Great British Railway Journeys (2010–…): Season 3, Episode 25 - Ballymoney to Londonderry - full transcript
In 1840, one man transformed
travel in Britain and Ireland.
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 these islands
to see what of Bradshaw's world remains.
I'm continuing my journey across
Northern Ireland,
which will lead me
to the spectacular north coast.
Just now I'm approaching Belfast,
which, when Parliament first approved
legislation for railways,
was known as a village.
But today, it's become a mighty city.
On today's leg of my journey,
HI be taking a step back in time...
This is like making a visit to the early
stages of the industrial Revolution.
Seeing what gave pleasure-seeking
Water/ans the thrill of their lives. ..
(woman) Being 30 to 70 feet
above the sea, crashing below you.
It makes a change from city life.
And taking to the tracks
in the latest hi-tech train simulator.
(gasps) on!
Oh, dear! I think we're all dead!
My 19th-century guidebook
is taking me across a land
that at the time of writing
was one Ireland
under the reign of Queen Victoria.
We been following the historical
expansion of the railways
from Dublin towards Belfast,
before finishing in Deny/Londondeny.
On today's stretch, I'll be exploring
Northern Ireland's capital
before heading north to Templepatrick,
ending at the handsome coastal town
of Whitehead.
My Bradshaw's says of Belfast,
"The tall chimneys and factories
for spinning linen and cotton yarn
are the most conspicuous buildings."
"Though ranking the second port
in Ireland,
it stands first for manufactures
and trade."
And I'm delighted to be back in a city,
which has memories for me
of bad times and good.
Belfast suffered greatly during
the political conflict
and the violence of the Troubles.
But in recent times ifs experienced
greater periods of calm
and economic growth,
at least until the recession.
The city's huge industrial development
began in the Victorian era.
It was the centre for linen
and by 1873 produced more of it
than anywhere in the world,
employing thousands of workers and
earning itself the moniker Linenopolis.
But another industry
also gave Belfast global renown.
It was the water and the railways
that made Belfast great.
As Bradshaw's Guide says,
"Since 1839, very great improvements
have been made in the harbour,
a deep channel having been cut
right up to the town,
so that large vessels are now able
to discharge cargo at the new quays."
But even Bradshaw, I think,
foreseeing the greatness of Belfast,
would've been stunned by the scale
and would've been in awe to know
that this city would produce ships
that are household names.
To discover how this all came to be,
I've arrived at Belfast Dock
and the Harland And Wolff shipyard,
famous for building
the ill-fated Titanic.
I'm meeting Belfast Harbour historian
Andrew Waldron
to ascend one of the two huge
shipbuilding gantry cranes.
Thankfully, by taking the lift,
rather than climbing
the heart-stopping 400 steps to the top.
Wow! We can see everything from here.
This is a very special experience,
being up here,
as long as we're not blown off
by this high wind.
We've got all of Belfast
laid out before us.
Another of the iconic
Harland And Wolff cranes, there.
330 feet up here, on this.
This is the largest crane, the Samson.
Goliath is just slightly smaller
than the crane we're standing on.
But these two cranes symbolise Belfast,
for what it is today.
A third of all Northern Ireland's
wealth is developed
from the businesses
operating within Belfast Port.
And the harbour area employs
a staggering 17,000 people.
But none of this
would have been possible
without the intervention
of Victorian William Dargan,
the father of Irish railways,
who substantially enlarged and deepened
the harbour in the 1840s.
With big ships able to dock
for the first time, the port boomed.
So much so, that Bradshaw notes
that customs duties
had risen tenfold in 40 years.
And railways were
instrumental in that growth.
There's not much sign of railway tracks
any more,
apart from the tracks
these cranes run on.
But at one time it must've been
full of railways.
There were that many railway lines here,
it was an industrial railway system.
There were more railway lines here
than within the city of Belfast itself.
And what were those tracks doing?
They were bringing goods into the port,
and goods going out of the port,
you know, exports.
Various different commodities.
Linen was exported. Iron ore. Bauxite
from the hills of County Antrim.
Salt. Timber was being imported.
Coal was coming in.
Just about everything under the sun
came here, at one stage.
The work that Dargan did
in creating a shipping channel
had another immense
consequence for Belfast.
The spoil from the project was used
to build Queen's Island,
named after Queen Victoria.
And there, shipbuilding
really got under way
when Edward Harland and Gustav Wolff
chose to site their shipyard there.
Belfast's foresighted
harbour commissioners
provided the most up-to-date
heavy lifting machinery and railways
to enable Harland And Wolff to construct
the huge vessels then being designed.
(Andrew) The harbour commissioners
in 1882
supplied three heavy railway wagons,
each wagon capable of taking
150-tonne loads.
They didn't have anything to haul them,
so they used horses, teams of horses.
30 horses, 40 horses, 50 horses
on the much larger loads.
They trundled down the quayside to the
large crane, the 120-tonne crane,
then offloaded them straight
into the hull of the ship.
Steam locomotives
eventually replaced the horses
and Belfast grew to be
the world's largest shipyard
by the turn of the 20th century.
Harland And Wolff employed
an astounding 12,000 people,
working over a site of 80 acres.
They built enormous ocean-going liners
including the Titanic
and her two sisters,
which were intended to sail from
Southampton to New York.
And their output went beyond
designing and building ships.
They built a number
of railway locomotives
for use within Northern Ireland
and they built a number of locomotives
and a railcar, which they exported
to Buenos Aires and the Sudan.
Belfast port continues to be
a major maritime gateway today.
Shipbuilding, on the other hand,
has declined steadily.
Having built over 1700 ships
and a fair few trains in its history,
Harland And Wolff now focuses on ship
repair and civil engineering projects
including building wind-
and tidal-powered turbines.
So, they're not manufacturing trains
here any more?
No. But the latest trains being built
for Northern Ireland Railways,
these new state-of-the-an railcars,
are coming into here and being imported
directly through Belfast port.
- So, there is a link?
- There is a link still left, yes.
Today, there are no operational
railway tracks left at Belfast Port,
bar those that Samson and Goliath
run on.
But the docks are playing host
to the latest generation of trains
being shipped from Spain
for the Northern Ireland rail network.
When new rolling stock arrived
in Bradshaw's day,
drivers learnt on the job.
Today, a high-tech simulator
allows operators to practise
in the safety of a virtual world.
And I'm lucky enough to be invited to
the Rail Operations Training Academy
to try my hand at driving
a modem commuter train.
Wow, this looks like fun!
My supervisor is Colin Watson.
- Colin?
- Michael.
- Hello.
- How are you, are you well?
This is fantastic, look at that.
The line laid out before me.
Where am I?
You're currently in platform one
in Great Victoria Street Station
in Belfast.
- May I start off'?
- Absolutely.
To move, ease the power controller,
over to your left.
And with the weight of your hand,
just let it ease forward.
(gasps) My goodness! We're moving.
That is... (laughs)
This is wonderfully realistic, isn't it?
Just amazing.
(Colin) We're coming to a tunnel,
so if you blow the horn
as a warning of entry.
(train horn sounds)
This simulator can prepare drivers
for any eventuality
that they may face on the tracks.
We can have our drivers driving
in various different weather conditions.
- Oh!
- There's snow.
(laughs) That was
a sudden change of weather.
I know the weather changes quickly in
Northern Ireland, but that is amazing.
We can put various different obstacles
in front of anyone in the simulator,
here ranging from trees to fridges.
Shopping trolleys would be quite
an occasional obstacle to come across.
So we can represent a normal day
or an abnormal day for a driver.
(pushes brake lever) Whoa!
(laughs)
Oh, dear!
I think we're all dead. That tree
really came out of nowhere, didn't it?
(Colin) It did, which is always
your problem in fog.
- Ah, God, that was frightening.
- (laughs)
I think I'll leave the driving
to the professionals
and stick to what I can manage,
as I catch a train just over
a mile south across the city.
(announcement) The next station
is Great Victoria Street.
As industry and commerce prospered
throughout the 19th century,
pursuits that had been the preserve
of the upper classes
now became open to an
emerging wealthy middle class.
I'm heading for an institution
that flourished with such changes
in Victorian society.
Bradshaw's says that here in Belfast
"the Botanical Society possesses
a garden on the river,
where an island of 20 acres
has been laid out with shrubberies...
Such exotic amenities
were popular in Victorian times.
I'm guessing that the right place
to get out and see it
is at the railway station
called Botanic.
The Victorian period was the golden age
of plant collecting,
and botanical adventurers
flaked their lives
bringing back the finest exotic
specimens from around the world.
Luscious ferns and fruits,
giant water lilies from the Orient
and palms from India.
All these species required protection
from the British climate,
and that gave rise to
stupendous Victorian glasshouses.
My guide to this palace of plants
is horticulturalist Reg Maxwell.
- Reg, hello.
- Good to have you.
Welcome to Botanic Gardens.
I'm just bewitched by this building.
It is so beautiful.
When does it date from?
(Reg) It dates from 1839-40 and that was
the two wings that were built first
by Turner of Dublin.
He was the great iron master who went on
to build a number of glasshouses
and specifically Kew Gardens,
the big one.
But the dome wasn't built straight away.
That wasn't built until 1852
by Young of Edinburgh.
And is this what Bradshaw would call
"an island of 20 acres"?
- It's the same site today, is it?
- That's right.
The path systems that you walk around
here, and look into the trees
and the great lawn,
were all laid out in 1828.
(Carmichael) And how special
is this palm house?
Well, I think it's special in that it is
built specifically for tropical plants.
It's made of cast iron and wrought iron
and it is a curvilinear house.
And that's because the bars are curved
and the glass is curved.
That makes it very important.
Because it makes it
one of the early surviving
full curvilinear palm houses.
I have a feeling that it's even more
remarkable inside than outside.
- Shall we go and have a look?
- I think so.
Advances in the manufacture of
iron and glass
gave Britain both its
canopied railway stations
and its botanical glass/muses.
And these elegant feats of architecture
and engineering
brought Victorians flocking.
The interior is warm and humid
and the sunlight is streaming in
and you've got these immense specimens.
It's delightful.
Isn't it? And in the Victorian times,
of course,
for the ordinary person coming in here,
it would've been totally amazing.
Almost like, for us today,
if we're dealing with the space age
and walking on the Moon. It's that kind
of magnitude of surprise and interest.
(Carmichael) Because of specimens
they'd never seen before?
(Reg) From parts of the world that they
could never even think of or dream of.
Business travellers and those
on colonial or military service
had the opportunity to see
these plants in their habitats.
They would then send seeds, cuttings
or whole plants back to Britain.
- And how did these specimens get here?
- (Reg) By ship and overland.
Once the railways came, of course,
things speeded up.
And so the chances of plants surviving
and getting back were much greater.
(Carmichael) And the Victorians
were very serious about studying plants
and cataloguing plants, weren't they?
(Reg) They were, because there were
thousands of these plants coming in,
and so they had to try
and find out what they were,
because they didn't fit into the flora
that we had in our own country.
So it was a great challenge to them
to try and grow them.
And that's why they had
to build these houses.
This is a fine example
of a plant that came in
from the South Americas
in the late Victorian period.
And this is aechmea fasciata.
(Michael) It has the lovely
creaking leaf.
Yes, and, of course, the Victorians
would love that experience
of being able to touch and feel
and smell a plant such as this.
All these plants around us would've been
considered extremely rare and exotic
and would be the plant that you had to
have to be in the fashion
and to be a collector,
but now are common houseplants
and we take them for granted.
But they're beautiful all the same.
Back on the train into the centre of
Belfast at the end of a fascinating day.
Whilst my journey around this great city
has so far celebrated
the triumphs of its Victorian past,
I cam come here without acknowledging
the difficulties of more modem times.
And my bed for the night is in a hotel
which experienced and withstood
much violence
during the political conflict
generally known as the Troubles.
Since the 1970s, the Europa has been
one of Belfasts premier hotels
and as such it attracted journalists
and politicians who stayed here.
I came here myself
back in those days of Troubles
and I remember it surrounded by
an enormous fence with sandbags,
with concrete, with security cameras
and enormous security measures, as well.
The fact that all that has been taken
away and you can just walk straight in
is perhaps an eloquent sign
that more peaceful times
have returned to Northern Ireland.
Good morning.
For the first time,
I have stayed in a room
that was once occupied by a president
of the United States.
Because in November 1995,
Bill and Hillary Clinton
made a remarkable visit to
Northern Ireland in search of peace.
Perhaps most remarkably,
at the 30th anniversary of the hotel,
Bill Clinton sent a message saying,
"The Europa stands today
as a living example
of an extraordinary past
and the promise
of an even greater future."
That being a reference to the fact
that this hotel was bombed 36 times
during the Troubles.
This morning my “Bradshaws”
leads me away from Belfast,
to the village of Templepatrick,
14 miles north-east of the city.
To work the land productively
has been key to survival
in Ireland for centuries.
And the humble spade
has been the main tool
with which the Irish
have cut peat for fuel,
planted foods
and toiled as construction workers.
So I'm taking a step back in time
to one of the last remaining
Victorian spade mills,
to meet spade maker Colin Dawson.
- Colin.
- Hello, Michael. Pleased to meet you.
Great to see you.
I've never been to a spade mill before.
Tell you the truth,
I've never thought about spades.
Are there many, many
different varieties?
Well, in Ireland alone there were
171 different varieties of spade.
Every county had its own type of spade.
For instance, Sligo is grey clay
and a lot of stone,
so you need a very narrow, thick spade.
Fermanagh is very wet land, so you need
a spade that's a wee bit like a spoon,
with a bend in it,
very thick in the middle,
so that you can break the suction
of the wet soil.
I hope it's OK if I say that I suppose
Ireland has been a land of digging.
When I think about agriculture,
when I think about tun'
and when I think about navvies,
they're all using spades, aren't they?
Yes. Irish navvy was
the best navigator in the world.
People think of a navvy
as being a labouring man,
but they were very, very skilful people.
The term navvy, short for navigator,
has been used since the 18th century
to describe those working on
civil engineering projects.
From canals, roads and tunnels
to the rail network,
navvies are recognised as the men
who built Ireland and Britain.
But to do the job,
they needed an effective tool.
Enterprising Victorian
spade manufacturers
recognised the potential for mechanising
the production of spades
and took over this site, originally
a water-powered linen mill.
How would conditions have been in mills
like these in the 19th century?
Oh, they would've been
horrendous places to work.
There was no such thing
as health and safety.
Children worked when they were ten.
They went to work in the morning
and school in the afternoon
or they would've went to work one day
and school the next.
They were called a half-timer
or a pan-timer.
Then, whenever they were 12, they left
school, went to work full time,
from six in the morning to six at night,
six days a week.
At 14 you started an apprenticeship
until you were 25.
And sometimes you didn't get paid
for the apprenticeship.
It was a pleasure to get doing it.
For the life of me, I don't know why
they called it the good old days.
At the peak of spade-making
in the mid-19th Century,
there were 37 mills throughout Ireland,
making an astounding 36,000 spades
per year.
Colin and his colleague Tom Mahon
have kindly agreed to show me
this time-hallowed process,
something they still do every day
to meet a huge order book.
So you start
just with a piece of steel?
We start with a solid block of steel.
As you see, we knack it.
We split the knack and now we're going
to pierce the socket down into it.
And this is water-powered, this machine.
The whole spade head
is made from one piece of steel,
heated in a forge
to blistering temperatures
to allow it to be worked into shape.
After you've done about 200 of these...
you're ready for a pint of Guinness.
The spades are made in batches of 12.
Whilst each is worked, the others
are being heated in the furnace.
Can't believe the speed
at which this is going on.
One spade after another
coming out of the furnace.
Colin and Tom beat the steel
into a spade-shaped blade
using the mill's original
water-powered hammer.
Never saw anything like that in my life.
It's like a big nodding duck.
This is like making a visit to the early
stages of the industrial Revolution.
You just can't believe
the ingenuity of man.
And the skill of Colin working it.
What sort of power is that delivering,
Colin?
Roughly 100-tonne pressure
coming down on it.
(laughs) That I don't believe. Tom just
pops in there with a bit of wood.
I just can't believe it.
The whole secret is to make sure
your thumb's not on top of it
when you put it in there.
(Carmichael) Yeah, that would be important.
So the next stage is
just to keep bringing it out
until you get the blade beat out,
and then you trim it up.
How many times will you have
to bring it out and beat it?
- About seven times.
- All of this for one spade.
In Bradshaws day, the finished spades
were distributed by train over Ireland
and by ship onwards to Britain
and the continent from Belfast Port.
Victorian entrepreneurs saw now railways
could help to expand industrial output,
and to supply new demands from the
increasingly numerous middle class.
My last journey today takes me
17 miles north-east of Belfast
to where a Northern Irish
railway magnate
constructed an astounding
coastal attraction, just for tourists.
I'm on my way to Whitehead
and Islandmagee.
My Bradshaw's says,
"The cliffs and caves of the island
are frequently basaltic,
especially at the Gobbins."
Since I've arrived in Ireland,
I've found that most railways were built
for passengers rather than freight.
On this line, the railways
actually built an attraction
to bring the tourists along the line.
I think this is going to be
a beautiful spot,
the way the line ran along the coast
there was just gorgeous, breathtaking.
The Victorians and Edwardians
loved nothing more
than a bracing walk along a seafront,
and Whitehead became
a popular seaside destination.
Visitors were particularly drawn
by the Gobbins,
a series of awe-inspiring cliffs
towering high above the Irish Sea,
on which a pathway
had been constructed.
It was designed by rail entrepreneur
Berkeley Deane Wise
for the Belfast
and Northern Counties Railway,
with the express aim
of attracting passengers
to use the rail
between Belfast and Whitehead.
Council executive Geraldine McGahey
is my guide
to this intriguing
Victorian sales promotion.
Berkeley Deane Wise
was the engineer and architect
who worked for Belfast
and Northern Counties Railway.
He was the visionary behind
all of the tourism aspects
that the railway company
got involved in.
He helped construct Whitehead.
He built Whitehead Railway Station,
Larne Railway Station
and many, many others.
So although we're dealing with cliffs
and other natural phenomena,
the path itself had to be constructed
in some way.
The path itself was constructed by hand
and you'll see that he has used old
railway sleepers encased in concrete.
He was one of the pioneers
of reinforced concrete
and he did this to encourage people
to use the railway line
as far as Whitehead.
And this was about tourism,
to give something for people to do
at the end of the railway line.
Wise constructed paths,
suspension bridges and tunnels,
all hewn into the rocks,
intended to give pleasure-seeking
Victorians the thrill of their lives.
The Victorians liked their fresh air,
they liked to be out in nature.
This gave them that kind of exposure.
You're talking about being 30 to 70 feet
above the sea, crashing below you,
the fresh air that comes with that.
It makes a big change from city life.
Unfortunately, after the Second World
War, the pathway fell into disrepair
and was eventually closed to the public.
But some parts of this great piece
of Victorian ingenuity still remain.
Michael, back when this path
first opened,
a little boy used to sit on the steps
and collect the entrance money.
- Sixpence, way back in the 1900s.
- An expensive treat.
If you came on the railway,
you got it free.
So, now as we come round,
you can see the spectacular pathway
unfolding in front of you.
- I can.
- You can see where the remnants
of the old railings, the handrails
that came up there, they were cast iron.
And then the stonework that was built up
to produce the actual path itself.
A real engineering feat.
Tn its heyday,
this attraction was more popular
than Ireland's famous Giant's Causeway.
Are there any plans to restore it
to its former glory?
Absolutely. We have now secured
£6 million of funding
from a variety of sources,
and by the end of 2013,
we'll have this path
back to exactly the way it was
when Berkeley Deane Wise
first opened it.
(Carmichael) Back to the bridges
and tunnels?
(Geraldine) Everything is going
to be put back.
Not cast-iron,
stainless steel this time,
a bit more durable, but people
will still get the same experience.
When Berkeley Deane Wise's
heart-stopping suspension bridges
and tunnels are restored,
I shall definitely return.
I'd like to experience
a Victorian thrill
of tiptoeing high above the Irish Sea.
The Victorians had an eye for beauty.
They found it
in the four corners of the Earth
and sent back specimens
to the Botanical Gardens in Belfast.
And they perceived beauty too
in craftsmanship,
whether it was laying tracks
or hammering out a humble spade
or building the mightiest ships
that the world had ever seen.
On the next part of my rail adventure,
I'll be marvelling
at a giant's handiwork...
It is the most amazing,
awe-inspiring sight.
Hearing how women,
famous for their dexterity
with the needle, built a city...
If there wasn't a shin factory,
this would be a desert.
And discovering how emigration
profoundly shaped families and nations.
When you went to America in the '50s, it
was kind of goodbye for ever, you know?
travel in Britain and Ireland.
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 these islands
to see what of Bradshaw's world remains.
I'm continuing my journey across
Northern Ireland,
which will lead me
to the spectacular north coast.
Just now I'm approaching Belfast,
which, when Parliament first approved
legislation for railways,
was known as a village.
But today, it's become a mighty city.
On today's leg of my journey,
HI be taking a step back in time...
This is like making a visit to the early
stages of the industrial Revolution.
Seeing what gave pleasure-seeking
Water/ans the thrill of their lives. ..
(woman) Being 30 to 70 feet
above the sea, crashing below you.
It makes a change from city life.
And taking to the tracks
in the latest hi-tech train simulator.
(gasps) on!
Oh, dear! I think we're all dead!
My 19th-century guidebook
is taking me across a land
that at the time of writing
was one Ireland
under the reign of Queen Victoria.
We been following the historical
expansion of the railways
from Dublin towards Belfast,
before finishing in Deny/Londondeny.
On today's stretch, I'll be exploring
Northern Ireland's capital
before heading north to Templepatrick,
ending at the handsome coastal town
of Whitehead.
My Bradshaw's says of Belfast,
"The tall chimneys and factories
for spinning linen and cotton yarn
are the most conspicuous buildings."
"Though ranking the second port
in Ireland,
it stands first for manufactures
and trade."
And I'm delighted to be back in a city,
which has memories for me
of bad times and good.
Belfast suffered greatly during
the political conflict
and the violence of the Troubles.
But in recent times ifs experienced
greater periods of calm
and economic growth,
at least until the recession.
The city's huge industrial development
began in the Victorian era.
It was the centre for linen
and by 1873 produced more of it
than anywhere in the world,
employing thousands of workers and
earning itself the moniker Linenopolis.
But another industry
also gave Belfast global renown.
It was the water and the railways
that made Belfast great.
As Bradshaw's Guide says,
"Since 1839, very great improvements
have been made in the harbour,
a deep channel having been cut
right up to the town,
so that large vessels are now able
to discharge cargo at the new quays."
But even Bradshaw, I think,
foreseeing the greatness of Belfast,
would've been stunned by the scale
and would've been in awe to know
that this city would produce ships
that are household names.
To discover how this all came to be,
I've arrived at Belfast Dock
and the Harland And Wolff shipyard,
famous for building
the ill-fated Titanic.
I'm meeting Belfast Harbour historian
Andrew Waldron
to ascend one of the two huge
shipbuilding gantry cranes.
Thankfully, by taking the lift,
rather than climbing
the heart-stopping 400 steps to the top.
Wow! We can see everything from here.
This is a very special experience,
being up here,
as long as we're not blown off
by this high wind.
We've got all of Belfast
laid out before us.
Another of the iconic
Harland And Wolff cranes, there.
330 feet up here, on this.
This is the largest crane, the Samson.
Goliath is just slightly smaller
than the crane we're standing on.
But these two cranes symbolise Belfast,
for what it is today.
A third of all Northern Ireland's
wealth is developed
from the businesses
operating within Belfast Port.
And the harbour area employs
a staggering 17,000 people.
But none of this
would have been possible
without the intervention
of Victorian William Dargan,
the father of Irish railways,
who substantially enlarged and deepened
the harbour in the 1840s.
With big ships able to dock
for the first time, the port boomed.
So much so, that Bradshaw notes
that customs duties
had risen tenfold in 40 years.
And railways were
instrumental in that growth.
There's not much sign of railway tracks
any more,
apart from the tracks
these cranes run on.
But at one time it must've been
full of railways.
There were that many railway lines here,
it was an industrial railway system.
There were more railway lines here
than within the city of Belfast itself.
And what were those tracks doing?
They were bringing goods into the port,
and goods going out of the port,
you know, exports.
Various different commodities.
Linen was exported. Iron ore. Bauxite
from the hills of County Antrim.
Salt. Timber was being imported.
Coal was coming in.
Just about everything under the sun
came here, at one stage.
The work that Dargan did
in creating a shipping channel
had another immense
consequence for Belfast.
The spoil from the project was used
to build Queen's Island,
named after Queen Victoria.
And there, shipbuilding
really got under way
when Edward Harland and Gustav Wolff
chose to site their shipyard there.
Belfast's foresighted
harbour commissioners
provided the most up-to-date
heavy lifting machinery and railways
to enable Harland And Wolff to construct
the huge vessels then being designed.
(Andrew) The harbour commissioners
in 1882
supplied three heavy railway wagons,
each wagon capable of taking
150-tonne loads.
They didn't have anything to haul them,
so they used horses, teams of horses.
30 horses, 40 horses, 50 horses
on the much larger loads.
They trundled down the quayside to the
large crane, the 120-tonne crane,
then offloaded them straight
into the hull of the ship.
Steam locomotives
eventually replaced the horses
and Belfast grew to be
the world's largest shipyard
by the turn of the 20th century.
Harland And Wolff employed
an astounding 12,000 people,
working over a site of 80 acres.
They built enormous ocean-going liners
including the Titanic
and her two sisters,
which were intended to sail from
Southampton to New York.
And their output went beyond
designing and building ships.
They built a number
of railway locomotives
for use within Northern Ireland
and they built a number of locomotives
and a railcar, which they exported
to Buenos Aires and the Sudan.
Belfast port continues to be
a major maritime gateway today.
Shipbuilding, on the other hand,
has declined steadily.
Having built over 1700 ships
and a fair few trains in its history,
Harland And Wolff now focuses on ship
repair and civil engineering projects
including building wind-
and tidal-powered turbines.
So, they're not manufacturing trains
here any more?
No. But the latest trains being built
for Northern Ireland Railways,
these new state-of-the-an railcars,
are coming into here and being imported
directly through Belfast port.
- So, there is a link?
- There is a link still left, yes.
Today, there are no operational
railway tracks left at Belfast Port,
bar those that Samson and Goliath
run on.
But the docks are playing host
to the latest generation of trains
being shipped from Spain
for the Northern Ireland rail network.
When new rolling stock arrived
in Bradshaw's day,
drivers learnt on the job.
Today, a high-tech simulator
allows operators to practise
in the safety of a virtual world.
And I'm lucky enough to be invited to
the Rail Operations Training Academy
to try my hand at driving
a modem commuter train.
Wow, this looks like fun!
My supervisor is Colin Watson.
- Colin?
- Michael.
- Hello.
- How are you, are you well?
This is fantastic, look at that.
The line laid out before me.
Where am I?
You're currently in platform one
in Great Victoria Street Station
in Belfast.
- May I start off'?
- Absolutely.
To move, ease the power controller,
over to your left.
And with the weight of your hand,
just let it ease forward.
(gasps) My goodness! We're moving.
That is... (laughs)
This is wonderfully realistic, isn't it?
Just amazing.
(Colin) We're coming to a tunnel,
so if you blow the horn
as a warning of entry.
(train horn sounds)
This simulator can prepare drivers
for any eventuality
that they may face on the tracks.
We can have our drivers driving
in various different weather conditions.
- Oh!
- There's snow.
(laughs) That was
a sudden change of weather.
I know the weather changes quickly in
Northern Ireland, but that is amazing.
We can put various different obstacles
in front of anyone in the simulator,
here ranging from trees to fridges.
Shopping trolleys would be quite
an occasional obstacle to come across.
So we can represent a normal day
or an abnormal day for a driver.
(pushes brake lever) Whoa!
(laughs)
Oh, dear!
I think we're all dead. That tree
really came out of nowhere, didn't it?
(Colin) It did, which is always
your problem in fog.
- Ah, God, that was frightening.
- (laughs)
I think I'll leave the driving
to the professionals
and stick to what I can manage,
as I catch a train just over
a mile south across the city.
(announcement) The next station
is Great Victoria Street.
As industry and commerce prospered
throughout the 19th century,
pursuits that had been the preserve
of the upper classes
now became open to an
emerging wealthy middle class.
I'm heading for an institution
that flourished with such changes
in Victorian society.
Bradshaw's says that here in Belfast
"the Botanical Society possesses
a garden on the river,
where an island of 20 acres
has been laid out with shrubberies...
Such exotic amenities
were popular in Victorian times.
I'm guessing that the right place
to get out and see it
is at the railway station
called Botanic.
The Victorian period was the golden age
of plant collecting,
and botanical adventurers
flaked their lives
bringing back the finest exotic
specimens from around the world.
Luscious ferns and fruits,
giant water lilies from the Orient
and palms from India.
All these species required protection
from the British climate,
and that gave rise to
stupendous Victorian glasshouses.
My guide to this palace of plants
is horticulturalist Reg Maxwell.
- Reg, hello.
- Good to have you.
Welcome to Botanic Gardens.
I'm just bewitched by this building.
It is so beautiful.
When does it date from?
(Reg) It dates from 1839-40 and that was
the two wings that were built first
by Turner of Dublin.
He was the great iron master who went on
to build a number of glasshouses
and specifically Kew Gardens,
the big one.
But the dome wasn't built straight away.
That wasn't built until 1852
by Young of Edinburgh.
And is this what Bradshaw would call
"an island of 20 acres"?
- It's the same site today, is it?
- That's right.
The path systems that you walk around
here, and look into the trees
and the great lawn,
were all laid out in 1828.
(Carmichael) And how special
is this palm house?
Well, I think it's special in that it is
built specifically for tropical plants.
It's made of cast iron and wrought iron
and it is a curvilinear house.
And that's because the bars are curved
and the glass is curved.
That makes it very important.
Because it makes it
one of the early surviving
full curvilinear palm houses.
I have a feeling that it's even more
remarkable inside than outside.
- Shall we go and have a look?
- I think so.
Advances in the manufacture of
iron and glass
gave Britain both its
canopied railway stations
and its botanical glass/muses.
And these elegant feats of architecture
and engineering
brought Victorians flocking.
The interior is warm and humid
and the sunlight is streaming in
and you've got these immense specimens.
It's delightful.
Isn't it? And in the Victorian times,
of course,
for the ordinary person coming in here,
it would've been totally amazing.
Almost like, for us today,
if we're dealing with the space age
and walking on the Moon. It's that kind
of magnitude of surprise and interest.
(Carmichael) Because of specimens
they'd never seen before?
(Reg) From parts of the world that they
could never even think of or dream of.
Business travellers and those
on colonial or military service
had the opportunity to see
these plants in their habitats.
They would then send seeds, cuttings
or whole plants back to Britain.
- And how did these specimens get here?
- (Reg) By ship and overland.
Once the railways came, of course,
things speeded up.
And so the chances of plants surviving
and getting back were much greater.
(Carmichael) And the Victorians
were very serious about studying plants
and cataloguing plants, weren't they?
(Reg) They were, because there were
thousands of these plants coming in,
and so they had to try
and find out what they were,
because they didn't fit into the flora
that we had in our own country.
So it was a great challenge to them
to try and grow them.
And that's why they had
to build these houses.
This is a fine example
of a plant that came in
from the South Americas
in the late Victorian period.
And this is aechmea fasciata.
(Michael) It has the lovely
creaking leaf.
Yes, and, of course, the Victorians
would love that experience
of being able to touch and feel
and smell a plant such as this.
All these plants around us would've been
considered extremely rare and exotic
and would be the plant that you had to
have to be in the fashion
and to be a collector,
but now are common houseplants
and we take them for granted.
But they're beautiful all the same.
Back on the train into the centre of
Belfast at the end of a fascinating day.
Whilst my journey around this great city
has so far celebrated
the triumphs of its Victorian past,
I cam come here without acknowledging
the difficulties of more modem times.
And my bed for the night is in a hotel
which experienced and withstood
much violence
during the political conflict
generally known as the Troubles.
Since the 1970s, the Europa has been
one of Belfasts premier hotels
and as such it attracted journalists
and politicians who stayed here.
I came here myself
back in those days of Troubles
and I remember it surrounded by
an enormous fence with sandbags,
with concrete, with security cameras
and enormous security measures, as well.
The fact that all that has been taken
away and you can just walk straight in
is perhaps an eloquent sign
that more peaceful times
have returned to Northern Ireland.
Good morning.
For the first time,
I have stayed in a room
that was once occupied by a president
of the United States.
Because in November 1995,
Bill and Hillary Clinton
made a remarkable visit to
Northern Ireland in search of peace.
Perhaps most remarkably,
at the 30th anniversary of the hotel,
Bill Clinton sent a message saying,
"The Europa stands today
as a living example
of an extraordinary past
and the promise
of an even greater future."
That being a reference to the fact
that this hotel was bombed 36 times
during the Troubles.
This morning my “Bradshaws”
leads me away from Belfast,
to the village of Templepatrick,
14 miles north-east of the city.
To work the land productively
has been key to survival
in Ireland for centuries.
And the humble spade
has been the main tool
with which the Irish
have cut peat for fuel,
planted foods
and toiled as construction workers.
So I'm taking a step back in time
to one of the last remaining
Victorian spade mills,
to meet spade maker Colin Dawson.
- Colin.
- Hello, Michael. Pleased to meet you.
Great to see you.
I've never been to a spade mill before.
Tell you the truth,
I've never thought about spades.
Are there many, many
different varieties?
Well, in Ireland alone there were
171 different varieties of spade.
Every county had its own type of spade.
For instance, Sligo is grey clay
and a lot of stone,
so you need a very narrow, thick spade.
Fermanagh is very wet land, so you need
a spade that's a wee bit like a spoon,
with a bend in it,
very thick in the middle,
so that you can break the suction
of the wet soil.
I hope it's OK if I say that I suppose
Ireland has been a land of digging.
When I think about agriculture,
when I think about tun'
and when I think about navvies,
they're all using spades, aren't they?
Yes. Irish navvy was
the best navigator in the world.
People think of a navvy
as being a labouring man,
but they were very, very skilful people.
The term navvy, short for navigator,
has been used since the 18th century
to describe those working on
civil engineering projects.
From canals, roads and tunnels
to the rail network,
navvies are recognised as the men
who built Ireland and Britain.
But to do the job,
they needed an effective tool.
Enterprising Victorian
spade manufacturers
recognised the potential for mechanising
the production of spades
and took over this site, originally
a water-powered linen mill.
How would conditions have been in mills
like these in the 19th century?
Oh, they would've been
horrendous places to work.
There was no such thing
as health and safety.
Children worked when they were ten.
They went to work in the morning
and school in the afternoon
or they would've went to work one day
and school the next.
They were called a half-timer
or a pan-timer.
Then, whenever they were 12, they left
school, went to work full time,
from six in the morning to six at night,
six days a week.
At 14 you started an apprenticeship
until you were 25.
And sometimes you didn't get paid
for the apprenticeship.
It was a pleasure to get doing it.
For the life of me, I don't know why
they called it the good old days.
At the peak of spade-making
in the mid-19th Century,
there were 37 mills throughout Ireland,
making an astounding 36,000 spades
per year.
Colin and his colleague Tom Mahon
have kindly agreed to show me
this time-hallowed process,
something they still do every day
to meet a huge order book.
So you start
just with a piece of steel?
We start with a solid block of steel.
As you see, we knack it.
We split the knack and now we're going
to pierce the socket down into it.
And this is water-powered, this machine.
The whole spade head
is made from one piece of steel,
heated in a forge
to blistering temperatures
to allow it to be worked into shape.
After you've done about 200 of these...
you're ready for a pint of Guinness.
The spades are made in batches of 12.
Whilst each is worked, the others
are being heated in the furnace.
Can't believe the speed
at which this is going on.
One spade after another
coming out of the furnace.
Colin and Tom beat the steel
into a spade-shaped blade
using the mill's original
water-powered hammer.
Never saw anything like that in my life.
It's like a big nodding duck.
This is like making a visit to the early
stages of the industrial Revolution.
You just can't believe
the ingenuity of man.
And the skill of Colin working it.
What sort of power is that delivering,
Colin?
Roughly 100-tonne pressure
coming down on it.
(laughs) That I don't believe. Tom just
pops in there with a bit of wood.
I just can't believe it.
The whole secret is to make sure
your thumb's not on top of it
when you put it in there.
(Carmichael) Yeah, that would be important.
So the next stage is
just to keep bringing it out
until you get the blade beat out,
and then you trim it up.
How many times will you have
to bring it out and beat it?
- About seven times.
- All of this for one spade.
In Bradshaws day, the finished spades
were distributed by train over Ireland
and by ship onwards to Britain
and the continent from Belfast Port.
Victorian entrepreneurs saw now railways
could help to expand industrial output,
and to supply new demands from the
increasingly numerous middle class.
My last journey today takes me
17 miles north-east of Belfast
to where a Northern Irish
railway magnate
constructed an astounding
coastal attraction, just for tourists.
I'm on my way to Whitehead
and Islandmagee.
My Bradshaw's says,
"The cliffs and caves of the island
are frequently basaltic,
especially at the Gobbins."
Since I've arrived in Ireland,
I've found that most railways were built
for passengers rather than freight.
On this line, the railways
actually built an attraction
to bring the tourists along the line.
I think this is going to be
a beautiful spot,
the way the line ran along the coast
there was just gorgeous, breathtaking.
The Victorians and Edwardians
loved nothing more
than a bracing walk along a seafront,
and Whitehead became
a popular seaside destination.
Visitors were particularly drawn
by the Gobbins,
a series of awe-inspiring cliffs
towering high above the Irish Sea,
on which a pathway
had been constructed.
It was designed by rail entrepreneur
Berkeley Deane Wise
for the Belfast
and Northern Counties Railway,
with the express aim
of attracting passengers
to use the rail
between Belfast and Whitehead.
Council executive Geraldine McGahey
is my guide
to this intriguing
Victorian sales promotion.
Berkeley Deane Wise
was the engineer and architect
who worked for Belfast
and Northern Counties Railway.
He was the visionary behind
all of the tourism aspects
that the railway company
got involved in.
He helped construct Whitehead.
He built Whitehead Railway Station,
Larne Railway Station
and many, many others.
So although we're dealing with cliffs
and other natural phenomena,
the path itself had to be constructed
in some way.
The path itself was constructed by hand
and you'll see that he has used old
railway sleepers encased in concrete.
He was one of the pioneers
of reinforced concrete
and he did this to encourage people
to use the railway line
as far as Whitehead.
And this was about tourism,
to give something for people to do
at the end of the railway line.
Wise constructed paths,
suspension bridges and tunnels,
all hewn into the rocks,
intended to give pleasure-seeking
Victorians the thrill of their lives.
The Victorians liked their fresh air,
they liked to be out in nature.
This gave them that kind of exposure.
You're talking about being 30 to 70 feet
above the sea, crashing below you,
the fresh air that comes with that.
It makes a big change from city life.
Unfortunately, after the Second World
War, the pathway fell into disrepair
and was eventually closed to the public.
But some parts of this great piece
of Victorian ingenuity still remain.
Michael, back when this path
first opened,
a little boy used to sit on the steps
and collect the entrance money.
- Sixpence, way back in the 1900s.
- An expensive treat.
If you came on the railway,
you got it free.
So, now as we come round,
you can see the spectacular pathway
unfolding in front of you.
- I can.
- You can see where the remnants
of the old railings, the handrails
that came up there, they were cast iron.
And then the stonework that was built up
to produce the actual path itself.
A real engineering feat.
Tn its heyday,
this attraction was more popular
than Ireland's famous Giant's Causeway.
Are there any plans to restore it
to its former glory?
Absolutely. We have now secured
£6 million of funding
from a variety of sources,
and by the end of 2013,
we'll have this path
back to exactly the way it was
when Berkeley Deane Wise
first opened it.
(Carmichael) Back to the bridges
and tunnels?
(Geraldine) Everything is going
to be put back.
Not cast-iron,
stainless steel this time,
a bit more durable, but people
will still get the same experience.
When Berkeley Deane Wise's
heart-stopping suspension bridges
and tunnels are restored,
I shall definitely return.
I'd like to experience
a Victorian thrill
of tiptoeing high above the Irish Sea.
The Victorians had an eye for beauty.
They found it
in the four corners of the Earth
and sent back specimens
to the Botanical Gardens in Belfast.
And they perceived beauty too
in craftsmanship,
whether it was laying tracks
or hammering out a humble spade
or building the mightiest ships
that the world had ever seen.
On the next part of my rail adventure,
I'll be marvelling
at a giant's handiwork...
It is the most amazing,
awe-inspiring sight.
Hearing how women,
famous for their dexterity
with the needle, built a city...
If there wasn't a shin factory,
this would be a desert.
And discovering how emigration
profoundly shaped families and nations.
When you went to America in the '50s, it
was kind of goodbye for ever, you know?