Great British Railway Journeys (2010–…): Season 2, Episode 7 - Telford to Wrexham - 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 a series of journeys across
the length and breadth of the country
to see what of Bradshaw's Britain
remains.
I've embarked on a journey
from the heart of rural England
to join the railway line
that the Victorians built
along the North Welsh coast
to speed links with Dublin.
Today my Bradshaw's Guide,
published in the 19th century,
will help me to criss-cross the border
between England and Wales
to find out more
about traditional foods,
about the Industrial Revolution
and about aristocrats
and about how each of those
responded to the coming of the railways.
Along this route
I'm following an important railway line
to Ireland designed to carry the mail.
Each day
{'Hf cover another stretch of track,
visiting places described in detail
in my "Bradshaw's Guide"
and meeting the people
who live there today.
On this leg of the journey,
I'll be exploring
the world's first iron bridge...
- Where would I have to go?
- Down the bottom.
It's amazing, you'll love it.
...visiting a place where the railways
weren't initially welcome...
My ancestor at the time of the railway
was particularly disenchanted
with the idea of a railway
being built across his land
so he tried very hard
to disrupt the surveyors.
...and discovering
the secrets of good cheese.
It's just exactly as my
great-grandfather would recognise.
I've already covered the first 64 miles
from Ledbury to Shrewsbury
and now I'm heading east
before I travel on to Chester
and make my way
along the coast of Llandudno.
From there I'll explore Snowdonia,
before crossing the Menai Straits
towards Holyhead.
My first stop is Telford,
then on to Chirk and Wrexham.
Today I'm headed
for the very heart of things.
Firstly to a town named Telford,
named after one of the greatest
civil engineers of all time.
And then to Iron Bridge,
the Iron Bridge, the first iron bridge,
without which the development of our
railways would have been impossible.
The development of railways anywhere
in the world would have been impossible.
And the first iron bridge
happened in Shropshire.
In Bradshaw's day, Shropshire
was one of the most important sites
of nascent industrial activity
and the birthplace of technologies
that led to the first modern railways.
- (conductor) Are you alright?
- Yes, thank you.
- Nice to meet you. How are you?
- Very well.
- Lovely day to travel.
- Gorgeous.
- We're going to the Iron Bridge.
- Oh, very nice.
It's important for railwaymen
to know about the Ironbridge.
It's the pre-cursor to the engineering
that made railways possible.
It is, yes. It's fantastic.
The structure itself of the bridge,
for its time, it's just...
You can't imagine that they were able to
produce something as fantastic as that.
(tannoy) Our next call will be Telford
Central. Telford Central, next call.
I'm getting off at Telford
and moving a few miles on
to the village of Coalbrookdale
to understand why the bridge
creates such excitement.
In Bradshaw's day,
Coalbrookdale was already noted
for its role in the development
of the iron industry.
Bradshaw writes,
"Several important processes
in the manufacture of iron
have originated here."”
"About 1768, iron rails were laid down
on the tramways."
"In 1779,
the first iron bridge was made."
"This still stands in substantial repair
at a point where it crosses the Severn
with a single arch.”
The Iron Bridge,
as beautiful as it is historic,
is a famous symbol
of industrial progress.
I've come to see John Challen,
who works at the Ironbridge Museum.
- John, hello.
- Hi.
I'm very excited to be on this bridge.
- You should be.
- It's wonderful.
I know its historic significance
is enormous.
And Coalbrookdale obviously
was well established
as a place where iron was made.
Bradshaw says that
there was nowhere like it.
For producing and mass producing
artefacts and iron, this was the place.
(John) It's where it all started.
Abraham Darby came here to make iron,
to make cooking pots.
But the technology he brought,
which was smelting iron with coke
and casting iron into sand moulds,
he did it in just the right place.
Until the 18th century
charcoal was used to smelt iron.
Because it used so much wood, iron
could be made only in small amounts.
Then Abraham Darby substituted coke
from the local coalfields,
inventing a technique
that's been used ever since.
It meant that cast iron could be made
cheaply and in huge quantities.
The company quickly went on
from making cast iron cooking pots
to the first iron wheels, the first
iron cylinders for steam engines
and the bridge itself.
They went on to build the world's
first steam locomotive in 1802.
What gave them the confidence
to make a bridge out of iron?
They were pushing it.
They knew they could cast
almost anything out of iron.
Make a mould and you can do it.
This was a real showpiece.
(Michael) Is it true that
Coalbrookdale makes some claim
to having the first iron rails?
- Yeah.
- What year are they then?
1760s.
It's just so long before
passenger railways, isn't it?
These first cast-iron rails,
used for horse-drawn wagons
in mines and quarries,
were the forerunner to modern railways.
And the techniques used
in the Ironbridge
were copied for some of
the earliest railway bridges.
What strikes me about the bridge
as a first iron bridge
is how beautiful it is.
In other words that they not only got
the engineering right first time,
but they got the style, the aesthetics
of it right first time. That's amazing.
Well, it is, and on the other hand
it shows how far they'd got
with casting.
A stone bridge is a stone bridge
but an iron bridge,
you had a lot more freedom in design.
All those components
were cast off site to a design
and then brought to site and assembled.
It's like a giant kit of parts.
(Michael) If this technology
hadn't been mastered
railway history
would have been different.
Before coke smelting,
iron was a very expensive material.
It was just used for fixings
and nails and tools.
To have so much iron you can use it
as a construction material
was completely different.
Think of the sheer tonnage
of iron in a railway,
you couldn't have done that
without coke smelting.
The technology progressed rapidly.
Rails made of cast iron
were soon replaced by wrought iron
and by the 1860s
all railway tracks were made from steel.
But the first iron bridge in the world
still draws admiration.
- What do you drink of your Iron Bridge?
- (man) I love it.
- Do you still look at it ever?
- Yes, I think when you live here,
you do become a little bit jaded
to how good it is.
But when you actually sit down
and look at it, it is amazing.
There is something in the bridge
you might not know.
- Abraham Darby's face in the bridge.
- Really?
- Can I see it from here?
- No, but I'll show it you.
- Where do I have to go to see it?
- Down the bottom.
It's amazing, you'll love it.
- Down the bottom?
- Yeah.
I'm going to show you this. You see
the central locking pin in the middle?
- I do.
- Look at the one the other side.
There's a silhouette of a man's face.
(Michael) Oh, my goodness.
(man) Is it architectural brilliance
or pure fluke?
(Michael) It looks like a face.
Legend has it that Abraham Darby
cast himself into the bridge.
(Michael) That's beautiful.
By the mid-19th century, Coalbrookdale's
iron industry was in decline,
but the arrival of the railway
in the 1860s brought new industries.
Businessman Henry Dunnill
was passing through on a train
when he spotted a run-down factory.
He returned and transformed it
into a new tile works.
- Hello, Adrian.
- Hi.
Adrian Blundell works
for Craven Dunhill Jackfield Tiles.
This looks like an amazing piece
of industrial archaeology.
It is in actual fact
a real working factory still.
It's not just a piece of archaeology.
Craven Dunnill, the company I work for,
built this purpose-built model factory
in 1872.
(Michael) I had a feeling
that this is an old railway.
- Is that right?
- (Adrian) It was.
We brought in materials
from Devon and Cornwall
and shipped to Manchester
and Birmingham finished material
which would've left the factory
through the weighbridge.
We had our own sidings at the side there
and our own liveried carriages
that we used to use for
transporting everything around.
It meant the world was opened up.
You've got access to the States,
access to basically the British Empire.
Craven Dunnill became one of the most
successful tile producers in Britain.
Their decorative tiles
were laid in churches, houses, pubs
and railway stations,
including the London Underground.
Today the tiles are made
in much the same way
as they were in Bradshaw's time.
The original process was developed
for making buttons, ceramic buttons.
Obviously the patent and idea was
expanded into other types of product.
What we've got is ground clay.
You've got a very large press
that presses at about 15 tons'
total pressure,
compressing the clay into a cake
you can actually handle.
- So you are using a Victorian machine?
- They've never bettered them.
At its height, the factory
made millions of tiles each year.
Today's tiles are still hand-finished,
using the same glazes and colours
as in the Victorian era
and some look very familiar to me.
What you've got here
are a number of designs
that are actually from
the Palace of Westminster.
I know that. I spent 20 years surrounded
by these tiles. I recognise them.
- May I take that down?
- Of course.
Fabulous. High Victorian tiles.
And you're making them again?
We are. And if you would like to
have a go at having a tile manufactured
for the Palace
as we are actually in the middle
of doing a major restoration project
with them.
- A signed Portillo tile.
- Signed Portillo tile.
These heritage tiles are made by
highly skilled craftsmen like Chris Cox.
This is a typical Palace tile.
This is a lion from St Stephen's Hall,
which you'll probably be familiar with.
I've walked on those many, many times.
(Chris) But never had a go
at making one.
This gives you the opportunity
to do that.
So our plaster mould
sits inside the box.
So if you take that,
tear off little grape-sized lumps
and feed them into the pattern there.
- It's not as easy as it looks.
- (laughs)
(Michael) How do you make it stick down?
(Chris) Once you've got one bit started
you're OK.
I feel like a kid with Play-Doh.
It's very hard to do,
but Chris can make 40 tiles per day.
(Chris) You can kind of feed off that.
Just keep working your way out.
I fear these tiles
probably don't come cheap.
No, they don't.
Not with the amount of work.
Of course, in the Victorian period
they weren't particularly cheap either,
but labour was, so you could afford
to have lots of people doing this.
Once the pattern is filled in,
the mould is topped up with more clay.
(Chris) Straight down in the middle.
Fantastic.
- Having bashed it into shape...
- (Chris) Push down.
...the tile is eased out of its mould.
Wow.
The next step is to add the distinctive
red glaze that brings out the pattern.
This is very satisfying.
Once the tile has dried,
the excess glaze is scraped off.
Beautiful.
Chris, I have walked over these
countless times
and never given them much thought,
apart from the fact they were beautiful,
but I had no idea it was such hard work
and such craftsmanship.
Thank you, it's been a real privilege.
- You're welcome.
- Thank you.
As I leave Coalbrookdale
to travel on to Chirk,
I wonder whether my efforts will one day
grace the Houses of Parliament,
or more likely
end up in the seconds bin.
Just before we come into Chirk,
we're going to pass over a viaduct
mentioned by Bradshaw
as very special.
But as we pass over the viaduct
we'll be looking down at an earlier
aqueduct on the right-hand side,
and that was built by Thomas Telford.
Telford was one of the greatest civil
engineers of the Industrial Revolution,
building roads, canals and bridges
all over the country.
The aqueduct at Chirk
was one of his finest achievements.
(tannoy) We will shortly
be arriving at Chirk.
Both the aqueduct and the viaduct
are worth a closer look.
But of course in his railway guide,
it's about the viaduct
that Bradshaw has most to say.
He writes, "Chirk viaduct is
considered a beautiful engineering gem
and discloses through its arches
the lovely Vale of Ceiriog."
Now that is really beautiful.
I mean, an unspoilt valley,
you know, that's a gorgeous thing.
But a valley enhanced
by the artefacts of man,
that's even better, isn't it?
The juxtaposition of nature,
the grazing sheep,
and the engineering skills
of those wonderful men
of the 18th and the 19th century.
What a fantastic combination.
At that time, aqueduct water channels
were built of stone lined with clay,
but Telford drew on the technology
developed at Coalbrookdale
and Chirk is one of the earliest
to employ a cast-iron trough.
Henry Robertson came later
with his railway viaduct
and it's as though the later man
is paying tribute, imitating the style,
snuggling his structure as close
to the other as he possibly can.
These days,
the railway line and the canal
snake through
peaceful rolling countryside
and it's easy to forget that this border
was once a battleground
between the English and the Welsh.
But all along the route
are castles to remind us of that strife.
One of the most beautiful and complete
stands at Chirk.
Behind me is Chirk Castle.
And Bradshaw writes,
"This noble-looking edifice
has been preserved from ruin
and may be regarded as a perfect model
of the time-honoured castles
of the ancient lords of the soil."
Although the castle
is perched a few miles distant,
strangely its gates have ended up here.
- Are these gates ever open?
- No, I don't think they are.
They used to be on
the north front of the house.
These are early 18th-century gates.
Very beautiful. White wrought iron.
They are beautiful.
(Michael) The story is that
they were moved here in 1888
because Queen Victoria used to pass
on a train on her way somewhere
and they wanted Queen Victoria
to be able to see
these beautiful gates from the train.
- Wow.
- Good story, isn't it?
- That is a good story. Is it true?
- 1 don't know.
(both laugh)
Tomorrow I'm hoping to enter the castle,
but for tonight I've been relegated
to the gamekeeper's cottage.
Oh, dear. A rather wet morning
in the Welsh valleys
but then they didn't get this green
without a bit of rain.
Bradshaw mentions that the castle
is the seat
of R Myddelton Biddulph, Esquire,
and the Myddeltons are still there
and I'm off to see them this morning.
Chirk Castle was built in
the 13th century by the Marcher Lords,
some of the King's most trusted men,
whose task was to guard
England's border with Wales.
According to Bradshaw,
"It's a remarkably interesting
and ancient mansion
and a magnet for visitors."
That's if I can get past the guards.
Hello, gentlemen.
- Are you happy in your work?
- Wet, but very happy.
It is a bit damp today. Are you wearing
real chain mail, a real helmet?
Yes, sir. Would you care
to feel the weight of this?
It is very heavy.
To get the full impression, sir,
would you care to...
- Goodness. Do you wear this all day?
- Yes, sir.
You must have
very developed neck muscles.
- I didn't before I started the job.
- That is very heavy.
And you wear that...
This weighs even more than the hat.
Well, it's weighty work you're doing.
- Thank you very much for it.
- A pleasure.
I take my helmet off to you.
- Bye-bye.
- Bye-bye.
Not everyone could see
the benefits of the railways
as they sped across Britain
in the 19th century.
Some landowners, like the Myddeltons,
were positively hostile.
- Hello, Michael.
- What a fantastic place.
Guy Myddelton and his family
have lived at Chirk Castle
for 14 generations.
I came here on the train
and I was surprised
there's a station called Chirk.
You've got your own station.
How did that come about?
Well, we're lucky, aren't we?
To have our own station.
This is really because my ancestor
at the time of the railway
was particularly disenchanted
with the idea
of a railway being built
across his land.
He was involved in the canal
that runs adjacent to the railway
and I think he saw the railway
as a great threat to that enterprise.
So he tried very hard
to disrupt the surveyors.
Once he'd realised that
he couldn't stop it any further,
he then negotiated
the best settlement he could,
and part of that was to ensure
that Chirk had its own station.
Of course they had their own mines here,
a coal mine particularly,
and of course the railway
would've been a great facilitator
of being able to move
that particular product about.
The railway line
also brought tourists to Chirk.
My "Bradshaw's Guide" details
for each station the country houses
and their owners close by.
And just like today,
visiting them was a popular pastime,
although the procedure
was a little different then.
In Bradshaw's time,
in the Victorian era,
I'm sure visitors would've come
to the castle on the train as well
but they would not have necessarily
been the public,
they'd have been by appointment.
They'd have made an appointment
with the housekeeper of the day.
They would have then come on the train,
been received by the housekeeper,
shown just the main rooms of interest,
seen the castle in all its glory
and probably been given
a memento on the day,
a small pamphlet just outlining those
things that they'd seen on that day.
Having free rein in a house as vast
this one is every child's dream.
I can't imagine growing up in a castle.
(Guy) Well, it's wonderful.
I'm very lucky, I know that.
When I learnt to ride a bicycle,
for example,
I was able to do it inside the house
in the long gallery.
(Michael) I hope you got a thick ear
for that.
I didn't. I was encouraged
by my grandparents.
You weren't mowing down
the Chippendales?
No, they were well protected,
roped off, so no damage done.
Perhaps a little bit of
country house condition,
I think that's what we call it.
I'm leaving Chirk
for the last leg of my journey today,
travelling nine miles
to the town of Wrexham.
All along the way the route is adorned
by outstanding viaducts
that span the Welsh valleys.
It's impressive to see
how well they've survived
a century and a half
of pounding by heavy locomotives.
The Victorians were innovators
in everything, not just engineering.
In agriculture, too, for example.
Bradshaw writes that
the famous Cheshire pastures
"were at one time almost worn out
when they were renovated with bone dust
and made five times as valuable
as before."
The crushed bones of animals were rich
in phosphates, a great fertiliser,
and that's produced
the famous Cheshire cheeses
which I'm hoping to sample now.
In the 19th century,
chemists began to identify
the key ingredients of good fertiliser.
Cheshire became the centre
of an important experiment
to improve the grass using bone dust,
and it worked.
- Bye-bye then.
- Thank you.
Have a good trip.
- All the best, bye.
- Bye.
I'm getting off at Wrexham
to visit the famous Cheshire pastures.
Over the next hundred years
this area became
the great centre of the dairy trade.
Milk travelled on the trains to nearby
cities like Liverpool and Manchester
and most of the 500 farms in the area
made cheese.
These days, few farmers
use bone meal as a fertiliser
and there aren't many who still
make traditional Cheshire cheese.
- Good morning, John.
- Morning, Michael.
- Yes, Michael. Good to see you.
- Welcome to the Bank.
Thank you very much.
It's a beautiful spot.
John Bourne's family began making
Cheshire cheese in the 1700s,
by which time it had already
been sent as far as Canterbury.
Even before railways,
it got around the country?
- Absolutely.
- But the railways made a difference.
Do you remember cheeses
going up by the railway?
The railways took over
from the canals of course,
which themselves were very important,
but the railways enabled larger volumes,
moved more quickly,
and that enabled the London market
to develop for Cheshire cheese.
(Michael) Did you have a station
you could send it to?
(John) Malpas Station was nearest.
- No longer there.
- No longer there, sadly.
In 1845, Cheshire farms were producing
12,000 tons of cheese every summer
when the pasture was at its best.
Thanks to the railways,
by 1900 it was almost 30,000 tons.
Nowadays it's rare to find
a small-scale producer like John.
(John) Just in time to catch
the end of the milking.
The milk we use for cheese
is produced on the farm.
So in one place you are grazing cows,
you are milking cows
and you are producing cheese.
Is that now quite unusual,
that it all happens in one place?
Yes, it's difficult for people
with our sort of turnover
to survive in the supermarket world,
really.
You've got to be quite specialised
and market the cheese
in a particular fashion.
Right, Michael.
We've seen the milking,
now we need to get back
to the cheese dairy.
We don't want to be late
for that process.
John's Victorian ancestors
would've processed the milk immediately
as there was no way to refrigerate it.
John still works in traditional ways
that make his product special compared
to the cheeses that are mass-produced.
Because we're trying to imitate
the old-fashioned process
and make cheese which is more akin to
what my grandfather would be making,
what Father would describe as knocking
the curd about, it must be very gentle.
(Michael) If you were starting afresh,
could you make from Cheshire milk
a camembert or a gorgonzola, or is it
pre-ordained what you have to make?
(John) It's not pre-ordained.
Milk is milk and you can turn it
into all sorts of lovely things.
We make Cheshire
because we're in Cheshire
but I can show you a soft cheese there
which will turn into a most lovely
soft blue, quite out of this world.
Quite out of this world
and quite out of our perception of
what a Cheshire cheese is going to be.
Yes, absolutely.
The type of cheese that emerges
depends on the fat content of the milk
and how the curd is cut.
Nice cheesy smell developing.
For his Cheshire cheese,
John uses full-fat milk
and breaks up the curd by hand.
It's like trying to rip
a sponge apart really.
It's quite tough to tear apart.
I'm very aware
that John doesn't want me...
That one's much better.
Once the curd is milled
it's put into moulds
to be shaped into
large cheese cylinders.
The process must be done
quickly and carefully
but the flavour depends
on leisurely maturing.
(John) Keep your head down.
The cheeses won't be ready
until they've been stored
for up to six months.
John, what a beautiful sight.
What a beautiful sight.
- Isn't that fantastic?
- (John) Yeah.
- It's actually a beautiful smell.
- Well, I think so.
(John) It's just exactly as
my great-grandfather would recognise.
Wooden shelves, proper cheese.
Cloth bound in the old-fashioned way.
Finally, the moment I feared
might never come.
Right, here we are.
Now we're going to taste some
of the finest cheese in the world.
We'll cut a piece off here
and you are going to taste that
and tell me it is absolutely amazing.
- It's absolutely amazing.
- Am I right?
- Honestly. You're not making it up?
- No! It's fantastic.
It's worth every week of
the six months of maturing, isn't it?
That really is a great cheese.
As I leave the farm,
I'm greatly encouraged
that there are still people like John,
upholding the skill and craftsmanship
passed down to them
through the generations.
The railways transformed
everything they touched,
whether it was tile making,
an iron bridge
or the Myddelton family at Chirk Castle
or dairy farming in Cheshire.
But the nature of the changes
that they brought
were as different...
as Chirk and cheese.
On my next journey I'll be exploring
one of the country's oldest streets...
This is stunning, Paul.
(Paul) Basically what we've got here
is a medieval shopping mall.
...uncovering a hidden
chemical weapons factory...
We're probably looking at
the Second World War's
most secret building in Britain, right?
(man) In 1942-43, there was nowhere
more secret in the world than this.
Out it goes!
...and raking for mussels
Victorian-style.
I think I've got nothing at all.
Absolute empty set.
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 a series of journeys across
the length and breadth of the country
to see what of Bradshaw's Britain
remains.
I've embarked on a journey
from the heart of rural England
to join the railway line
that the Victorians built
along the North Welsh coast
to speed links with Dublin.
Today my Bradshaw's Guide,
published in the 19th century,
will help me to criss-cross the border
between England and Wales
to find out more
about traditional foods,
about the Industrial Revolution
and about aristocrats
and about how each of those
responded to the coming of the railways.
Along this route
I'm following an important railway line
to Ireland designed to carry the mail.
Each day
{'Hf cover another stretch of track,
visiting places described in detail
in my "Bradshaw's Guide"
and meeting the people
who live there today.
On this leg of the journey,
I'll be exploring
the world's first iron bridge...
- Where would I have to go?
- Down the bottom.
It's amazing, you'll love it.
...visiting a place where the railways
weren't initially welcome...
My ancestor at the time of the railway
was particularly disenchanted
with the idea of a railway
being built across his land
so he tried very hard
to disrupt the surveyors.
...and discovering
the secrets of good cheese.
It's just exactly as my
great-grandfather would recognise.
I've already covered the first 64 miles
from Ledbury to Shrewsbury
and now I'm heading east
before I travel on to Chester
and make my way
along the coast of Llandudno.
From there I'll explore Snowdonia,
before crossing the Menai Straits
towards Holyhead.
My first stop is Telford,
then on to Chirk and Wrexham.
Today I'm headed
for the very heart of things.
Firstly to a town named Telford,
named after one of the greatest
civil engineers of all time.
And then to Iron Bridge,
the Iron Bridge, the first iron bridge,
without which the development of our
railways would have been impossible.
The development of railways anywhere
in the world would have been impossible.
And the first iron bridge
happened in Shropshire.
In Bradshaw's day, Shropshire
was one of the most important sites
of nascent industrial activity
and the birthplace of technologies
that led to the first modern railways.
- (conductor) Are you alright?
- Yes, thank you.
- Nice to meet you. How are you?
- Very well.
- Lovely day to travel.
- Gorgeous.
- We're going to the Iron Bridge.
- Oh, very nice.
It's important for railwaymen
to know about the Ironbridge.
It's the pre-cursor to the engineering
that made railways possible.
It is, yes. It's fantastic.
The structure itself of the bridge,
for its time, it's just...
You can't imagine that they were able to
produce something as fantastic as that.
(tannoy) Our next call will be Telford
Central. Telford Central, next call.
I'm getting off at Telford
and moving a few miles on
to the village of Coalbrookdale
to understand why the bridge
creates such excitement.
In Bradshaw's day,
Coalbrookdale was already noted
for its role in the development
of the iron industry.
Bradshaw writes,
"Several important processes
in the manufacture of iron
have originated here."”
"About 1768, iron rails were laid down
on the tramways."
"In 1779,
the first iron bridge was made."
"This still stands in substantial repair
at a point where it crosses the Severn
with a single arch.”
The Iron Bridge,
as beautiful as it is historic,
is a famous symbol
of industrial progress.
I've come to see John Challen,
who works at the Ironbridge Museum.
- John, hello.
- Hi.
I'm very excited to be on this bridge.
- You should be.
- It's wonderful.
I know its historic significance
is enormous.
And Coalbrookdale obviously
was well established
as a place where iron was made.
Bradshaw says that
there was nowhere like it.
For producing and mass producing
artefacts and iron, this was the place.
(John) It's where it all started.
Abraham Darby came here to make iron,
to make cooking pots.
But the technology he brought,
which was smelting iron with coke
and casting iron into sand moulds,
he did it in just the right place.
Until the 18th century
charcoal was used to smelt iron.
Because it used so much wood, iron
could be made only in small amounts.
Then Abraham Darby substituted coke
from the local coalfields,
inventing a technique
that's been used ever since.
It meant that cast iron could be made
cheaply and in huge quantities.
The company quickly went on
from making cast iron cooking pots
to the first iron wheels, the first
iron cylinders for steam engines
and the bridge itself.
They went on to build the world's
first steam locomotive in 1802.
What gave them the confidence
to make a bridge out of iron?
They were pushing it.
They knew they could cast
almost anything out of iron.
Make a mould and you can do it.
This was a real showpiece.
(Michael) Is it true that
Coalbrookdale makes some claim
to having the first iron rails?
- Yeah.
- What year are they then?
1760s.
It's just so long before
passenger railways, isn't it?
These first cast-iron rails,
used for horse-drawn wagons
in mines and quarries,
were the forerunner to modern railways.
And the techniques used
in the Ironbridge
were copied for some of
the earliest railway bridges.
What strikes me about the bridge
as a first iron bridge
is how beautiful it is.
In other words that they not only got
the engineering right first time,
but they got the style, the aesthetics
of it right first time. That's amazing.
Well, it is, and on the other hand
it shows how far they'd got
with casting.
A stone bridge is a stone bridge
but an iron bridge,
you had a lot more freedom in design.
All those components
were cast off site to a design
and then brought to site and assembled.
It's like a giant kit of parts.
(Michael) If this technology
hadn't been mastered
railway history
would have been different.
Before coke smelting,
iron was a very expensive material.
It was just used for fixings
and nails and tools.
To have so much iron you can use it
as a construction material
was completely different.
Think of the sheer tonnage
of iron in a railway,
you couldn't have done that
without coke smelting.
The technology progressed rapidly.
Rails made of cast iron
were soon replaced by wrought iron
and by the 1860s
all railway tracks were made from steel.
But the first iron bridge in the world
still draws admiration.
- What do you drink of your Iron Bridge?
- (man) I love it.
- Do you still look at it ever?
- Yes, I think when you live here,
you do become a little bit jaded
to how good it is.
But when you actually sit down
and look at it, it is amazing.
There is something in the bridge
you might not know.
- Abraham Darby's face in the bridge.
- Really?
- Can I see it from here?
- No, but I'll show it you.
- Where do I have to go to see it?
- Down the bottom.
It's amazing, you'll love it.
- Down the bottom?
- Yeah.
I'm going to show you this. You see
the central locking pin in the middle?
- I do.
- Look at the one the other side.
There's a silhouette of a man's face.
(Michael) Oh, my goodness.
(man) Is it architectural brilliance
or pure fluke?
(Michael) It looks like a face.
Legend has it that Abraham Darby
cast himself into the bridge.
(Michael) That's beautiful.
By the mid-19th century, Coalbrookdale's
iron industry was in decline,
but the arrival of the railway
in the 1860s brought new industries.
Businessman Henry Dunnill
was passing through on a train
when he spotted a run-down factory.
He returned and transformed it
into a new tile works.
- Hello, Adrian.
- Hi.
Adrian Blundell works
for Craven Dunhill Jackfield Tiles.
This looks like an amazing piece
of industrial archaeology.
It is in actual fact
a real working factory still.
It's not just a piece of archaeology.
Craven Dunnill, the company I work for,
built this purpose-built model factory
in 1872.
(Michael) I had a feeling
that this is an old railway.
- Is that right?
- (Adrian) It was.
We brought in materials
from Devon and Cornwall
and shipped to Manchester
and Birmingham finished material
which would've left the factory
through the weighbridge.
We had our own sidings at the side there
and our own liveried carriages
that we used to use for
transporting everything around.
It meant the world was opened up.
You've got access to the States,
access to basically the British Empire.
Craven Dunnill became one of the most
successful tile producers in Britain.
Their decorative tiles
were laid in churches, houses, pubs
and railway stations,
including the London Underground.
Today the tiles are made
in much the same way
as they were in Bradshaw's time.
The original process was developed
for making buttons, ceramic buttons.
Obviously the patent and idea was
expanded into other types of product.
What we've got is ground clay.
You've got a very large press
that presses at about 15 tons'
total pressure,
compressing the clay into a cake
you can actually handle.
- So you are using a Victorian machine?
- They've never bettered them.
At its height, the factory
made millions of tiles each year.
Today's tiles are still hand-finished,
using the same glazes and colours
as in the Victorian era
and some look very familiar to me.
What you've got here
are a number of designs
that are actually from
the Palace of Westminster.
I know that. I spent 20 years surrounded
by these tiles. I recognise them.
- May I take that down?
- Of course.
Fabulous. High Victorian tiles.
And you're making them again?
We are. And if you would like to
have a go at having a tile manufactured
for the Palace
as we are actually in the middle
of doing a major restoration project
with them.
- A signed Portillo tile.
- Signed Portillo tile.
These heritage tiles are made by
highly skilled craftsmen like Chris Cox.
This is a typical Palace tile.
This is a lion from St Stephen's Hall,
which you'll probably be familiar with.
I've walked on those many, many times.
(Chris) But never had a go
at making one.
This gives you the opportunity
to do that.
So our plaster mould
sits inside the box.
So if you take that,
tear off little grape-sized lumps
and feed them into the pattern there.
- It's not as easy as it looks.
- (laughs)
(Michael) How do you make it stick down?
(Chris) Once you've got one bit started
you're OK.
I feel like a kid with Play-Doh.
It's very hard to do,
but Chris can make 40 tiles per day.
(Chris) You can kind of feed off that.
Just keep working your way out.
I fear these tiles
probably don't come cheap.
No, they don't.
Not with the amount of work.
Of course, in the Victorian period
they weren't particularly cheap either,
but labour was, so you could afford
to have lots of people doing this.
Once the pattern is filled in,
the mould is topped up with more clay.
(Chris) Straight down in the middle.
Fantastic.
- Having bashed it into shape...
- (Chris) Push down.
...the tile is eased out of its mould.
Wow.
The next step is to add the distinctive
red glaze that brings out the pattern.
This is very satisfying.
Once the tile has dried,
the excess glaze is scraped off.
Beautiful.
Chris, I have walked over these
countless times
and never given them much thought,
apart from the fact they were beautiful,
but I had no idea it was such hard work
and such craftsmanship.
Thank you, it's been a real privilege.
- You're welcome.
- Thank you.
As I leave Coalbrookdale
to travel on to Chirk,
I wonder whether my efforts will one day
grace the Houses of Parliament,
or more likely
end up in the seconds bin.
Just before we come into Chirk,
we're going to pass over a viaduct
mentioned by Bradshaw
as very special.
But as we pass over the viaduct
we'll be looking down at an earlier
aqueduct on the right-hand side,
and that was built by Thomas Telford.
Telford was one of the greatest civil
engineers of the Industrial Revolution,
building roads, canals and bridges
all over the country.
The aqueduct at Chirk
was one of his finest achievements.
(tannoy) We will shortly
be arriving at Chirk.
Both the aqueduct and the viaduct
are worth a closer look.
But of course in his railway guide,
it's about the viaduct
that Bradshaw has most to say.
He writes, "Chirk viaduct is
considered a beautiful engineering gem
and discloses through its arches
the lovely Vale of Ceiriog."
Now that is really beautiful.
I mean, an unspoilt valley,
you know, that's a gorgeous thing.
But a valley enhanced
by the artefacts of man,
that's even better, isn't it?
The juxtaposition of nature,
the grazing sheep,
and the engineering skills
of those wonderful men
of the 18th and the 19th century.
What a fantastic combination.
At that time, aqueduct water channels
were built of stone lined with clay,
but Telford drew on the technology
developed at Coalbrookdale
and Chirk is one of the earliest
to employ a cast-iron trough.
Henry Robertson came later
with his railway viaduct
and it's as though the later man
is paying tribute, imitating the style,
snuggling his structure as close
to the other as he possibly can.
These days,
the railway line and the canal
snake through
peaceful rolling countryside
and it's easy to forget that this border
was once a battleground
between the English and the Welsh.
But all along the route
are castles to remind us of that strife.
One of the most beautiful and complete
stands at Chirk.
Behind me is Chirk Castle.
And Bradshaw writes,
"This noble-looking edifice
has been preserved from ruin
and may be regarded as a perfect model
of the time-honoured castles
of the ancient lords of the soil."
Although the castle
is perched a few miles distant,
strangely its gates have ended up here.
- Are these gates ever open?
- No, I don't think they are.
They used to be on
the north front of the house.
These are early 18th-century gates.
Very beautiful. White wrought iron.
They are beautiful.
(Michael) The story is that
they were moved here in 1888
because Queen Victoria used to pass
on a train on her way somewhere
and they wanted Queen Victoria
to be able to see
these beautiful gates from the train.
- Wow.
- Good story, isn't it?
- That is a good story. Is it true?
- 1 don't know.
(both laugh)
Tomorrow I'm hoping to enter the castle,
but for tonight I've been relegated
to the gamekeeper's cottage.
Oh, dear. A rather wet morning
in the Welsh valleys
but then they didn't get this green
without a bit of rain.
Bradshaw mentions that the castle
is the seat
of R Myddelton Biddulph, Esquire,
and the Myddeltons are still there
and I'm off to see them this morning.
Chirk Castle was built in
the 13th century by the Marcher Lords,
some of the King's most trusted men,
whose task was to guard
England's border with Wales.
According to Bradshaw,
"It's a remarkably interesting
and ancient mansion
and a magnet for visitors."
That's if I can get past the guards.
Hello, gentlemen.
- Are you happy in your work?
- Wet, but very happy.
It is a bit damp today. Are you wearing
real chain mail, a real helmet?
Yes, sir. Would you care
to feel the weight of this?
It is very heavy.
To get the full impression, sir,
would you care to...
- Goodness. Do you wear this all day?
- Yes, sir.
You must have
very developed neck muscles.
- I didn't before I started the job.
- That is very heavy.
And you wear that...
This weighs even more than the hat.
Well, it's weighty work you're doing.
- Thank you very much for it.
- A pleasure.
I take my helmet off to you.
- Bye-bye.
- Bye-bye.
Not everyone could see
the benefits of the railways
as they sped across Britain
in the 19th century.
Some landowners, like the Myddeltons,
were positively hostile.
- Hello, Michael.
- What a fantastic place.
Guy Myddelton and his family
have lived at Chirk Castle
for 14 generations.
I came here on the train
and I was surprised
there's a station called Chirk.
You've got your own station.
How did that come about?
Well, we're lucky, aren't we?
To have our own station.
This is really because my ancestor
at the time of the railway
was particularly disenchanted
with the idea
of a railway being built
across his land.
He was involved in the canal
that runs adjacent to the railway
and I think he saw the railway
as a great threat to that enterprise.
So he tried very hard
to disrupt the surveyors.
Once he'd realised that
he couldn't stop it any further,
he then negotiated
the best settlement he could,
and part of that was to ensure
that Chirk had its own station.
Of course they had their own mines here,
a coal mine particularly,
and of course the railway
would've been a great facilitator
of being able to move
that particular product about.
The railway line
also brought tourists to Chirk.
My "Bradshaw's Guide" details
for each station the country houses
and their owners close by.
And just like today,
visiting them was a popular pastime,
although the procedure
was a little different then.
In Bradshaw's time,
in the Victorian era,
I'm sure visitors would've come
to the castle on the train as well
but they would not have necessarily
been the public,
they'd have been by appointment.
They'd have made an appointment
with the housekeeper of the day.
They would have then come on the train,
been received by the housekeeper,
shown just the main rooms of interest,
seen the castle in all its glory
and probably been given
a memento on the day,
a small pamphlet just outlining those
things that they'd seen on that day.
Having free rein in a house as vast
this one is every child's dream.
I can't imagine growing up in a castle.
(Guy) Well, it's wonderful.
I'm very lucky, I know that.
When I learnt to ride a bicycle,
for example,
I was able to do it inside the house
in the long gallery.
(Michael) I hope you got a thick ear
for that.
I didn't. I was encouraged
by my grandparents.
You weren't mowing down
the Chippendales?
No, they were well protected,
roped off, so no damage done.
Perhaps a little bit of
country house condition,
I think that's what we call it.
I'm leaving Chirk
for the last leg of my journey today,
travelling nine miles
to the town of Wrexham.
All along the way the route is adorned
by outstanding viaducts
that span the Welsh valleys.
It's impressive to see
how well they've survived
a century and a half
of pounding by heavy locomotives.
The Victorians were innovators
in everything, not just engineering.
In agriculture, too, for example.
Bradshaw writes that
the famous Cheshire pastures
"were at one time almost worn out
when they were renovated with bone dust
and made five times as valuable
as before."
The crushed bones of animals were rich
in phosphates, a great fertiliser,
and that's produced
the famous Cheshire cheeses
which I'm hoping to sample now.
In the 19th century,
chemists began to identify
the key ingredients of good fertiliser.
Cheshire became the centre
of an important experiment
to improve the grass using bone dust,
and it worked.
- Bye-bye then.
- Thank you.
Have a good trip.
- All the best, bye.
- Bye.
I'm getting off at Wrexham
to visit the famous Cheshire pastures.
Over the next hundred years
this area became
the great centre of the dairy trade.
Milk travelled on the trains to nearby
cities like Liverpool and Manchester
and most of the 500 farms in the area
made cheese.
These days, few farmers
use bone meal as a fertiliser
and there aren't many who still
make traditional Cheshire cheese.
- Good morning, John.
- Morning, Michael.
- Yes, Michael. Good to see you.
- Welcome to the Bank.
Thank you very much.
It's a beautiful spot.
John Bourne's family began making
Cheshire cheese in the 1700s,
by which time it had already
been sent as far as Canterbury.
Even before railways,
it got around the country?
- Absolutely.
- But the railways made a difference.
Do you remember cheeses
going up by the railway?
The railways took over
from the canals of course,
which themselves were very important,
but the railways enabled larger volumes,
moved more quickly,
and that enabled the London market
to develop for Cheshire cheese.
(Michael) Did you have a station
you could send it to?
(John) Malpas Station was nearest.
- No longer there.
- No longer there, sadly.
In 1845, Cheshire farms were producing
12,000 tons of cheese every summer
when the pasture was at its best.
Thanks to the railways,
by 1900 it was almost 30,000 tons.
Nowadays it's rare to find
a small-scale producer like John.
(John) Just in time to catch
the end of the milking.
The milk we use for cheese
is produced on the farm.
So in one place you are grazing cows,
you are milking cows
and you are producing cheese.
Is that now quite unusual,
that it all happens in one place?
Yes, it's difficult for people
with our sort of turnover
to survive in the supermarket world,
really.
You've got to be quite specialised
and market the cheese
in a particular fashion.
Right, Michael.
We've seen the milking,
now we need to get back
to the cheese dairy.
We don't want to be late
for that process.
John's Victorian ancestors
would've processed the milk immediately
as there was no way to refrigerate it.
John still works in traditional ways
that make his product special compared
to the cheeses that are mass-produced.
Because we're trying to imitate
the old-fashioned process
and make cheese which is more akin to
what my grandfather would be making,
what Father would describe as knocking
the curd about, it must be very gentle.
(Michael) If you were starting afresh,
could you make from Cheshire milk
a camembert or a gorgonzola, or is it
pre-ordained what you have to make?
(John) It's not pre-ordained.
Milk is milk and you can turn it
into all sorts of lovely things.
We make Cheshire
because we're in Cheshire
but I can show you a soft cheese there
which will turn into a most lovely
soft blue, quite out of this world.
Quite out of this world
and quite out of our perception of
what a Cheshire cheese is going to be.
Yes, absolutely.
The type of cheese that emerges
depends on the fat content of the milk
and how the curd is cut.
Nice cheesy smell developing.
For his Cheshire cheese,
John uses full-fat milk
and breaks up the curd by hand.
It's like trying to rip
a sponge apart really.
It's quite tough to tear apart.
I'm very aware
that John doesn't want me...
That one's much better.
Once the curd is milled
it's put into moulds
to be shaped into
large cheese cylinders.
The process must be done
quickly and carefully
but the flavour depends
on leisurely maturing.
(John) Keep your head down.
The cheeses won't be ready
until they've been stored
for up to six months.
John, what a beautiful sight.
What a beautiful sight.
- Isn't that fantastic?
- (John) Yeah.
- It's actually a beautiful smell.
- Well, I think so.
(John) It's just exactly as
my great-grandfather would recognise.
Wooden shelves, proper cheese.
Cloth bound in the old-fashioned way.
Finally, the moment I feared
might never come.
Right, here we are.
Now we're going to taste some
of the finest cheese in the world.
We'll cut a piece off here
and you are going to taste that
and tell me it is absolutely amazing.
- It's absolutely amazing.
- Am I right?
- Honestly. You're not making it up?
- No! It's fantastic.
It's worth every week of
the six months of maturing, isn't it?
That really is a great cheese.
As I leave the farm,
I'm greatly encouraged
that there are still people like John,
upholding the skill and craftsmanship
passed down to them
through the generations.
The railways transformed
everything they touched,
whether it was tile making,
an iron bridge
or the Myddelton family at Chirk Castle
or dairy farming in Cheshire.
But the nature of the changes
that they brought
were as different...
as Chirk and cheese.
On my next journey I'll be exploring
one of the country's oldest streets...
This is stunning, Paul.
(Paul) Basically what we've got here
is a medieval shopping mall.
...uncovering a hidden
chemical weapons factory...
We're probably looking at
the Second World War's
most secret building in Britain, right?
(man) In 1942-43, there was nowhere
more secret in the world than this.
Out it goes!
...and raking for mussels
Victorian-style.
I think I've got nothing at all.
Absolute empty set.