute to round them up?
Something like that. Yeah.
When you've got youth on your side, it helps.
At one time,
the railways must have been the only way
of getting produce from a place like this
to the cities.
It was either that or horse and can.
And that's a bit slow.
But, yeah, railways opened up the countryside.
Even markets were owned
by railway companies.
We have a market in Barrow-in-Furness,
where they build nuclear submarines,
and the old market was owned
by the railway company.
And, of course,
coming down the west coast of Cumbria,
you would bring all that abundance of food
to the population to sell.
I think railways
have changed farming considerably.
As cities grew, the railways satisfied
the mass demand for fresh food.
Farms became bigger and highly specialised.
By the mid 20th century,
land was being farmed on an industrial scale.
Now Peter's farm, and many like ll, are part of
something called the “slow food“ movement.
They're going back to a way of farming
that's smaller scale
and based on local traditions.
These are a designer sheep
from the Lake District.
Nowhere else in the country
will you find this type and style of sheep.
What's important is that the flavour's different.
Don't forget, you are what you eat.
But where they're eating, they're eating
old-fashioned herbage... in the fells.
They hop from crag to crag.
Probably the nearest thing you'd get
to a mountain goat.
And, of course, they've created
that grazed environment in the Lake District.
If it wasn't for the animals that we farm,
we would end up with gorse and bushes
and you wouldn't be able to get
on top of the mountains.
I'd never thought of that.
If you think about it, farming today,
and the grazed environment -
the lush, green patchwork of fields that we see,
has been brought about by the farmers
who are grazing that environment.
Yeah, what we townies think of as being
the natural look of the countryside
is actually the product of people like you
and animals like that.
That's right.
These days, running a small farm
doesn't pay we...
Peter has had to diversify to keep afloat.
I can also see quite a variety of livestock.
When you're on a small acreage, like I am,
you've got to do a bit of everything.
A few poultry, a bit of eggs...
Obviously Herdwick sheep. Wild boar.
Pigs, bacon, ham.
It's literally a mixture of everything.
The cycle of farming means
we spread the pig muck on the land
and that goes to the grass
and that feeds the sheep.
So it's all interwoven in
a very small, mixed farm.
Then you're doing
all your own production as well?
- You're producing your sausages and pies.
- Absolutely.
We do about 30 types of sausage
but the traditional Cumberland is our speciality.
We do a Moroccan type,
which is ideal for the Herdwick.
The Victorians wouldn't have had Moroccan
sausages available at their local market.
21st century farmers
may be turning the clock back,
but modem tastes
are for international flavours.
Peter, this is a first for me. I've never been
involved in sausage-making before.
Well, it's something that's been going on
for lots of years.
Salamis have been made for 2,000 years,
3,000 years.
What we're gonna do is essentially,
the minced-up part of the lamb,
which is here - we've used the shoulder
and some flank...
All I'm going to do is mix that in.
You've got paprika in there.
You've got some salt and spices.
And then we're gonna stuff it out
into the intestine of the lamb.
The sausage meat is packed into
the sheep's intestine.
At a whopping 45 feet long,
if I get this right, I should be able to produce
over 150 sausages.
You know those bin liners
that you have to open up?
Or plastic bags in supermarkets.
Exactly the same problem, isn't it?
Presumably it doesn't take you half an hour
every time.
No, we'll put it in a little bit of water
and see if we can get it to relax itself.
You want to have one hand on the handle,
one hand on the sausage
and just feed it out as you turn.
So it's a dual movement.
- Right
- That's it.
Whoa! Look at that.
- How long do I go on for?
- Just keep going.
Keep... As fast as you do that,
it comes out faster.
- I see. Sol can just lay it down there?
- That's it.
Just hold it back a little
to get your sausage full.
- I see.
- So you're not getting any gaps.
You become an experienced sausage-maker
when that happens. Just keep twining.
Do you know, I never realised
it could be that simple.
Farming, like so many of the industries
that I've visited on these journeys,
is moving away from the mass production
of a previous era.
These days, farmers like Peter
are reviving the skills and traditions
of their Victorian ancestors,
to create luxury products
for their modern customers.
Just as in Bradshaw's time,
so today the Lake District is
one of the loveliest spots in England,
come rain or come shine.
But communities don't live by good looks alone,
and for the lakes to continue to be prosperous,
we need to strike the right balance
between access and overcrowding.
And even for those of us not lucky enough
to visit this spot very often,
its delicious products
are available to us all everywhere.
Next time, I'll be visiting what was
one of the country's most lawless cities.
The stone is the Archbishop of Glasgow's curse
on all these families
because we got up to wicked deeds.
I'll be crashing a wedding.
Does Gretna Green have
a special, special feeling for you?
It does now. It definitely does.
From today it will. Yes.
And I'll be visiting a secret munitions factory.
What was this thing called devil's porridge?
Devil's porridge was a mix
of cordite and explosive
mainly mixed by hand by women at the time.
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.
Using my 19th-century Bradshaw's guide,
I'm continuing my journey north,
into Cumbria,
to the Lake District,
where the arrival of the railways
was at first extremely controversial.
But like Victorian travellers before me,
I'm looking forward to spectacular scenery.
On my journey today, I'll be finding out
why Victorian tourists flocked to Windermere.
Roger, what a lovely spread.
And this is the height of elegance.
I 7! be learning a thing or two about Kendal.
Kendal mint cake, please.
We don't stock Kendal mint cake.
It isn't actually a cake.
- Well, that has thrown me.
- I'm so sorry.
And I'll be finding out how the railways
changed farming life.
You would bring all that abundance of food
to the population to sell,
and I think railways
have changed farming considerably.
I'm almost half way through my journey north
from Preston to Scotland.
After a detour along the Settle to Carlisle route,
I'm rejoining the West Coast mainline
before crossing the border
and heading for my mother's hometown
of Kirkcaldy.
Today I'm leaving Garsdale
and travelling across Cumbria to Windermere,
before continuing to Kendal.
Bradshaw recommends various routes
around the Lake District
depending on how much time the visitor has.
So I'm following his two-day tour,
which includes a cruise on the lake
and a visit to Grasmere.
The first thing you notice about the Lake District
is that it is intensely green.
And you don't get that colour
without a lot of water.
On a day like today,
it's tempting to think that the Lake District
is best viewed
from the warmth of a railway carriage.
But I do need to get out at Windermere.
In the early 19th century,
poets like Wordsworth and Coleridge
made the Lake District popular
amongst the educated eiite.
When the railway arrived at Windermere
in 1847,
large numbers of ordinary people
began coming here too.
The railway company even changed the name
of the station from Birthwaite to Windermere
to attract more visitors.
I'm looking for the view
that Bradshaw says is really rather impressive.
"From Windermere Station,
the lake appears in view,
with its beautiful islands
and grassy well-wooded fells round its borders.“
But clearly this isn't the railway station
that was here in Bradshaw's time.
And my guess is that it's that thing
that is now apparently a supermarket.
The original station is next door,
and this is where Bradshaw
and those early tourists would have arrived.
Morning. I'm assuming that this used to be
the railway station. Is that right?
This was the terminus of
the Kendal to Windermere line.
- Lovely building.
- It is. It's grade II listed.
Ah. My 19th century guide says,
when I arrive at Windermere Station,
I will have a wonderful view of the lake.
You don't get it from the new station.
Any idea whether I can get it from behind here?
You won't get it from behind here.
Oh, dear. It seems more difficult than I thought.
- But I'm going to keep trying. Thank you.
- OK.
If there's any view, it's going to be from here.
No. Nothing.
With all this new building here,
you just can't see the lake.
Which is a pity, really, because otherwise
this would be one of the great views
from an English railway station.
Good morning.
- How are you?
- I'm very well.
- I recognise the face.
- It's lovely to see you.
I'm using an old guide book
and apparently there used to be a lovely view
from the railway station of the lake.
Oh, yes, there did. In the old days, there did.
But it's just the general build-up.
Because the numbers have increased, they've
had to extend the facilities, haven't they?
And this used to be just a field over here.
- This car park?
- More or less.
You could see the lake from here quite easily.
It's incredible, the number of people
that do come here.
How do you feel about that?
Do you welcome them
- or are you a bit upset at the way it's changed?
- I feel pleased for the business people.
But not being a business person myself,
we keep out of the way.
The arrival of the railways in the Lake District
was hugely controversial.
At the time, the locals feared
for their beautiful countryside.
150 years later,
Windermere has indeed become so bum up,
I need to get right out of the town
to get a glimpse of its most famous attraction.
Now at last I've got the view that I was promised
from the railway station
of Lake Windermere spread out before me,
with its islands, with the woodlands
coming down to the water's edge,
and still actually quite recognisable
from the picture that appears in Bradshaw's
150 years ago.
As the trains brought ever more visitors,
the railway companies began to provide
an integrated steamboat service
to take the tourists across the take.
The Victorian booking office where you could
purchase tickets is still here,
although it doesn't look much like one today.
- Could I have a cup of coffee, please?
- You can indeed.
I believe this building used to be
a railway booking office.
- Is that right?
- Yes, it did, a long time ago.
It was built in 1858 by the Kendal
And Windermere Railway company
and leased to a John Garnett,
who was a printer and post-master general
for Windermere.
He printed all the railway tickets for the steam
trains and for the steamers on the lake.
So you could get tickets for a steam train
and a steamboat all from this place?
Yes, that's right.
I'm really pleased. I've found a lot of people here
know their local history. It's really nice to know.
- Would that be a pound?
- A pound, please.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
You never told me that.
(Laughter)
The steamboats were very popular,
and no wonder.
As Bradshaw says, “The lake itself should be
seen from the water as we“ as the shores
to take in all its beauties."
Day one of my Bradshaw mini-tour
suggests a trip out on the lake.
The most well-to-do Victorian visitors
hired private steamboats
to enjoy the views and take afternoon tea.
And We managed to find one that's still working.
Roger, I can't believe it. I have never seen
such a beautiful vessel in my life.
- It is nice, isn't it?
- It's lovely.
And, of course, smelling of steam
like all the steam engines I've seen recently.
This is how they should smell, isn't it?
- Just shove it in, Roger?
- Yes.
Roger Mallinson takes people onto the water
in his 100-year-old boat, Shamrock,
the last steam-powered cruiser on Windermere.
Roger, I'm using this 150-year-old guide book
and of course it talks about
going out on the lake.
Now, would this sort of steam launch
have been available 150 years ago?
150?
Not this class, no. An earlier version.
- An earlier version?
- Yes.
Every detail on this boat is beautifully kept.
Every inch of brass is polished.
The wood is beautifully kept.
It must be really almost a life's commitment
to keep this boat in such pristine condition.
It certainly takes a lot of care, yes.
The rivers that feed fresh water into Windermere
are at the north end of the take.
So it's here that we find the cleanest water
for our tea, just as the Victorians did.
Now, that device there, your Windermere kettle,
is going to heat that pretty quickly, isn't it?
Yeah.
(Hiss of steam)
I think my boiler pressure's down a bit.
But you are taking steam from your engine...
From the boiler,
condensing it in a coil inside the kettle,
and the exhaust goes down, as hot water,
down into the ash pan.
Beautiful.
Roger, a delicious cup of tea.
And a most elegant way to spend the afternoon.
Have you been doing this for long?
I've been doing it all the
years I've had the boat,
and all my life I've been coming out here.
This is the area that has been used
for taking tea
since the steamers came 150 years ago.
The traditions may be the same,
but the area's changed quite a lot
since Bradshaw's time.
Today Roger's concerned that the levels
of tourism have simply gone too far.
It's just become a car park.
And you don't think Windermere
should look like a marina?
It's almost every part of the lake
that is shallow enough to keep an anchor
or to get a mooring down
is full of moorings.
I think it's been absolutely
exploited to ruination.
Despite all your worries, Roger,
I must say this is
one of the most beautiful spots in England.
And this, I believe, has been one of the best teas
I've ever had in my life.
Once the railways provided easy access,
England's largest natural lake
proved a big draw.
Attractions built along its shore
soon became very popular.
This fenced-off derelict folly
was a Victorian tourist hotspot.
The tourists would have come on
the steamboats from the other side of the lake.
They were encouraged, not just to see the view,
but to appreciate the aesthetic values
of the lake.
They could do that by looking through different
coloured glasses to appreciate the seasons -
looking through green glass
to appreciate spring,
and orange glass to appreciate autumn.
This ruin on the west bank is Claife Station.
Bum in the 17903,
it was designed to frame
the best views of the take
for visitors to sketch.
The big contrast between tourism then
and tourism now
is that then you had to concentrate and think
and appreciate and remember.
Because in those days you couldn't go... click.
Before the railways,
Windermere was just a farming village.
Since the 18503, it's become
heavily dependent on tourism.
Over ten million visitors every year
help to keep many small businesses alive.
But there's a downside.
The south end of the lake has become polluted.
Despite still being very beautiful,
you might be less keen on making tea
with this water.
- Good morning, John.
- Morning, Michael.
- What a lovely location this is.
- It's splendid, isn't it?
Environmental Manager, John Pinder,
monitors the water quality.
I've been following a Victorian railway guide
on my journey around Britain.
I have a feeling that the railways
are partly responsible for your problems.
They brought mass tourism to the lakes.
JOHN: You're absolutely right.
The sewage system that's here,
a combined system that takes
all road drainage and waste water,
it's all in the same pipe work.
So that Victorian sewage system
has stood up well,
but now we've had expansion -
more hotels, more housing -
and that system is no longer satisfactory.
The sewage system now regularly overflows,
stimulating the growth of algae.
That causes a raft of problems
for the lake's wildlife.
All of those algae, when they die,
fall to the bottom of the lake,
start to rot and take out valuable oxygen out of
the bottom of the water, which the fish need.
For the last two years,
John has got the whole community involved
in trying to clean up the lake.
- Hello.
- Morning.
Hello.
His colleague Helen
regularly checks their progress.
- Morning, I'm Michael.
- Helen. Helen. Environment agency.
What are you on the boat to do?
We've come to look at
water quality measurements.
We do it routinely throughout the year.
So we're coming to do routine monitoring.
- You dip a bucket over the side?
- It's not very hi-tech but it tells us a lot.
- That is what we're looking at.
- Oh.
Well, it looks clear enough
but it's got a distinct colour.
HELEN: It has, and that's part of the problem.
As we" as checking the colour of the water,
she also monitors the visibility
with a very simple test.
It's a Secchi disk that we lower down
into the lake.
You can see the colour of it.
We just lower it down until it disappears
and that gives us the transparency of the lake.
That's it.
Some of the lakes we can get -
well, Wast Water - we can get ten-plus metres.
- Still there. We're about two metres down.
- Yes.
Keep going.
- So now it's gone, yeah?
- Yeah.
- So we just measure...
- So I just measure them.
- Each one being a metre.
- Right.
Three... four... five...
Six metres.
- Six metres and it disappeared.
- Yes.
That's not terribly good, is it?
Compared to some of the lakes,
it's not good.
We have lakes where you can see it
down to 20-30 metres.
Over 150 years of tourism
have taken their toll on the lake.
Bradshaw could never have predicted
that the sheer number of visitors,
spurred on by the railways,
would affect the Lake District in this way.
But he wasn't the first person
to attract visitors to the area.
Bradshaw celebrated the tourist charms
of Windermere,
but before him William Wordsworth had
opposed the railways coming to the Lake District
on the grounds that it would bring labourers
and artisans
and a humbler class of shopkeepers
to ramble in the Lake District.
Well, it's certainly busy today,
and the irony is that probably no-one did more
to attract huge crowds to the lakes
than the poet with his idyllic verses.
“L wandered lonely as a cloud
that floats on high o'er vales and hills
And an at once 1 saw a crowd
A host of golden daffodils."
Poems like that one
made people tong to visit the Lake District.
As the father of the railway timetables,
Bradshaw just told them how to get there.
And where there were no trains,
he told you about the omnibuses.
“Coaches run to Grasmere,
being four or five miles,
amidst fine trees and beautiful scenery.
Surprisingly,
today Grasmere is still relatively tranquil.
The village is obviously
pretty much devoted to tourism.
It's all hotels and restaurants.
But it is still very, very pretty.
This is the church of St Oswald at Grasmere
and Bradshaw mentions
that William Wordsworth and his wife
are buried in the churchyard.
So I will try to find them.
Ah, here every headstone
bears the name Wordsworth.
William. Dorothy.
Having more or less been brought up
on William Wordsworth's Daffodils,
it's very moving to see the place
where they rest.
They were so completely associated
with Grasmere.
Really made the Lake District famous,
I suppose.
As part of my two-day tour,
Bradshaw recommends a few places
to stay for the night.
He says, “Lake Hotel, Swan Inn and Red Lion
are also several respectable lodging houses
all at Grasmere."
Fortunately, one of them
is stilt open for business.
- Hello. Michael Portillo checking in, please.
- Yes, sir.
- I saw the quote from Wordsworth outside.
- Yes.
- Do you have a strong Wordsworth connection?
- We do.
His sister and himself
used to live at Dove Cottage,
which is literally a ten-minute walk.
And he used to sneak out for breakfast
to the Swan.
- Oh, really?
- He did.
- Fantastic. Breakfast still good?
- Absolutely.
Eight till ten for the breakfast.
And, fortified with a Wordsworthian breakfast
the next morning,
it's time to head off
on the next leg of my journey.
I'm leaving Windermere and travelling
eight miles down the line into the tells.
The Lake District isn't just about lakes,
not just about water.
I'm on my way to Kendal now
and Bradshaw comments
that the population engaged in carpet,
woollen, linseed, worsted, clog, comb, bobbin,
fish hook, leather, rope, woollen cord
and marble works.
He has a lot to say
about the surrounding countryside, too.
“The valleys through which the rivers flow
are tolerably fertile,
and in the north-eastern quarter,
there is a considerable tract of cultivated land."
It seems that neither the countryside
nor the customs
have changed much since Bradshaw's day.
Bradshaw's guide normally tells you
for each place which day is market day
and, in his times, market day in Kendal
was on Saturdays.
Today is Saturday and here is the market.
And the only thing I know about Kendal
is that it's famous for its mint cake.
- Lovely-looking cake stand.
- Oh, thank you.
Um, Kendal mint cake, please.
We don't stock any mint cake.
It isn't actually a cake.
It's quite confusing. It's a sweet.
- Well, that has thrown me.
- I'm so sorry.
- I think of Kendal mint cake.
- We've lots of other things.
- You certainly have.
- We do the Lakes Tea Loaf, which is local.
The Lakes Tea Loaf? That sounds like it.
- Is that this thing here?
- Yes.
- That looks lovely.
- It'll last for ages.
We sell a lot to walkers going up the fells.
They cut a slice of that. Lots of fruit in it.
Guaranteed to get you
to the top of the highest hill.
- Absolutely.
- OK. That's the one for me.
Rightio. Thank you very much. Thank you.
In Bradshaw's time,
the railways transformed our cities.
But they also changed the countryside
and farming, too.
For the first time,
fresh food could travel all over the country.
Farms that once supplied
only their local markets
suddenly became national enterprises.
At Sillfield Farm, Peter Gott's family
has lived through those changes.
Peter.
Hello.
- I've got my wellies on.
- How do you do?
- Nice to see you.
- Nice to meet you.
(Calls to dog)
They've been farming the local breed
of Herdwick sheep for hundreds of years.
Today, Peter works with
shepherd Ian Grisedale.
(Whistles)
Fantastic work, Ian. Fantastic.
Did that take about a minute to round them up?
Something like that. Yeah.
When you've got youth on your side, it helps.
At one time,
the railways must have been the only way
of getting produce from a place like this
to the cities.
It was either that or horse and can.
And that's a bit slow.
But, yeah, railways opened up the countryside.
Even markets were owned
by railway companies.
We have a market in Barrow-in-Furness,
where they build nuclear submarines,
and the old market was owned
by the railway company.
And, of course,
coming down the west coast of Cumbria,
you would bring all that abundance of food
to the population to sell.
I think railways
have changed farming considerably.
As cities grew, the railways satisfied
the mass demand for fresh food.
Farms became bigger and highly specialised.
By the mid 20th century,
land was being farmed on an industrial scale.
Now Peter's farm, and many like ll, are part of
something called the “slow food“ movement.
They're going back to a way of farming
that's smaller scale
and based on local traditions.
These are a designer sheep
from the Lake District.
Nowhere else in the country
will you find this type and style of sheep.
What's important is that the flavour's different.
Don't forget, you are what you eat.
But where they're eating, they're eating
old-fashioned herbage... in the fells.
They hop from crag to crag.
Probably the nearest thing you'd get
to a mountain goat.
And, of course, they've created
that grazed environment in the Lake District.
If it wasn't for the animals that we farm,
we would end up with gorse and bushes
and you wouldn't be able to get
on top of the mountains.
I'd never thought of that.
If you think about it, farming today,
and the grazed environment -
the lush, green patchwork of fields that we see,
has been brought about by the farmers
who are grazing that environment.
Yeah, what we townies think of as being
the natural look of the countryside
is actually the product of people like you
and animals like that.
That's right.
These days, running a small farm
doesn't pay we...
Peter has had to diversify to keep afloat.
I can also see quite a variety of livestock.
When you're on a small acreage, like I am,
you've got to do a bit of everything.
A few poultry, a bit of eggs...
Obviously Herdwick sheep. Wild boar.
Pigs, bacon, ham.
It's literally a mixture of everything.
The cycle of farming means
we spread the pig muck on the land
and that goes to the grass
and that feeds the sheep.
So it's all interwoven in
a very small, mixed farm.
Then you're doing
all your own production as well?
- You're producing your sausages and pies.
- Absolutely.
We do about 30 types of sausage
but the traditional Cumberland is our speciality.
We do a Moroccan type,
which is ideal for the Herdwick.
The Victorians wouldn't have had Moroccan
sausages available at their local market.
21st century farmers
may be turning the clock back,
but modem tastes
are for international flavours.
Peter, this is a first for me. I've never been
involved in sausage-making before.
Well, it's something that's been going on
for lots of years.
Salamis have been made for 2,000 years,
3,000 years.
What we're gonna do is essentially,
the minced-up part of the lamb,
which is here - we've used the shoulder
and some flank...
All I'm going to do is mix that in.
You've got paprika in there.
You've got some salt and spices.
And then we're gonna stuff it out
into the intestine of the lamb.
The sausage meat is packed into
the sheep's intestine.
At a whopping 45 feet long,
if I get this right, I should be able to produce
over 150 sausages.
You know those bin liners
that you have to open up?
Or plastic bags in supermarkets.
Exactly the same problem, isn't it?
Presumably it doesn't take you half an hour
every time.
No, we'll put it in a little bit of water
and see if we can get it to relax itself.
You want to have one hand on the handle,
one hand on the sausage
and just feed it out as you turn.
So it's a dual movement.
- Right
- That's it.
Whoa! Look at that.
- How long do I go on for?
- Just keep going.
Keep... As fast as you do that,
it comes out faster.
- I see. Sol can just lay it down there?
- That's it.
Just hold it back a little
to get your sausage full.
- I see.
- So you're not getting any gaps.
You become an experienced sausage-maker
when that happens. Just keep twining.
Do you know, I never realised
it could be that simple.
Farming, like so many of the industries
that I've visited on these journeys,
is moving away from the mass production
of a previous era.
These days, farmers like Peter
are reviving the skills and traditions
of their Victorian ancestors,
to create luxury products
for their modern customers.
Just as in Bradshaw's time,
so today the Lake District is
one of the loveliest spots in England,
come rain or come shine.
But communities don't live by good looks alone,
and for the lakes to continue to be prosperous,
we need to strike the right balance
between access and overcrowding.
And even for those of us not lucky enough
to visit this spot very often,
its delicious products
are available to us all everywhere.
Next time, I'll be visiting what was
one of the country's most lawless cities.
The stone is the Archbishop of Glasgow's curse
on all these families
because we got up to wicked deeds.
I'll be crashing a wedding.
Does Gretna Green have
a special, special feeling for you?
It does now. It definitely does.
From today it will. Yes.
And I'll be visiting a secret munitions factory.
What was this thing called devil's porridge?
Devil's porridge was a mix
of cordite and explosive
mainly mixed by hand by women at the time.