Great British Railway Journeys (2010–…): Season 3, Episode 12 - Hartlebury to Great Malvern - 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.
Using my Bradshaw's Guide,
I'm continuing my journey now
towards the Forest of Dean,
within touching distance of Wales,
whose rich mineral deposits
were exploited during the industrial
Revolution as never before,
thanks to the ingenuity
of the Victorians
and the power of the railways.
On this Keg of the journey,
Hi be discovering Britain's
hidden micro-mines,
in private hands since Bradshaw's day...
The harder we work, the more coal
we get, the better off we are.
It's great.
...uncovering the railway engineering
behind an industrial icon...
So, we've got effectively
an enormous railway wagon
that spreads across rails
on either side.
That's exactly right, yes.
And seeing why the Victorians
fell for this romantic ruin.
Absolute perfection, isn't it?
I'm tracing a route
all the way from Oxford
to the Welsh county of Pembrokeshire.
Having explored the rolling Cotswolds
and the lovely Malvern Hills,
I'll soon be entering South Wales,
hunting out its industrial heritage
as far as the busy port town
of Mitford Haven.
This section starts in Gloucestershire,
then crosses into Wales,
where I'll visit the magnificent
Tintern Abbey on my way to Newport.
To reach my first stop,
I'm travelling along
the Dean Forest Heritage Line.
This four-and-a-half-mile stretch
of preserved track
was once part
of the Severn and Wye Railway,
a network of small branch lines
that criss-crossed the region.
You'll have noticed
that this is no ordinary railway car.
In fact, it's one of the most beautiful
and elegant that I've ever been on.
The other amazing thing about it
is that clearly,
the steam engine is behind me.
That's not so unusual.
But there's a driver at this end.
This remarkable machine
is a push-pull train.
Its invention in 1904 helped railway
companies to save time and money.
Throughout the 19th century,
trains could only return down the line
at the end of a trip
once the engine had been
laboriously uncoupled
and then reattached at the opposite end.
This design did away with that.
Enthusiast Michael Little has helped
to restore this example from 1930.
Mike! You actually own
this magnificent vehicle.
Half of it. I've got a partner.
What was the advantage of having this?
Partly for convenience.
Partly for safety.
It saves running the engine round the
coach each time at the end of a journey,
so you're not taking up
track space next door.
So, what is the device that enables
the driver to be at this end
and the steam engine at that?
It's a system of rodding
from the control lever at the front,
which connects with a control lever
in the engine.
As simple as that.
- As simple as that.
Although traditional steam engines
could be shunted backwards
for short distances,
it was too dangerous to do so
with passengers on board.
Now, they could be safely driven
from either end.
It saved huge amounts of time,
helping short branch lines to run
much more efficient services.
Does it play a pan
in the history of the railways?
Yes. I think from this concept
of auto trains, as they called them,
developed the modern diesel trains
that we see today,
where you can drive at both ends.
At the end of its journey, the driver
goes to the other end and drives off.
This really started a train of thinking
in railway operations.
Another advantage
was the clear view that the driver
enjoyed from his cab in the carriage,
as I'm about to find out.
Hello!
- Hello.
Easy to operate this system?
Very easy, yes.
Would you like to have a try?
(laughs) What do I have to do?
Come over this side.
- Come over this side.
Three very rudimentary controls.
This is a control linkage
to the footplate,
which makes us go faster or slower.
We've got a brake here,
which we'll come to in a bit.
And most important of all,
give that a good tug.
Give this a good tug?
- Good tug.
Both hands.
Both hands. Both hands. Lean on it.
(whistle blows)
- Oh, I see.
Push the lever over towards me,
as far as it will go.
It's very heavy. Push, push, push, push.
That's it. That's fine.
(Carmichael) We're heading
for a level-crossing,
a nervous moment for any driver.
We'll stop before we get there.
Ease the brake handle over now, Michael.
Back off.
That's it. Lovely. That's fine.
(Carmichael) Is that fine?
- That's it. Lovely.
That was magnificent.
- I'm glad you enjoyed it.
(Carmichael) It adds a certain frisson
to be heading towards
the barriers of a level-crossing.
My heritage journey ends at Lydney,
on the edge of the Forest of Dean,
one of England's
last remaining ancient woodlands.
Bradshaw's tells me
that the Forest of Dean
"was celebrated for its fine oaks".
"Lead and iron ores exist in abundance."
"Coal is also very plentiful."
But what Bradshaw's doesn't mention
is that here,
that coal could be won
only by a very special kind of miner.
This beautiful forest looks
like an untouched wilderness,
but beneath the trees
is a network of micro-mines,
where coal is worked
by local people for their own profit.
Amazingly, this centuries-old
way of life still survives.
One of the few remaining free miners
is Richard Daniels.
Hello, Richard.
Lovely to see you
in this beautiful spot.
(Richard) It's fantastic, isn't it?
- What's special about the forest?
Forest. The people.
Heritage. History. The trees.
The fact that it's a working forest.
They still work it, as you can see.
There's been timber taken out today.
It's just a fantastic place to live.
You didn't mention coal,
though I notice some on your face.
Yeah, coal. Minerals, of course.
We're very strong in minerals.
Very, very fortunate.
We've got coal, iron,
ochre and stone as well.
You are a free miner. What's that?
A free miner is unique
to the Forest of Dean.
It means that we have rights
to the minerals in the forest.
If you were born within
the Hundred of St Briavels...
What?
- Hundred of St Briavels.
It's the ancient boundary
around the forest.
Basically, the treed area.
The forested area.
If you're over 21 and worked
a year and a day underground,
you can become a free miner.
That means you can take out a gale.
A gale is an area of coal underground.
The right was granted back in the 1200s.
But by the 19th century,
this ancient tradition was under threat.
Industrial Revolution Britain
was hungry for coal and iron.
Outside interest began to look longingly
at the valuable deposits
beneath the Forest of Dean.
In 1838,
an Act of Parliament was passed,
allowing free miners
to sell their gales,
but also preserving their rights.
It's still in force to this day.
It looks pretty dark in there.
Very, very dark.
As soon as you get out of the entrance
into the mine proper,
it's as dark as you'll ever experience.
With the mine penetrating
200 metres deep,
ifs safe to enter
only for experienced hands like Richard.
Is it easy working? Are you bent double?
Are you crawling along?
What are you doing?
It's hard getting to the coal.
Once you get on the face,
you have to work lying down.
It's in 30 inches.
So it's about so high.
So, you're laid down all day.
So, as some people say, it's
the most comfortable job in the world.
(laughs)
- And this is your living.
That coal is then yours.
- It is, yeah.
The harder we work,
the more coal we get,
the better off we are. It's great.
Despite free mining's ancient pedigree,
the workers exploited new technology.
In the 1870s,
the Wye Valley Railway arrived here.
Free miners harnessed it
to export their wares.
Railway’s pretty important
for the coal around here?
It was, previously,
the heavy gauge railway.
The Mineral Loop used to run from
Lydney, around the forest and back down.
That was very important.
The beauty of it is that the coal
used to go onto barges then
and out on the Severn to Ireland
or Cornwall or wherever it was needed.
Very efficient.
The railway closed in 1959.
But here In the forest,
miners still use railway technology
to get their valuable minerals
to the service.
This is Ray.
- Hello, Ray!
He's going to bring the cans up for us.
How do you bring them up'?
We've got a big generator
which produces electricity.
We've got electric haulage in the shed
which is about 60 years old.
Made in Scotland and going very well.
When we hear the bell ring three,
that tells me
it's time to pull the carts up.
With a bit of luck,
they stay on the rails.
We'll pull the cans to the surface.
Here we go, then.
(bell rings three times)
That's it. And we're away.
Ray knows the underground tunnels
so well
that he can picture the carts' progress
and control the speed to make sure
that they stay on the tracks.
The plentiful coal piled up
in the wagons
demonstrates that free mining is
still productive after 800 years.
Are the young people today
still becoming free miners?
Actually, it's difficult today.
Our local maternity unit
is in Gloucester.
They're not getting born in the Hundred.
But we've got the highest home births
in the country.
So people are still sticking with it.
They get to an age where they say,
"I'd like to have a go at that."
If they've got the determination,
they can come and do the year and a day
and get registered.
(Michael) Fantastic.
Tradition continues.
It continues. Yeah.
I'm now leaving the forest behind
to continue my journey.
And I'm venturing into a new country.
With no apparent change in the scenery,
because it's all beautiful,
we now cross from England to Wales,
into a different history
and a different culture.
It's those charming
and interesting differences
that I'm looking forward to exploring
in the second half of my journey.
I'm travelling
through the county of Monmouthshire,
known today for its lovely landscapes
and rich history.
I've chosen to get off at Chepstow...
...a place that attracted Victorians
in shoals.
They'd come to see a ruin,
somewhere that was mystical
and spiritual.
Chepstow's station opened in 1850
as a stop
on Brunel's South Wales Railway.
The line was built to carry coal
from Welsh mines to London,
but was soon heaving with tourists.
The attraction
for these railway travellers
was a romantic ruin that can
surprise you on the road.
Bradshaw's contains the loveliest
description of Tintern Abbey.
"The building suddenly bursts upon you
like a gigantic skeleton,
its huge gables standing out
against the sky,
with a mournful air of dilapidation."
(laughs) Good Lord.
That is the most fantastic sight.
It's magnificent for what it was.
And yet it's intensely moving,
for being a ruin.
Tintern Abbey was founded
by Cistercian monks in the 12th century.
In the 1500s,
it was stripped of its wealth
as Henry VIII dissolved
the monasteries.
It descended into ruin.
It was left to decay until,
in the 18th and 19th centuries,
it became a magnet for tourists.
I trust that Anne Rainsbury, curator of
Chepstow Museum, can explain its appeal.
From the hillside, I had
my first ever glimpse of Tintern Abbey.
I'm blown sideways.
It's absolutely amazing, isn't it?
It's beautiful.
A very iconic monument, as well.
(Carmichael) It must have been,
at one time,
an even bigger ruin, in a sense,
than now.
This is from Bradshaw's.
"Ivy comes creeping out of the bare,
sightless windows."
"The wild flowers and mosses cluster
upon the mullions and dripstones,
as if they were seeking to fill up
the unglazed void
with nature's own colours."
Evidently, it was covered in ivy.
- Very much so.
Very profusely.
This was something
that was very attractive
to the 18th and 19th-century visitors,
partly because it's nature taking over
what man has built.
Against the backdrop
of rapid industrialisation,
this kind of idea became
hugely fashionable.
Romanticism swept the arts.
The abbeys air of melancholic decay
made it irresistible to painters
like Turner and poets like Wordsworth.
Other visitors followed in their wake.
Tintern Abbey was the highlight
of the Wye tour,
which was, if you like,
the first package tour in Britain.
It was a two-day boat trip,
bringing people down the Wye Valley
to look at the scenery.
This was the piece de resistance,
to get out at Tintern on the second day.
These early tours were expensive
and time-consuming.
Only the wealthy elite could afford
to come and admire the abbey.
If we were early aristocratic tourists,
how would we make
our approach to the church'?
You would come here to the west door
with the landlord of The Beaufort Arms
who held the keys,
because the doors were locked
so had to be opened for you.
There would probably be a cluster
of beggars around the front door.
You'd have to fight your way through.
Which might spoil the contemplative mood
that you were trying to cultivate.
Before you, the doors were thrust open
and you had the amazing ooh-ah moment.
(Carmichael) Absolute perfection, isn't it?
(Anne) It is fantastic.
- (Carmichael) It's wondrous.
And in its ruined state,
you look straight through the church,
onto the hillside.
That complete marriage
of human artifice and nature.
Fantastic.
Although these days the ivy's gone,
cleared when the Crown bought the abbey
in the early 20th century,
it's still easy to imagine
coming on an exclusive early tour.
But in 1876,
those aristocratic tourists
had their quiet enjoyment of the ruins
rudely disrupted.
The railways would have brought
larger numbers.
Huge numbers of people.
All in one go, sometimes.
It was quite different.
They were quite different
sons of people, of course.
Your 18th-century people
were doing a tour.
They were tourists.
But these were excursionists.
These were day-trippers.
A bit of snobbery here.
- Absolutely.
People, some people, who were
still coming and doing the tour,
were quite horrified to find
the coaches would disgorge themselves
and people would come in
and get their sandwiches out
and their baskets on the lawn
and start having lunch.
For the elite,
Tintern Abbey was ruined once more.
But thousands of Victorians got
to experience its picturesque charms.
I'm stopping here for the night.
/don't have far to go to find my hotel.
For my night's rest,
Bradshaw's recommends The Beaufort Arms,
which apparently has changed its name.
But not its vista, which remains
one of the best in Britain.
Before I check in, I want to check out
that view from an unusual perspective.
Early tourists had a particular way
of framing the view
of a beautiful building or landscape.
They used what was known
as a Claude glass,
named after the French landscape painter
Claude Lorrain.
They held it up
and could see the view behind.
And here is such a glass.
Victorian tourists believed
that a reflection helped them to see
ah idealised version of the landscape.
They'd bring small mirrors with them
to frame the view,
then sketch it
as a memento of their trip.
{have the advantage
that I can admire the view from my room.
On today's leg of the journey,
I'm turning my back
on Tintern's medieval mysticism
and travelling
into industrial South Wales.
I'm now headed for Newport.
My Bradshaw's is a bit mean.
It says, "With the exception
of the church,
it has no prepossessing attractions."
It goes on to say that,
"Outside the town,
a stone bridge of five arches
crosses the River Usk,
erected at a cost
of something over £10,000."
In fact, there's now another bridge
which I would describe
as a prepossessing attraction.
A lot has changed in Newport
since my guidebook was published,
starting with the buildings that greet
today's railway travellers.
Newport has a bold new station.
Two round buildings containing
spiral staircases linked by a bridge,
looking like a giant telephone receiver
spanning the tracks.
It's controversial, it's modern
and I am one of its fans.
The first station opened on this site
in 1850
at a time when Newport was undergoing
a radical transformation.
The Industrial Revolution made
the collieries of South Wales boom
and Newport became a thriving coal port.
The town grew rapidly,
spanning both sides of the River Usk.
By the end of the 19th century,
a new crossing was urgently needed.
This piece of engineering was
to provide the answer.
I'm meeting John Pritchard
on Newport's famous Transporter Bridge
to hear its story.
John! Hello.
- Michael! Pleased to meet you.
Thank you for having me into the motor
house. Not many people get in here.
No. Special appointment only.
How unusual is this design'?
It's very unusual.
16 were built originally.
I think seven or eight
still survive in the world.
Only three in the UK.
This is the only one in Wales.
We like to think
ours is the most elegant.
The bridge has a span of 645 feet.
Its two towers soar to 240 feet.
The extraordinary concept
was born out of necessity.
Spectacular view, John.
- It certainly is, Michael.
(Carmichael) Why this design?
The River Usk has
a very high tidal range.
It's the second highest in the world.
Combine this with tall sailing ships
who used to navigate the river
to the wharfs further up.
We needed a very high headroom.
The council at the time looked
at conventional bridges and tunnels.
These were dismissed on cost grounds.
They heard of a French engineer,
Ferdinand Arnodin,
who was designing
these weird structures in France.
They asked him to come over
and design a bridge for Newport.
This is why we have
this fantastic structure here today.
Wheels running on trucks carry the
gondola, or platform, across the river.
Now, I came up here
particularly to see the rails.
Where do I look for those?
They're behind you.
There are four rails,
two on each side,
on which the gondola is attached.
(Carmichael) So, we've got effectively
an enormous railway wagon,
a bogie, that spreads
across these rails on either side.
That's exactly right. Yes.
The bridge took four years to build.
When it finally opened in 1906,
8,000 people came along to make
the two-minute trip across the Usk.
Of course, to me, the platform,
the gondola, seems very, very small.
I suppose in those days,
most people were pedestrians
or at most, they were cyclists.
That's right.
There were very, very few cars.
So although the gondola can only take
six cars,
it can take quite a number
of foot passengers and cyclists.
And probably the odd horse.
Unfortunately, the dawning
of the automobile age
meant that the bridge never became
a financial success.
By the 1980s, it had fallen into
such a state of disrepair
that it was forced to close.
Since then, ifs been restored,
and now stands as a striking monument
to Newport's industrial heritage.
They used to call this the aerial ferry.
It was designed in Queen Victoria's day,
but built just after her death.
Perhaps my one regret is
it came just a bit too late
to be included in my Bradshaw's.
Having crossed
to the east bank of the Usk,
I'm now entering
Newport's industrial heart.
Alongside coal,
iron was a vital ingredient
in Britain's 19th-century economic boom.
Both were in abundant supply
here in Bradshaw's day.
My Bradshaw's says that "Newport is
a seaport town of some importance,
with ready access by railway
to the many iron districts
in the neighbourhood."
"Its traffic in that mineral
has greatly increased."
Well, its traffic in metals today
is still significant.
But with a twist.
The speed and scale of Newport's
19th-century expansion
were extraordinary.
Between 1800 and 1900,
the population shot up
from around 1,000 to 67,000.
Many amongst the influx of new workers
were employed in the iron trade,
transporting it or smelting it in the
vast ironworks that were built nearby.
Nowadays, Newport's iron industry
has largely disappeared,
but thanks to the railway network
that grew up here in Victorian times,
the town's link with metals
is still strong.
I'm meeting Miles Pilkington to find out
about the modem metal business.
Hello, Miles.
- Hello, Michael. How are you'?
(Michael) What's going on here
is obviously not the smelting of iron.
It's something quite different.
What is going on?
What we're doing, actually,
is kind of carrying on the tradition.
This is urban mining.
As opposed to mining the hills,
we're bringing all that metal,
all that resource
which would have gone to landfill
or just rusted somewhere
in the environment,
we bring it here and we're reclaiming it
for re-use, right around the world.
Over two million tonnes of scrap metal
pass through this vast recycling plant
every year,
including 40,000 tonnes of railway stock
that's reached
the end of its useful life.
Astonishingly, half the metal
that comes here has already been reused.
How does that stuff get here'?
In many different ways.
One of the great things about Newport
is producing all that coal
and all that iron in the past,
it created a rail system which brought
in and became very important to Newport
from both the point of view
of exporting coal, exporting steel.
We've piggybacked on the back of that.
Today, the trains arrive full of scrap
and leave, carrying processed material,
ready for use.
We'll have two lines of about ten
carriages coming in, side by side here.
Through the radiation detectors
to make sure there's nothing hazardous
coming in with it.
They'll line up here
and then we'll unload them.
(Carmichael) Are you saving a lot of
lorry journeys doing this?
Yes, indeed. We save between
5,000 and 5,400 lorry journeys a year
at this site alone.
After it's unloaded, the metal is sent
to the world's biggest shredder,
which can swallow
an extraordinary 450 cars per hour.
Now we've come level
with this monstrous shredder
and the ground is
actually shaking under our feet.
This is a pretty big machine.
(ll/files) Yes, indeed.
It's a 9,000-horsepower motor driving
a shaft with a lot of hammers on,
which, as it rotates,
smashes up the metal inside.
Just like when you're making a soup
or a juice
with your sieve
and the back of a wooden spoon,
as you're moving it round, you shove
the material through the sieve.
The same thing is happening,
only we've an industrial sieve.
We're trying to get metal out
in the right way
to sell as a quality commodity.
Once shredded, the material is
carefully sorted into different metals,
using magnets and other techniques.
It's then sent across the globe
to be transformed into the cars
and railway carriages of the future.
Hello!
- Hello, Michael.
How are you'?
- Alright.
Is this your finished product?
- This is the finished product.
Have you been
in the recycling industry long?
Ten years. Yes.
And before that?
- I was in the steel industry.
And before that?
- I was down the mines.
What do you think
of Newport's new industry?
It's on a grand scale, isn't it?
Really, really grand.
You've got to come here.
See it to believe it.
You do.
Over the years,
the people of Newport have adapted
to the changing industrial base
of their town.
But a clear threat connects Bradshaw's
Newport to the Newport of today.
In Wales, the growth of coal and iron
production depended on the railways.
Industrialisation brought prosperity,
but pollution too.
Today, the waste products
of our consumer society
can be brought together
in vast quantities for recycling.
A task ideally suited to the railways.
On the next stage of my journey,
I'll be visiting a favourite
holiday spot of 19th-century miners,
Barry Island. ..
They came in huge numbers.
We've got about 100,000
in the very first summer
that this railway station's opened.
hunting out the political heart
of Wales's capital city...
it's a great privilege to be allowed
into the debating chamber.
It's about as different from the
House of Commons as it could be.
...and seeing what's left
of this region's
extraordinary Victorian railway network.
That is amazing.
These are the valleys of South Wales.
Railway lines going up
every single one of them.
That is the most extraordinary picture,
isn't it?
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.
Using my Bradshaw's Guide,
I'm continuing my journey now
towards the Forest of Dean,
within touching distance of Wales,
whose rich mineral deposits
were exploited during the industrial
Revolution as never before,
thanks to the ingenuity
of the Victorians
and the power of the railways.
On this Keg of the journey,
Hi be discovering Britain's
hidden micro-mines,
in private hands since Bradshaw's day...
The harder we work, the more coal
we get, the better off we are.
It's great.
...uncovering the railway engineering
behind an industrial icon...
So, we've got effectively
an enormous railway wagon
that spreads across rails
on either side.
That's exactly right, yes.
And seeing why the Victorians
fell for this romantic ruin.
Absolute perfection, isn't it?
I'm tracing a route
all the way from Oxford
to the Welsh county of Pembrokeshire.
Having explored the rolling Cotswolds
and the lovely Malvern Hills,
I'll soon be entering South Wales,
hunting out its industrial heritage
as far as the busy port town
of Mitford Haven.
This section starts in Gloucestershire,
then crosses into Wales,
where I'll visit the magnificent
Tintern Abbey on my way to Newport.
To reach my first stop,
I'm travelling along
the Dean Forest Heritage Line.
This four-and-a-half-mile stretch
of preserved track
was once part
of the Severn and Wye Railway,
a network of small branch lines
that criss-crossed the region.
You'll have noticed
that this is no ordinary railway car.
In fact, it's one of the most beautiful
and elegant that I've ever been on.
The other amazing thing about it
is that clearly,
the steam engine is behind me.
That's not so unusual.
But there's a driver at this end.
This remarkable machine
is a push-pull train.
Its invention in 1904 helped railway
companies to save time and money.
Throughout the 19th century,
trains could only return down the line
at the end of a trip
once the engine had been
laboriously uncoupled
and then reattached at the opposite end.
This design did away with that.
Enthusiast Michael Little has helped
to restore this example from 1930.
Mike! You actually own
this magnificent vehicle.
Half of it. I've got a partner.
What was the advantage of having this?
Partly for convenience.
Partly for safety.
It saves running the engine round the
coach each time at the end of a journey,
so you're not taking up
track space next door.
So, what is the device that enables
the driver to be at this end
and the steam engine at that?
It's a system of rodding
from the control lever at the front,
which connects with a control lever
in the engine.
As simple as that.
- As simple as that.
Although traditional steam engines
could be shunted backwards
for short distances,
it was too dangerous to do so
with passengers on board.
Now, they could be safely driven
from either end.
It saved huge amounts of time,
helping short branch lines to run
much more efficient services.
Does it play a pan
in the history of the railways?
Yes. I think from this concept
of auto trains, as they called them,
developed the modern diesel trains
that we see today,
where you can drive at both ends.
At the end of its journey, the driver
goes to the other end and drives off.
This really started a train of thinking
in railway operations.
Another advantage
was the clear view that the driver
enjoyed from his cab in the carriage,
as I'm about to find out.
Hello!
- Hello.
Easy to operate this system?
Very easy, yes.
Would you like to have a try?
(laughs) What do I have to do?
Come over this side.
- Come over this side.
Three very rudimentary controls.
This is a control linkage
to the footplate,
which makes us go faster or slower.
We've got a brake here,
which we'll come to in a bit.
And most important of all,
give that a good tug.
Give this a good tug?
- Good tug.
Both hands.
Both hands. Both hands. Lean on it.
(whistle blows)
- Oh, I see.
Push the lever over towards me,
as far as it will go.
It's very heavy. Push, push, push, push.
That's it. That's fine.
(Carmichael) We're heading
for a level-crossing,
a nervous moment for any driver.
We'll stop before we get there.
Ease the brake handle over now, Michael.
Back off.
That's it. Lovely. That's fine.
(Carmichael) Is that fine?
- That's it. Lovely.
That was magnificent.
- I'm glad you enjoyed it.
(Carmichael) It adds a certain frisson
to be heading towards
the barriers of a level-crossing.
My heritage journey ends at Lydney,
on the edge of the Forest of Dean,
one of England's
last remaining ancient woodlands.
Bradshaw's tells me
that the Forest of Dean
"was celebrated for its fine oaks".
"Lead and iron ores exist in abundance."
"Coal is also very plentiful."
But what Bradshaw's doesn't mention
is that here,
that coal could be won
only by a very special kind of miner.
This beautiful forest looks
like an untouched wilderness,
but beneath the trees
is a network of micro-mines,
where coal is worked
by local people for their own profit.
Amazingly, this centuries-old
way of life still survives.
One of the few remaining free miners
is Richard Daniels.
Hello, Richard.
Lovely to see you
in this beautiful spot.
(Richard) It's fantastic, isn't it?
- What's special about the forest?
Forest. The people.
Heritage. History. The trees.
The fact that it's a working forest.
They still work it, as you can see.
There's been timber taken out today.
It's just a fantastic place to live.
You didn't mention coal,
though I notice some on your face.
Yeah, coal. Minerals, of course.
We're very strong in minerals.
Very, very fortunate.
We've got coal, iron,
ochre and stone as well.
You are a free miner. What's that?
A free miner is unique
to the Forest of Dean.
It means that we have rights
to the minerals in the forest.
If you were born within
the Hundred of St Briavels...
What?
- Hundred of St Briavels.
It's the ancient boundary
around the forest.
Basically, the treed area.
The forested area.
If you're over 21 and worked
a year and a day underground,
you can become a free miner.
That means you can take out a gale.
A gale is an area of coal underground.
The right was granted back in the 1200s.
But by the 19th century,
this ancient tradition was under threat.
Industrial Revolution Britain
was hungry for coal and iron.
Outside interest began to look longingly
at the valuable deposits
beneath the Forest of Dean.
In 1838,
an Act of Parliament was passed,
allowing free miners
to sell their gales,
but also preserving their rights.
It's still in force to this day.
It looks pretty dark in there.
Very, very dark.
As soon as you get out of the entrance
into the mine proper,
it's as dark as you'll ever experience.
With the mine penetrating
200 metres deep,
ifs safe to enter
only for experienced hands like Richard.
Is it easy working? Are you bent double?
Are you crawling along?
What are you doing?
It's hard getting to the coal.
Once you get on the face,
you have to work lying down.
It's in 30 inches.
So it's about so high.
So, you're laid down all day.
So, as some people say, it's
the most comfortable job in the world.
(laughs)
- And this is your living.
That coal is then yours.
- It is, yeah.
The harder we work,
the more coal we get,
the better off we are. It's great.
Despite free mining's ancient pedigree,
the workers exploited new technology.
In the 1870s,
the Wye Valley Railway arrived here.
Free miners harnessed it
to export their wares.
Railway’s pretty important
for the coal around here?
It was, previously,
the heavy gauge railway.
The Mineral Loop used to run from
Lydney, around the forest and back down.
That was very important.
The beauty of it is that the coal
used to go onto barges then
and out on the Severn to Ireland
or Cornwall or wherever it was needed.
Very efficient.
The railway closed in 1959.
But here In the forest,
miners still use railway technology
to get their valuable minerals
to the service.
This is Ray.
- Hello, Ray!
He's going to bring the cans up for us.
How do you bring them up'?
We've got a big generator
which produces electricity.
We've got electric haulage in the shed
which is about 60 years old.
Made in Scotland and going very well.
When we hear the bell ring three,
that tells me
it's time to pull the carts up.
With a bit of luck,
they stay on the rails.
We'll pull the cans to the surface.
Here we go, then.
(bell rings three times)
That's it. And we're away.
Ray knows the underground tunnels
so well
that he can picture the carts' progress
and control the speed to make sure
that they stay on the tracks.
The plentiful coal piled up
in the wagons
demonstrates that free mining is
still productive after 800 years.
Are the young people today
still becoming free miners?
Actually, it's difficult today.
Our local maternity unit
is in Gloucester.
They're not getting born in the Hundred.
But we've got the highest home births
in the country.
So people are still sticking with it.
They get to an age where they say,
"I'd like to have a go at that."
If they've got the determination,
they can come and do the year and a day
and get registered.
(Michael) Fantastic.
Tradition continues.
It continues. Yeah.
I'm now leaving the forest behind
to continue my journey.
And I'm venturing into a new country.
With no apparent change in the scenery,
because it's all beautiful,
we now cross from England to Wales,
into a different history
and a different culture.
It's those charming
and interesting differences
that I'm looking forward to exploring
in the second half of my journey.
I'm travelling
through the county of Monmouthshire,
known today for its lovely landscapes
and rich history.
I've chosen to get off at Chepstow...
...a place that attracted Victorians
in shoals.
They'd come to see a ruin,
somewhere that was mystical
and spiritual.
Chepstow's station opened in 1850
as a stop
on Brunel's South Wales Railway.
The line was built to carry coal
from Welsh mines to London,
but was soon heaving with tourists.
The attraction
for these railway travellers
was a romantic ruin that can
surprise you on the road.
Bradshaw's contains the loveliest
description of Tintern Abbey.
"The building suddenly bursts upon you
like a gigantic skeleton,
its huge gables standing out
against the sky,
with a mournful air of dilapidation."
(laughs) Good Lord.
That is the most fantastic sight.
It's magnificent for what it was.
And yet it's intensely moving,
for being a ruin.
Tintern Abbey was founded
by Cistercian monks in the 12th century.
In the 1500s,
it was stripped of its wealth
as Henry VIII dissolved
the monasteries.
It descended into ruin.
It was left to decay until,
in the 18th and 19th centuries,
it became a magnet for tourists.
I trust that Anne Rainsbury, curator of
Chepstow Museum, can explain its appeal.
From the hillside, I had
my first ever glimpse of Tintern Abbey.
I'm blown sideways.
It's absolutely amazing, isn't it?
It's beautiful.
A very iconic monument, as well.
(Carmichael) It must have been,
at one time,
an even bigger ruin, in a sense,
than now.
This is from Bradshaw's.
"Ivy comes creeping out of the bare,
sightless windows."
"The wild flowers and mosses cluster
upon the mullions and dripstones,
as if they were seeking to fill up
the unglazed void
with nature's own colours."
Evidently, it was covered in ivy.
- Very much so.
Very profusely.
This was something
that was very attractive
to the 18th and 19th-century visitors,
partly because it's nature taking over
what man has built.
Against the backdrop
of rapid industrialisation,
this kind of idea became
hugely fashionable.
Romanticism swept the arts.
The abbeys air of melancholic decay
made it irresistible to painters
like Turner and poets like Wordsworth.
Other visitors followed in their wake.
Tintern Abbey was the highlight
of the Wye tour,
which was, if you like,
the first package tour in Britain.
It was a two-day boat trip,
bringing people down the Wye Valley
to look at the scenery.
This was the piece de resistance,
to get out at Tintern on the second day.
These early tours were expensive
and time-consuming.
Only the wealthy elite could afford
to come and admire the abbey.
If we were early aristocratic tourists,
how would we make
our approach to the church'?
You would come here to the west door
with the landlord of The Beaufort Arms
who held the keys,
because the doors were locked
so had to be opened for you.
There would probably be a cluster
of beggars around the front door.
You'd have to fight your way through.
Which might spoil the contemplative mood
that you were trying to cultivate.
Before you, the doors were thrust open
and you had the amazing ooh-ah moment.
(Carmichael) Absolute perfection, isn't it?
(Anne) It is fantastic.
- (Carmichael) It's wondrous.
And in its ruined state,
you look straight through the church,
onto the hillside.
That complete marriage
of human artifice and nature.
Fantastic.
Although these days the ivy's gone,
cleared when the Crown bought the abbey
in the early 20th century,
it's still easy to imagine
coming on an exclusive early tour.
But in 1876,
those aristocratic tourists
had their quiet enjoyment of the ruins
rudely disrupted.
The railways would have brought
larger numbers.
Huge numbers of people.
All in one go, sometimes.
It was quite different.
They were quite different
sons of people, of course.
Your 18th-century people
were doing a tour.
They were tourists.
But these were excursionists.
These were day-trippers.
A bit of snobbery here.
- Absolutely.
People, some people, who were
still coming and doing the tour,
were quite horrified to find
the coaches would disgorge themselves
and people would come in
and get their sandwiches out
and their baskets on the lawn
and start having lunch.
For the elite,
Tintern Abbey was ruined once more.
But thousands of Victorians got
to experience its picturesque charms.
I'm stopping here for the night.
/don't have far to go to find my hotel.
For my night's rest,
Bradshaw's recommends The Beaufort Arms,
which apparently has changed its name.
But not its vista, which remains
one of the best in Britain.
Before I check in, I want to check out
that view from an unusual perspective.
Early tourists had a particular way
of framing the view
of a beautiful building or landscape.
They used what was known
as a Claude glass,
named after the French landscape painter
Claude Lorrain.
They held it up
and could see the view behind.
And here is such a glass.
Victorian tourists believed
that a reflection helped them to see
ah idealised version of the landscape.
They'd bring small mirrors with them
to frame the view,
then sketch it
as a memento of their trip.
{have the advantage
that I can admire the view from my room.
On today's leg of the journey,
I'm turning my back
on Tintern's medieval mysticism
and travelling
into industrial South Wales.
I'm now headed for Newport.
My Bradshaw's is a bit mean.
It says, "With the exception
of the church,
it has no prepossessing attractions."
It goes on to say that,
"Outside the town,
a stone bridge of five arches
crosses the River Usk,
erected at a cost
of something over £10,000."
In fact, there's now another bridge
which I would describe
as a prepossessing attraction.
A lot has changed in Newport
since my guidebook was published,
starting with the buildings that greet
today's railway travellers.
Newport has a bold new station.
Two round buildings containing
spiral staircases linked by a bridge,
looking like a giant telephone receiver
spanning the tracks.
It's controversial, it's modern
and I am one of its fans.
The first station opened on this site
in 1850
at a time when Newport was undergoing
a radical transformation.
The Industrial Revolution made
the collieries of South Wales boom
and Newport became a thriving coal port.
The town grew rapidly,
spanning both sides of the River Usk.
By the end of the 19th century,
a new crossing was urgently needed.
This piece of engineering was
to provide the answer.
I'm meeting John Pritchard
on Newport's famous Transporter Bridge
to hear its story.
John! Hello.
- Michael! Pleased to meet you.
Thank you for having me into the motor
house. Not many people get in here.
No. Special appointment only.
How unusual is this design'?
It's very unusual.
16 were built originally.
I think seven or eight
still survive in the world.
Only three in the UK.
This is the only one in Wales.
We like to think
ours is the most elegant.
The bridge has a span of 645 feet.
Its two towers soar to 240 feet.
The extraordinary concept
was born out of necessity.
Spectacular view, John.
- It certainly is, Michael.
(Carmichael) Why this design?
The River Usk has
a very high tidal range.
It's the second highest in the world.
Combine this with tall sailing ships
who used to navigate the river
to the wharfs further up.
We needed a very high headroom.
The council at the time looked
at conventional bridges and tunnels.
These were dismissed on cost grounds.
They heard of a French engineer,
Ferdinand Arnodin,
who was designing
these weird structures in France.
They asked him to come over
and design a bridge for Newport.
This is why we have
this fantastic structure here today.
Wheels running on trucks carry the
gondola, or platform, across the river.
Now, I came up here
particularly to see the rails.
Where do I look for those?
They're behind you.
There are four rails,
two on each side,
on which the gondola is attached.
(Carmichael) So, we've got effectively
an enormous railway wagon,
a bogie, that spreads
across these rails on either side.
That's exactly right. Yes.
The bridge took four years to build.
When it finally opened in 1906,
8,000 people came along to make
the two-minute trip across the Usk.
Of course, to me, the platform,
the gondola, seems very, very small.
I suppose in those days,
most people were pedestrians
or at most, they were cyclists.
That's right.
There were very, very few cars.
So although the gondola can only take
six cars,
it can take quite a number
of foot passengers and cyclists.
And probably the odd horse.
Unfortunately, the dawning
of the automobile age
meant that the bridge never became
a financial success.
By the 1980s, it had fallen into
such a state of disrepair
that it was forced to close.
Since then, ifs been restored,
and now stands as a striking monument
to Newport's industrial heritage.
They used to call this the aerial ferry.
It was designed in Queen Victoria's day,
but built just after her death.
Perhaps my one regret is
it came just a bit too late
to be included in my Bradshaw's.
Having crossed
to the east bank of the Usk,
I'm now entering
Newport's industrial heart.
Alongside coal,
iron was a vital ingredient
in Britain's 19th-century economic boom.
Both were in abundant supply
here in Bradshaw's day.
My Bradshaw's says that "Newport is
a seaport town of some importance,
with ready access by railway
to the many iron districts
in the neighbourhood."
"Its traffic in that mineral
has greatly increased."
Well, its traffic in metals today
is still significant.
But with a twist.
The speed and scale of Newport's
19th-century expansion
were extraordinary.
Between 1800 and 1900,
the population shot up
from around 1,000 to 67,000.
Many amongst the influx of new workers
were employed in the iron trade,
transporting it or smelting it in the
vast ironworks that were built nearby.
Nowadays, Newport's iron industry
has largely disappeared,
but thanks to the railway network
that grew up here in Victorian times,
the town's link with metals
is still strong.
I'm meeting Miles Pilkington to find out
about the modem metal business.
Hello, Miles.
- Hello, Michael. How are you'?
(Michael) What's going on here
is obviously not the smelting of iron.
It's something quite different.
What is going on?
What we're doing, actually,
is kind of carrying on the tradition.
This is urban mining.
As opposed to mining the hills,
we're bringing all that metal,
all that resource
which would have gone to landfill
or just rusted somewhere
in the environment,
we bring it here and we're reclaiming it
for re-use, right around the world.
Over two million tonnes of scrap metal
pass through this vast recycling plant
every year,
including 40,000 tonnes of railway stock
that's reached
the end of its useful life.
Astonishingly, half the metal
that comes here has already been reused.
How does that stuff get here'?
In many different ways.
One of the great things about Newport
is producing all that coal
and all that iron in the past,
it created a rail system which brought
in and became very important to Newport
from both the point of view
of exporting coal, exporting steel.
We've piggybacked on the back of that.
Today, the trains arrive full of scrap
and leave, carrying processed material,
ready for use.
We'll have two lines of about ten
carriages coming in, side by side here.
Through the radiation detectors
to make sure there's nothing hazardous
coming in with it.
They'll line up here
and then we'll unload them.
(Carmichael) Are you saving a lot of
lorry journeys doing this?
Yes, indeed. We save between
5,000 and 5,400 lorry journeys a year
at this site alone.
After it's unloaded, the metal is sent
to the world's biggest shredder,
which can swallow
an extraordinary 450 cars per hour.
Now we've come level
with this monstrous shredder
and the ground is
actually shaking under our feet.
This is a pretty big machine.
(ll/files) Yes, indeed.
It's a 9,000-horsepower motor driving
a shaft with a lot of hammers on,
which, as it rotates,
smashes up the metal inside.
Just like when you're making a soup
or a juice
with your sieve
and the back of a wooden spoon,
as you're moving it round, you shove
the material through the sieve.
The same thing is happening,
only we've an industrial sieve.
We're trying to get metal out
in the right way
to sell as a quality commodity.
Once shredded, the material is
carefully sorted into different metals,
using magnets and other techniques.
It's then sent across the globe
to be transformed into the cars
and railway carriages of the future.
Hello!
- Hello, Michael.
How are you'?
- Alright.
Is this your finished product?
- This is the finished product.
Have you been
in the recycling industry long?
Ten years. Yes.
And before that?
- I was in the steel industry.
And before that?
- I was down the mines.
What do you think
of Newport's new industry?
It's on a grand scale, isn't it?
Really, really grand.
You've got to come here.
See it to believe it.
You do.
Over the years,
the people of Newport have adapted
to the changing industrial base
of their town.
But a clear threat connects Bradshaw's
Newport to the Newport of today.
In Wales, the growth of coal and iron
production depended on the railways.
Industrialisation brought prosperity,
but pollution too.
Today, the waste products
of our consumer society
can be brought together
in vast quantities for recycling.
A task ideally suited to the railways.
On the next stage of my journey,
I'll be visiting a favourite
holiday spot of 19th-century miners,
Barry Island. ..
They came in huge numbers.
We've got about 100,000
in the very first summer
that this railway station's opened.
hunting out the political heart
of Wales's capital city...
it's a great privilege to be allowed
into the debating chamber.
It's about as different from the
House of Commons as it could be.
...and seeing what's left
of this region's
extraordinary Victorian railway network.
That is amazing.
These are the valleys of South Wales.
Railway lines going up
every single one of them.
That is the most extraordinary picture,
isn't it?