Great British Railway Journeys (2010–…): Season 3, Episode 7 - Reading to Alton - full transcript
In 1840,
one man transformed travel in Britain.
His name was George Bradshaw,
and his railway guides inspired
the Victorians to take to the tracks.
Stop by Stop
he told them where to travel,
what to see and where to stay.
Now, 170 years later,
I'm making a series of journeys across
the length and breadth of the country
to see what of Bradshaw's Britain
remains.
I'm back on the route that would have
been familiar to Queen Victoria
as she journeyed from London or Windsor
to her beloved Osborne House
on the Isle of Wight.
Passing through places
that she would have seen
and that Bradshaw's documented.
Today, I'll be learning now Victorian
engineering made its mark on music...
- I'm going to press a pedal.
- (organ plays)
Amazing feeling of power.
going behind the scenes
of a 19th-century railway works...
Barry, that is what I call a locomotive.
That is fantastic.
And discovering a landscape that
wowed tourists in Bradshaw's day.
I have this amazing plunge
down to the beach. Whoa!
You have to have a head for heights
here.
So far on this journey,
We seen how the Home Counties
of Berkshire and Hampshire
were brought closer to the capital
by the growing rail network.
Now I'm continuing towards the coast
and my final stop
on the Isle of Portland.
Today, I'll take the main line south
from Winchester to
the port of Southampton,
continuing by ferry
to the Isle of Wight.
My first stop is Winchester
and my guidebook promises plenty
to interest the railway traveller.
My Bradshaw's Guide tells me
that King Canute,
a king who's had an unfair bad press
because of his altercation
with the tides,
made Winchester the capital of England.
So this is a seriously historic city.
When the railway came to Winchester
in 1839,
it brought waves of Victorian tourists
hungry for heritage.
Then, as now, the must-see attraction
was the ancient cathedral
which has stood in the heart of the city
for 900 years.
Winchester Cathedral.
My Bradshaw's says that it's
"more remarkable for its antiquity
and length, 518ft, than its appearance."
That's surely rather ungenerous
of Bradshaw's.
It may be a little squat,
but it has a magnificence
that leaves me in awe.
I want to see what the locals make
of Bradshaw's faint praise.
- Do you live in Winchester?
- I do.
How wonderful to live
with this cathedral.
It's amazing.
- Do you still find time to look at it?
- (woman) Absolutely.
It's lovely when you come in the evening
and can hear the choristers practising.
(Michael) I'm using a 19th-century
guidebook. Listen to this.
"More remarkable for its antiquity
and length, 518ft, than its appearance."
- What do you think of that?
- I think that's a bit unfair.
Because...
I mean, the setting is beautiful.
Inside it's beautiful, as well.
All the beautiful carvings.
It's lovely.
How wonderful.
So... naughty Bradshaw, eh?
Absolutely. I think
I wouldn't agree with that at all.
For once, I think that "Bradshaw's" and
I will have to agree to disagree.
But my guidebook describes
more than just the architecture.
I'm intrigued by this Bradshaw quote.
"One of the first organs made in England
was placed here by Bishop Aelfheah
in the year 951."
That's 115 years
before the Norman Conquest.
"A ponderous thing containing 400 pipes
blown by 24 pairs of bellows."
And I wonder if it's still here today.
(choristers sing)
ifs hard not to be impressed
by your first sight of
the stunning 116-meter-long nave.
And when the cathedrals famous choir
fills it with delightful sound,
ifs breathtaking.
(choristers sing)
Andrew Lumsden is the musical director.
- Andrew, good morning.
- Welcome to the cathedral.
Absolutely magnificent.
Thank you very much, boys.
That was glorious.
I enjoyed that so much.
But apart from the choir,
I was also fascinated by the organ.
It's quite a sound, isn't it?
It is a mammoth sound in this building.
It's very, very large.
It's all displayed up here.
Basically dating from 1851,
the Great Exhibition.
Then it was moved here in 1854.
1851? I came with my Bradshaw's Guide
looking for an organ from 951AD.
- Not here any more?
- Not here any more. Long since gone.
Been replaced by this wonderful one
and various other ones before that.
This one in 951 apparently had
400 pipes. That's quite impressive.
(Andrew) It is. It was
the loudest organ in the world.
But now we have something
in the region of about 6,000.
- 6,000?
- 6,000.
Ifs perhaps unsurprising
that my guidebook mentions
the cathedral's ancient organ.
Victorian Britain was swept by
a craze for organ music.
Inspired by the technological
advances of the age,
builders competed to design
ever bigger and better instruments.
There was a competition for building
organs at the Great Exhibition
and the one that won was basically
this one built by Henry Willis
who used the modern technology
of the day.
He was really very important in
the whole organ building world for this
because he used this technology
in a brand-new way
to enable us to have bigger organs
like the one we have today.
Willis's ground-breaking organ
was exhibited alongside industrial
machinery at the Crystal Palace.
People flocked by train to see it.
When the Great Exhibition was over,
the organ was brought to Winchester.
Ifs so huge that many of the pipes
are buried deep inside
the cathedral's structure.
- Is it far, Andrew'?
- No, not too far.
- Ah. That gives you a different aspect.
- Completely different.
(Andrew) Wonderful pan of the building
to be in.
I'm travelling into
the bowels of the organ
across a gantry alarmingly high
above the cathedral floor.
- That was a vertiginous journey.
- It is quite a journey, yes.
- Very precarious.
- Quite scary.
Wow. What a lot of pipes.
It is. This is only, I should think,
about a fifth of the organ, if that.
You can see the size of these
as it comes down here,
they get very, very small indeed.
(high-pitched whistle)
There's one of the high ones.
Then, as you can see, they vary
and they all produce different sounds.
Right at this end here we have
what we call a little reed pipe.
Again, I'll just take this out.
- Inside here...
- Oh, my goodness.
There is a minute little metal reed
just in there.
When you blow it, it vibrates.
That is what actually makes the sound.
Like an oboe reed or a bassoon reed
or something like that.
(medium-pitched whistle)
So you can get a good little sound
out of that.
If these are your smallest, Andrew,
what are your largest?
The largest ones are about 32ft long.
There are a few of them over here.
Or some of the smaller versions.
They look here just like
pan of the furniture.
But these are wooden pipes
that will be going right the way up
the top of the organ.
And these are the very low,
rumbly pipes.
(Michael) So although Bradshaw's Guide
mentions the 951AD organ,
the one that the writer
would actually have seen
would have been the 1851, 54 organ.
How much of that is still here?
About a third of the current organ
is that organ from 1854.
He would have seen and heard
very much what we have nowadays.
- (Michael) But much has been added?
- Much has been added.
- It's grown. Organically.
- It's grown.
Indeed it has. Yes, very good.
These musical machines were the perfect
instrument for the age of steam.
Some of the same technology
was used on the early railways
to warn people of approaching trains.
But playing one is more complicated
than driving a steam engine.
- Shall I assume the position?
- Indeed.
That's great.
(Michael) Right. Now, what shall I do?
Do you want to press button 12 up there'?
- (Michael) I'm going to press a pedal.
- Yes.
(organ Plays)
Don't know where that goes next.
It's an amazing feeling of power.
Just one person making all that noise.
(organ Plays)
Pd love to stay
and learn some technique,
but ifs time for me
to catch my next train.
I'm leaving historic Winchester behind
and heading seven miles down the track
to a town with much more recent roots.
Bradshaw's Guide lists virtually every
railway station in the United Kingdom.
But not our next stop.
Even though I think of it
as a major railway town.
I'm on my way to find out
the reason why.
Eastleigh, which straddles the main line
between Winchester and Southampton,
is home to 28,000 people.
I want to know whether
the locals share my view
that the town is synonymous
with railways.
I've just arrived in Eastleigh.
I'm wondering what's this town
famous for?
Famous for? Railway.
- What's the town famous for?
- Trains?
- What's the town famous for?
- The railway.
Hello, gentlemen.
What's the town famous for?
- (man) Couldn't tell you.
- We're from Portsmouth.
It doesn't mean anything to you.
Don't worry.
The answer was railways
but you didn't get it.
No prize for you.
In the 1860s,
when my guide book was written,
the town of East/sigh didn't exist.
All that was here was a small station
called Bishopstoke Junction
which served the scattered villages
around.
Then a state-of-the-art carriage works
was built beside the line,
sowing the seed for a brand-new town.
What a vast place.
Shops stretching for miles and miles.
Workshops.
East/sigh Works is still going today.
So I'm taking a tour
with manager Barry Stephens.
- Hello, Barry.
- Hello, Michael.
- Welcome to Eastleigh Works.
- Great to see you.
I can't get over how big this place is.
It's a big place, Michael, it is indeed.
The original London and South West
Railway terminated at Nine Elms,
then on the outskirts of the capital.
When the line was extended
to Waterloo in 1848,
Nine Elms was its engineering works.
But as the railways grew, bigger
and better facilities were needed.
The London and South Western Railway
decided to move out of London
and come to an unknown greenfield site
at Eastleigh.
So they moved the coach building
facilities in the 1880s, 1890s.
Then this main workshop
was built in the early 1900s.
I suppose Nine Elms, that's a prime bit
of real estate in the heart of London.
Soon, rows of houses were built
for the influx of new workers
and Victorian Eastleigh was born.
I imagine at one time probably
the whole town worked on the railway.
Can you give me an idea of
the size of it in those days?
Back even when I started in 1969,
which is obviously quite late on,
there was 2,500 people
who worked on the site.
At lunchtimes and closing down times
it was like a mass exodus of bicycles,
etcetera, etcetera.
I'm not sure what its total workforce
at its height
but it's probably
up in the four thousands.
Traditionally, there were a lot of
people who were working on railways
generation after generation.
Would that be true of people here?
I think so to a certain degree.
We have an apprentice whose
grandfather worked in the works.
I myself am from a third-generation
railway family.
My granddad was a driver at Exeter,
my father was a driver at Exeter,
and my eldest son works with me here
on site now.
So I think it's probably true to say
that it is still
a bit of a tradition going on.
When it opened,
this was Britain's most advanced works.
Hundreds of locomotives and
thousands of carriages were built here.
Everything was done on site,
from assembling the engines
to fitting out the coaches.
Barry, that is what I call a locomotive.
That is fantastic.
- Yes, it is.
- What a beautiful pair of wheels.
- They're bigger than I am.
- Yeah. They are indeed.
So, what...
Locomotive actually built here
in the mid-1930s, I believe.
Actually come back for an overhaul
before going back to mainline
steam again, I believe.
(Michael) A beautiful story.
What strikes me about this workshop
is you've got railway history here.
From the 1934 steam locomotive,
you've got, what, '60s, '70s stock.
Here we're going back a little bit
to the 1960s and the London Underground.
- I used to use these at school.
- Probably even been on that one.
I've probably been on that very car,
that's absolutely true.
Although they stopped building
new trains in the 1960s,
important maintenance work
still goes on here.
Some vintage equipment is still in use,
like these cranes which
can lift whole trains.
Operator Nigel Ellis
is letting me take the helm.
- Permission to step aboard.
- Come aboard.
- You've got a lovely view up here.
- We certainly have.
What's the object of the exercise?
We're going to pick up that locomotive?
Yes. We're going to travel down
to what we call Botley.
So you're going to move that lever
around that way.
- (Michael) OK.
- There we go.
(Michael) So one end of your shop is
Botley, the other end is called London.
The local code.
- Are you happy with that speed, Nigel?
- Yes.
- It's quite fast, isn't it?
- Yes, it is.
- They're walking along with the...
- Steadying the beam.
Rather exciting. Wow.
(Nigel) We need to move that
very, very cautiously.
Travelling out.
When you're lifting 100 tonnes of train,
you can't afford mistakes.
(Michael) Just gave it one swipe
and it was there.
- (Nigel) Travel to Botley again.
- Travel to Botley.
(Nigel) Get ready to stop in a moment.
- (Michael) I'm ready.
- (Nigel) And new.
Whoa, precision.
Nigel, we're ready for the lift, are we?
(Nigel) Yes, we're ready.
For obvious reasons,
I will let you do this. Right.
(Nigel) One, two, three, go.
(Michael) Now we have
100 tonnes of locomotive
rising into the air.
That is pretty amazing.
My guidebook might have been too early
for East/sigh Carriage Works
but I'm sure George Bradshaw would
have loved to see such a concentration
of railway engineering.
(announcement) This train is for
Salisbury via Southampton Central.
I'm now continuing my journey
travelling south.
The tracks follow the path of
the River Itchen,
one of Britain's finest chalk streams
renowned for its fishing.
I'm leaving the train at Swaythling
to explore the river bank.
Bye-bye.
In the 19th century, the growing railway
network helped to make fishing
one of Britain's favourite sports.
Rail companies targeted would-be anglers
with special deals
to entice them away from the cities.
There was no more fashionable spot
to cast a line
than the chalk streams of Hampshire.
Clayton, good evening.
What an idyllic spot.
Clayton Moorhouse is the gilly who
looks after this stretch of the fiver.
What's the relationship with chalk?
(Clayton) It cleans the water.
A little bit coloured
at the moment, to me,
but another week or so
and that will be crystal clear.
That will be as clear as your tap water.
So you'll be able to see the fish.
Then it's a different story altogether.
If you can see them, they can see you.
- Let me have a go, if I may.
- You may indeed.
These pure waters
were perfect for fly-fishing,
the favourite style
of the Victorian elite.
The trick is to keep the artificial fly
floating on the surface of the water,
which means repeatedly
recasting the line.
Whoopsie poos.
Thank goodness I'm with an expert.
- (Michael) Well done, sir. Well done.
- (Clayton) There we go.
You've got yourself a trout.
What a beautiful fish.
Well done, Clayton.
Luckily,
Clayton's happy to share his catch.
Thank you very much. Bon appétit.
That is so tasty. So fresh.
This has been a lovely evening.
I understand now
why people like to fly fish.
This is literally
a delicious way to end the day.
On a misty old morning I'm back on
the tracks headed for Southampton,
where I will take ship.
Or ferry, anyway-
I'm bound for the Isle of Wight,
but this is the closest
that I can get by rail.
Southampton Central.
Bradshaw's says, "The station,
which is close to the quay,
and has a commanding position
on the banks of Southampton Water,
is admirably adapted for
the convenience of the passenger."
The arrival of the railway
in Southampton
transformed it into
one of Britain's busiest ports.
My guidebook describes the new docks
formed on a scale of great magnitude.
We where We come to catch my ferry
onto the Isle of Wight.
I'm really looking forward
to this leg of the journey.
It good to see that there are
still some foot passengers.
That's howl used to travel as a child.
We'd take the train from Waterloo
and on the other side we'd take
the steam train down to Ventnor
for our holiday.
Nowadays people with families
want to have a car on the island
but it's still great fun
to do it on foot.
Steamships began to ply the Solent
in the 1820s.
But what really made this journey
popular
was Queen Victoria's decision to make
the isle of Wight her summer home.
I'm following in her footsteps
on the modem car ferry,
steered today by Captain Ken Edwards.
Can you imagine what this would
have been like?
Yes, I can, because the route itself
would be exactly the same.
Obviously, the shipping is different
to what it was in those days
but you've still got the same channels,
still got the same buoys.
The whole scenery around hasn't
really been developed that much.
When Queen Victoria
travelled to the island,
did she go to East Cowes like we are?
Yes. There is a public landing there now
where Queen Victoria used to land.
And that would be the quick way
to Osborne House.
It's just up the hill from there.
Probably about a mile and a half.
By the end of Victoria's reign,
the island was being visited by tens
of thousands of tourists every year.
And they haven't stopped coming since.
- Good morning.
- Good morning, Mr Portillo.
What takes you to the Isle of Wight?
We come here...
Try to get here at least once a year.
- We love it over here.
- Why do you love it so much?
There's so much to see and do.
Two things, really.
It feels like it's back in time
a little bit,
so we enjoy that feeling
of the seaside and holiday by the sea,
but there's a lot to see and do,
isn't there?
Plenty to do for children.
Beautiful beaches.
- Lots of activities.
- Beautiful weather?
Usually.
(Michael) I think the weather
is improving.
I hope you have a wonderful holiday.
- Thank you very much.
- My pleasure.
I'm really pleased to be
back on the Isle of Wight.
I've hardly set foot here as an adult.
All my memories are childhood memories
from seven summer holidays
that I spent here.
So I think about ice-cream and buckets
and spades and beaches and piers.
And Bradshaw says, "Those who desire
to make a real acquaintance
with all the island's attractions
may spend many pleasant weeks in it
finding new walks every day."
That was pretty much what we discovered
when we came here all those years ago.
Queen Victoria also spent
happy childhood holidays here,
kick-starting a lifelong love affair
with the island.
Her delightful summer home
Osborne House was built in the 1840s
and became one of her favourite
royal residences.
Soon after, the first railways arrived
to carry the tourists
who followed in her wake.
By 1875, this tiny island
had 32 miles of track.
No Victorian railway tour was
complete without a pilgrimage
to the dramatic cliffs
at the island's western tip.
These days, there's one outstanding
way to see this famous landmark.
As the chair lift reaches
the edge of the cliff,
over to my left I have the most
spectacular view of the Needles.
This extraordinary geological phenomenon
which I remember from childhood,
I've even see it from aircraft,
flying way above it.
But this is a fantastic view.
And now as we go over the top
I have this amazing plunge down to
the beach down the side of the cliff.
Whoa! You have to have
a head for heights here.
The Needles rocks
that loom up out of the Channel
mark the entrance to
the stunning Alum Bay.
For 19th-century visitors,
this was a star attraction.
My guidebook writes,
“The cliffs on one side are white
and on the other side
curiously variegated
with strata of ochre,
Fuller's Earth, grey and white sand.“
- Hello, Tony.
- Hello, Michael.
- Welcome aboard the Rambling Rose.
- Thank you.
Tony Isaacs's family has a special
connection to these unique sands
that goes back generations.
Tony, I'm really astonished
by the colours.
I did not expect them to be as bright
as that, as vivid. They're fantastic.
(Tony) You probably see them
at their best.
These remarkable stripes were once
horizontal layers of sediment.
But over millions of years they've been
forced up into a vertical position.
Victorian visitors were entranced
by this geological oddity
and started to take the coloured sands
home with them on the trains.
These Victorians, would they
come and buy souvenirs of sand
or would they go and collect it?
They would do both, really.
It is quite exciting fun
to come along the bottom of the cliff
with an old jam jar or something
and fill your own.
But they were able to buy them,
should they need to.
My great-grandfather
was the pier master here.
He had a little shop
on the end of the pier
and they used to sell coloured sand
ornaments even then.
As the train network helped
British tourism to grow,
the idea of souvenirs
became more widespread.
A phial of coloured sands
became the essential keepsake
of ah Isle of Wight holiday.
By the 20th century, competition
for the tourist business was fierce.
When we first started to sell
just after the war,
that's my own recollection,
there were 12 colours.
Everybody had 12 colours.
And then another rival faction
came on the scene
and they went up to 15 colours.
Then we went up to 18 colours
and they went up to 21 colours.
But wait a minute. There can't really
be any debate about this.
There are either 12 or 15 or 21 colours.
How many are there?
What it was, you see,
each company or each rival faction
tried to advertise
that they had the most colours
- to attract the most customers.
- Yes.
They called a truce at 21. That was it.
But over the years
that I was collecting it
I decided I'd keep a sample of
every colour that I collected.
I can't remember exactly what it was
but I think it was either
31 or 32 different colours...
- Really?
- ..that I collected.
These days, only sand that's fallen
through natural erosion may be sold
and access to the cliff
is strictly controlled.
Who does the sand belong to, by the way?
Does it belong to you, to the island?
Who does it belong to?
Well, it belongs now to what's known as
the Needles Pleasure Park.
Funny enough, my great grandfather
had the opportunity once
of buying all this lot for £20.
- And he didn't?
- No, no, no.
My great-grandfather said to
my grandfather there was an auction.
"Go up to £20 for these cliffs,
the top of the cliff, back to the road."
He went off to a meeting. When he came
back, he said, "Did you get it?"
Grandfather said, "No, it went for £25."
And great-grandfather said,
"For goodness' sake,
why didn't you go another £5?"
"You only told me to go to 20," he said.
So there you go.
This is like the man who didn't sign
up The Beatles, isn't it?
Something like that, yeah.
I'd probably be quite wealthy by now.
Tony's family might have missed out,
but islanders are still making
a living from tourism today.
Ail thanks to the Victorians who saw
the charms of this beautiful island.
Queen Victoria left the isle of Wight
for the last time in her coffin,
headed for her last railway journey
to Windsor.
She'd so often been to the island,
first as a newly-wed with her beloved
Albert and then frequently as a widow.
And the thing that enabled her
to to-and-fro to the island
was the arrival of high-speed travel
by railway.
On the next stage of my journey,
I'll be slithering in the tracks
of a Victorian snake catcher...
Fantastic view.
I never dreamt I'd get that close.
uncovering a secret library
described in my “Bradshaw's Guide“...
- This is your oldest book?
- Yes, it is.
(man) There are two others in existence.
and visiting a seaside town
born in the railway age.
Whoa! Off we go.
one man transformed travel in Britain.
His name was George Bradshaw,
and his railway guides inspired
the Victorians to take to the tracks.
Stop by Stop
he told them where to travel,
what to see and where to stay.
Now, 170 years later,
I'm making a series of journeys across
the length and breadth of the country
to see what of Bradshaw's Britain
remains.
I'm back on the route that would have
been familiar to Queen Victoria
as she journeyed from London or Windsor
to her beloved Osborne House
on the Isle of Wight.
Passing through places
that she would have seen
and that Bradshaw's documented.
Today, I'll be learning now Victorian
engineering made its mark on music...
- I'm going to press a pedal.
- (organ plays)
Amazing feeling of power.
going behind the scenes
of a 19th-century railway works...
Barry, that is what I call a locomotive.
That is fantastic.
And discovering a landscape that
wowed tourists in Bradshaw's day.
I have this amazing plunge
down to the beach. Whoa!
You have to have a head for heights
here.
So far on this journey,
We seen how the Home Counties
of Berkshire and Hampshire
were brought closer to the capital
by the growing rail network.
Now I'm continuing towards the coast
and my final stop
on the Isle of Portland.
Today, I'll take the main line south
from Winchester to
the port of Southampton,
continuing by ferry
to the Isle of Wight.
My first stop is Winchester
and my guidebook promises plenty
to interest the railway traveller.
My Bradshaw's Guide tells me
that King Canute,
a king who's had an unfair bad press
because of his altercation
with the tides,
made Winchester the capital of England.
So this is a seriously historic city.
When the railway came to Winchester
in 1839,
it brought waves of Victorian tourists
hungry for heritage.
Then, as now, the must-see attraction
was the ancient cathedral
which has stood in the heart of the city
for 900 years.
Winchester Cathedral.
My Bradshaw's says that it's
"more remarkable for its antiquity
and length, 518ft, than its appearance."
That's surely rather ungenerous
of Bradshaw's.
It may be a little squat,
but it has a magnificence
that leaves me in awe.
I want to see what the locals make
of Bradshaw's faint praise.
- Do you live in Winchester?
- I do.
How wonderful to live
with this cathedral.
It's amazing.
- Do you still find time to look at it?
- (woman) Absolutely.
It's lovely when you come in the evening
and can hear the choristers practising.
(Michael) I'm using a 19th-century
guidebook. Listen to this.
"More remarkable for its antiquity
and length, 518ft, than its appearance."
- What do you think of that?
- I think that's a bit unfair.
Because...
I mean, the setting is beautiful.
Inside it's beautiful, as well.
All the beautiful carvings.
It's lovely.
How wonderful.
So... naughty Bradshaw, eh?
Absolutely. I think
I wouldn't agree with that at all.
For once, I think that "Bradshaw's" and
I will have to agree to disagree.
But my guidebook describes
more than just the architecture.
I'm intrigued by this Bradshaw quote.
"One of the first organs made in England
was placed here by Bishop Aelfheah
in the year 951."
That's 115 years
before the Norman Conquest.
"A ponderous thing containing 400 pipes
blown by 24 pairs of bellows."
And I wonder if it's still here today.
(choristers sing)
ifs hard not to be impressed
by your first sight of
the stunning 116-meter-long nave.
And when the cathedrals famous choir
fills it with delightful sound,
ifs breathtaking.
(choristers sing)
Andrew Lumsden is the musical director.
- Andrew, good morning.
- Welcome to the cathedral.
Absolutely magnificent.
Thank you very much, boys.
That was glorious.
I enjoyed that so much.
But apart from the choir,
I was also fascinated by the organ.
It's quite a sound, isn't it?
It is a mammoth sound in this building.
It's very, very large.
It's all displayed up here.
Basically dating from 1851,
the Great Exhibition.
Then it was moved here in 1854.
1851? I came with my Bradshaw's Guide
looking for an organ from 951AD.
- Not here any more?
- Not here any more. Long since gone.
Been replaced by this wonderful one
and various other ones before that.
This one in 951 apparently had
400 pipes. That's quite impressive.
(Andrew) It is. It was
the loudest organ in the world.
But now we have something
in the region of about 6,000.
- 6,000?
- 6,000.
Ifs perhaps unsurprising
that my guidebook mentions
the cathedral's ancient organ.
Victorian Britain was swept by
a craze for organ music.
Inspired by the technological
advances of the age,
builders competed to design
ever bigger and better instruments.
There was a competition for building
organs at the Great Exhibition
and the one that won was basically
this one built by Henry Willis
who used the modern technology
of the day.
He was really very important in
the whole organ building world for this
because he used this technology
in a brand-new way
to enable us to have bigger organs
like the one we have today.
Willis's ground-breaking organ
was exhibited alongside industrial
machinery at the Crystal Palace.
People flocked by train to see it.
When the Great Exhibition was over,
the organ was brought to Winchester.
Ifs so huge that many of the pipes
are buried deep inside
the cathedral's structure.
- Is it far, Andrew'?
- No, not too far.
- Ah. That gives you a different aspect.
- Completely different.
(Andrew) Wonderful pan of the building
to be in.
I'm travelling into
the bowels of the organ
across a gantry alarmingly high
above the cathedral floor.
- That was a vertiginous journey.
- It is quite a journey, yes.
- Very precarious.
- Quite scary.
Wow. What a lot of pipes.
It is. This is only, I should think,
about a fifth of the organ, if that.
You can see the size of these
as it comes down here,
they get very, very small indeed.
(high-pitched whistle)
There's one of the high ones.
Then, as you can see, they vary
and they all produce different sounds.
Right at this end here we have
what we call a little reed pipe.
Again, I'll just take this out.
- Inside here...
- Oh, my goodness.
There is a minute little metal reed
just in there.
When you blow it, it vibrates.
That is what actually makes the sound.
Like an oboe reed or a bassoon reed
or something like that.
(medium-pitched whistle)
So you can get a good little sound
out of that.
If these are your smallest, Andrew,
what are your largest?
The largest ones are about 32ft long.
There are a few of them over here.
Or some of the smaller versions.
They look here just like
pan of the furniture.
But these are wooden pipes
that will be going right the way up
the top of the organ.
And these are the very low,
rumbly pipes.
(Michael) So although Bradshaw's Guide
mentions the 951AD organ,
the one that the writer
would actually have seen
would have been the 1851, 54 organ.
How much of that is still here?
About a third of the current organ
is that organ from 1854.
He would have seen and heard
very much what we have nowadays.
- (Michael) But much has been added?
- Much has been added.
- It's grown. Organically.
- It's grown.
Indeed it has. Yes, very good.
These musical machines were the perfect
instrument for the age of steam.
Some of the same technology
was used on the early railways
to warn people of approaching trains.
But playing one is more complicated
than driving a steam engine.
- Shall I assume the position?
- Indeed.
That's great.
(Michael) Right. Now, what shall I do?
Do you want to press button 12 up there'?
- (Michael) I'm going to press a pedal.
- Yes.
(organ Plays)
Don't know where that goes next.
It's an amazing feeling of power.
Just one person making all that noise.
(organ Plays)
Pd love to stay
and learn some technique,
but ifs time for me
to catch my next train.
I'm leaving historic Winchester behind
and heading seven miles down the track
to a town with much more recent roots.
Bradshaw's Guide lists virtually every
railway station in the United Kingdom.
But not our next stop.
Even though I think of it
as a major railway town.
I'm on my way to find out
the reason why.
Eastleigh, which straddles the main line
between Winchester and Southampton,
is home to 28,000 people.
I want to know whether
the locals share my view
that the town is synonymous
with railways.
I've just arrived in Eastleigh.
I'm wondering what's this town
famous for?
Famous for? Railway.
- What's the town famous for?
- Trains?
- What's the town famous for?
- The railway.
Hello, gentlemen.
What's the town famous for?
- (man) Couldn't tell you.
- We're from Portsmouth.
It doesn't mean anything to you.
Don't worry.
The answer was railways
but you didn't get it.
No prize for you.
In the 1860s,
when my guide book was written,
the town of East/sigh didn't exist.
All that was here was a small station
called Bishopstoke Junction
which served the scattered villages
around.
Then a state-of-the-art carriage works
was built beside the line,
sowing the seed for a brand-new town.
What a vast place.
Shops stretching for miles and miles.
Workshops.
East/sigh Works is still going today.
So I'm taking a tour
with manager Barry Stephens.
- Hello, Barry.
- Hello, Michael.
- Welcome to Eastleigh Works.
- Great to see you.
I can't get over how big this place is.
It's a big place, Michael, it is indeed.
The original London and South West
Railway terminated at Nine Elms,
then on the outskirts of the capital.
When the line was extended
to Waterloo in 1848,
Nine Elms was its engineering works.
But as the railways grew, bigger
and better facilities were needed.
The London and South Western Railway
decided to move out of London
and come to an unknown greenfield site
at Eastleigh.
So they moved the coach building
facilities in the 1880s, 1890s.
Then this main workshop
was built in the early 1900s.
I suppose Nine Elms, that's a prime bit
of real estate in the heart of London.
Soon, rows of houses were built
for the influx of new workers
and Victorian Eastleigh was born.
I imagine at one time probably
the whole town worked on the railway.
Can you give me an idea of
the size of it in those days?
Back even when I started in 1969,
which is obviously quite late on,
there was 2,500 people
who worked on the site.
At lunchtimes and closing down times
it was like a mass exodus of bicycles,
etcetera, etcetera.
I'm not sure what its total workforce
at its height
but it's probably
up in the four thousands.
Traditionally, there were a lot of
people who were working on railways
generation after generation.
Would that be true of people here?
I think so to a certain degree.
We have an apprentice whose
grandfather worked in the works.
I myself am from a third-generation
railway family.
My granddad was a driver at Exeter,
my father was a driver at Exeter,
and my eldest son works with me here
on site now.
So I think it's probably true to say
that it is still
a bit of a tradition going on.
When it opened,
this was Britain's most advanced works.
Hundreds of locomotives and
thousands of carriages were built here.
Everything was done on site,
from assembling the engines
to fitting out the coaches.
Barry, that is what I call a locomotive.
That is fantastic.
- Yes, it is.
- What a beautiful pair of wheels.
- They're bigger than I am.
- Yeah. They are indeed.
So, what...
Locomotive actually built here
in the mid-1930s, I believe.
Actually come back for an overhaul
before going back to mainline
steam again, I believe.
(Michael) A beautiful story.
What strikes me about this workshop
is you've got railway history here.
From the 1934 steam locomotive,
you've got, what, '60s, '70s stock.
Here we're going back a little bit
to the 1960s and the London Underground.
- I used to use these at school.
- Probably even been on that one.
I've probably been on that very car,
that's absolutely true.
Although they stopped building
new trains in the 1960s,
important maintenance work
still goes on here.
Some vintage equipment is still in use,
like these cranes which
can lift whole trains.
Operator Nigel Ellis
is letting me take the helm.
- Permission to step aboard.
- Come aboard.
- You've got a lovely view up here.
- We certainly have.
What's the object of the exercise?
We're going to pick up that locomotive?
Yes. We're going to travel down
to what we call Botley.
So you're going to move that lever
around that way.
- (Michael) OK.
- There we go.
(Michael) So one end of your shop is
Botley, the other end is called London.
The local code.
- Are you happy with that speed, Nigel?
- Yes.
- It's quite fast, isn't it?
- Yes, it is.
- They're walking along with the...
- Steadying the beam.
Rather exciting. Wow.
(Nigel) We need to move that
very, very cautiously.
Travelling out.
When you're lifting 100 tonnes of train,
you can't afford mistakes.
(Michael) Just gave it one swipe
and it was there.
- (Nigel) Travel to Botley again.
- Travel to Botley.
(Nigel) Get ready to stop in a moment.
- (Michael) I'm ready.
- (Nigel) And new.
Whoa, precision.
Nigel, we're ready for the lift, are we?
(Nigel) Yes, we're ready.
For obvious reasons,
I will let you do this. Right.
(Nigel) One, two, three, go.
(Michael) Now we have
100 tonnes of locomotive
rising into the air.
That is pretty amazing.
My guidebook might have been too early
for East/sigh Carriage Works
but I'm sure George Bradshaw would
have loved to see such a concentration
of railway engineering.
(announcement) This train is for
Salisbury via Southampton Central.
I'm now continuing my journey
travelling south.
The tracks follow the path of
the River Itchen,
one of Britain's finest chalk streams
renowned for its fishing.
I'm leaving the train at Swaythling
to explore the river bank.
Bye-bye.
In the 19th century, the growing railway
network helped to make fishing
one of Britain's favourite sports.
Rail companies targeted would-be anglers
with special deals
to entice them away from the cities.
There was no more fashionable spot
to cast a line
than the chalk streams of Hampshire.
Clayton, good evening.
What an idyllic spot.
Clayton Moorhouse is the gilly who
looks after this stretch of the fiver.
What's the relationship with chalk?
(Clayton) It cleans the water.
A little bit coloured
at the moment, to me,
but another week or so
and that will be crystal clear.
That will be as clear as your tap water.
So you'll be able to see the fish.
Then it's a different story altogether.
If you can see them, they can see you.
- Let me have a go, if I may.
- You may indeed.
These pure waters
were perfect for fly-fishing,
the favourite style
of the Victorian elite.
The trick is to keep the artificial fly
floating on the surface of the water,
which means repeatedly
recasting the line.
Whoopsie poos.
Thank goodness I'm with an expert.
- (Michael) Well done, sir. Well done.
- (Clayton) There we go.
You've got yourself a trout.
What a beautiful fish.
Well done, Clayton.
Luckily,
Clayton's happy to share his catch.
Thank you very much. Bon appétit.
That is so tasty. So fresh.
This has been a lovely evening.
I understand now
why people like to fly fish.
This is literally
a delicious way to end the day.
On a misty old morning I'm back on
the tracks headed for Southampton,
where I will take ship.
Or ferry, anyway-
I'm bound for the Isle of Wight,
but this is the closest
that I can get by rail.
Southampton Central.
Bradshaw's says, "The station,
which is close to the quay,
and has a commanding position
on the banks of Southampton Water,
is admirably adapted for
the convenience of the passenger."
The arrival of the railway
in Southampton
transformed it into
one of Britain's busiest ports.
My guidebook describes the new docks
formed on a scale of great magnitude.
We where We come to catch my ferry
onto the Isle of Wight.
I'm really looking forward
to this leg of the journey.
It good to see that there are
still some foot passengers.
That's howl used to travel as a child.
We'd take the train from Waterloo
and on the other side we'd take
the steam train down to Ventnor
for our holiday.
Nowadays people with families
want to have a car on the island
but it's still great fun
to do it on foot.
Steamships began to ply the Solent
in the 1820s.
But what really made this journey
popular
was Queen Victoria's decision to make
the isle of Wight her summer home.
I'm following in her footsteps
on the modem car ferry,
steered today by Captain Ken Edwards.
Can you imagine what this would
have been like?
Yes, I can, because the route itself
would be exactly the same.
Obviously, the shipping is different
to what it was in those days
but you've still got the same channels,
still got the same buoys.
The whole scenery around hasn't
really been developed that much.
When Queen Victoria
travelled to the island,
did she go to East Cowes like we are?
Yes. There is a public landing there now
where Queen Victoria used to land.
And that would be the quick way
to Osborne House.
It's just up the hill from there.
Probably about a mile and a half.
By the end of Victoria's reign,
the island was being visited by tens
of thousands of tourists every year.
And they haven't stopped coming since.
- Good morning.
- Good morning, Mr Portillo.
What takes you to the Isle of Wight?
We come here...
Try to get here at least once a year.
- We love it over here.
- Why do you love it so much?
There's so much to see and do.
Two things, really.
It feels like it's back in time
a little bit,
so we enjoy that feeling
of the seaside and holiday by the sea,
but there's a lot to see and do,
isn't there?
Plenty to do for children.
Beautiful beaches.
- Lots of activities.
- Beautiful weather?
Usually.
(Michael) I think the weather
is improving.
I hope you have a wonderful holiday.
- Thank you very much.
- My pleasure.
I'm really pleased to be
back on the Isle of Wight.
I've hardly set foot here as an adult.
All my memories are childhood memories
from seven summer holidays
that I spent here.
So I think about ice-cream and buckets
and spades and beaches and piers.
And Bradshaw says, "Those who desire
to make a real acquaintance
with all the island's attractions
may spend many pleasant weeks in it
finding new walks every day."
That was pretty much what we discovered
when we came here all those years ago.
Queen Victoria also spent
happy childhood holidays here,
kick-starting a lifelong love affair
with the island.
Her delightful summer home
Osborne House was built in the 1840s
and became one of her favourite
royal residences.
Soon after, the first railways arrived
to carry the tourists
who followed in her wake.
By 1875, this tiny island
had 32 miles of track.
No Victorian railway tour was
complete without a pilgrimage
to the dramatic cliffs
at the island's western tip.
These days, there's one outstanding
way to see this famous landmark.
As the chair lift reaches
the edge of the cliff,
over to my left I have the most
spectacular view of the Needles.
This extraordinary geological phenomenon
which I remember from childhood,
I've even see it from aircraft,
flying way above it.
But this is a fantastic view.
And now as we go over the top
I have this amazing plunge down to
the beach down the side of the cliff.
Whoa! You have to have
a head for heights here.
The Needles rocks
that loom up out of the Channel
mark the entrance to
the stunning Alum Bay.
For 19th-century visitors,
this was a star attraction.
My guidebook writes,
“The cliffs on one side are white
and on the other side
curiously variegated
with strata of ochre,
Fuller's Earth, grey and white sand.“
- Hello, Tony.
- Hello, Michael.
- Welcome aboard the Rambling Rose.
- Thank you.
Tony Isaacs's family has a special
connection to these unique sands
that goes back generations.
Tony, I'm really astonished
by the colours.
I did not expect them to be as bright
as that, as vivid. They're fantastic.
(Tony) You probably see them
at their best.
These remarkable stripes were once
horizontal layers of sediment.
But over millions of years they've been
forced up into a vertical position.
Victorian visitors were entranced
by this geological oddity
and started to take the coloured sands
home with them on the trains.
These Victorians, would they
come and buy souvenirs of sand
or would they go and collect it?
They would do both, really.
It is quite exciting fun
to come along the bottom of the cliff
with an old jam jar or something
and fill your own.
But they were able to buy them,
should they need to.
My great-grandfather
was the pier master here.
He had a little shop
on the end of the pier
and they used to sell coloured sand
ornaments even then.
As the train network helped
British tourism to grow,
the idea of souvenirs
became more widespread.
A phial of coloured sands
became the essential keepsake
of ah Isle of Wight holiday.
By the 20th century, competition
for the tourist business was fierce.
When we first started to sell
just after the war,
that's my own recollection,
there were 12 colours.
Everybody had 12 colours.
And then another rival faction
came on the scene
and they went up to 15 colours.
Then we went up to 18 colours
and they went up to 21 colours.
But wait a minute. There can't really
be any debate about this.
There are either 12 or 15 or 21 colours.
How many are there?
What it was, you see,
each company or each rival faction
tried to advertise
that they had the most colours
- to attract the most customers.
- Yes.
They called a truce at 21. That was it.
But over the years
that I was collecting it
I decided I'd keep a sample of
every colour that I collected.
I can't remember exactly what it was
but I think it was either
31 or 32 different colours...
- Really?
- ..that I collected.
These days, only sand that's fallen
through natural erosion may be sold
and access to the cliff
is strictly controlled.
Who does the sand belong to, by the way?
Does it belong to you, to the island?
Who does it belong to?
Well, it belongs now to what's known as
the Needles Pleasure Park.
Funny enough, my great grandfather
had the opportunity once
of buying all this lot for £20.
- And he didn't?
- No, no, no.
My great-grandfather said to
my grandfather there was an auction.
"Go up to £20 for these cliffs,
the top of the cliff, back to the road."
He went off to a meeting. When he came
back, he said, "Did you get it?"
Grandfather said, "No, it went for £25."
And great-grandfather said,
"For goodness' sake,
why didn't you go another £5?"
"You only told me to go to 20," he said.
So there you go.
This is like the man who didn't sign
up The Beatles, isn't it?
Something like that, yeah.
I'd probably be quite wealthy by now.
Tony's family might have missed out,
but islanders are still making
a living from tourism today.
Ail thanks to the Victorians who saw
the charms of this beautiful island.
Queen Victoria left the isle of Wight
for the last time in her coffin,
headed for her last railway journey
to Windsor.
She'd so often been to the island,
first as a newly-wed with her beloved
Albert and then frequently as a widow.
And the thing that enabled her
to to-and-fro to the island
was the arrival of high-speed travel
by railway.
On the next stage of my journey,
I'll be slithering in the tracks
of a Victorian snake catcher...
Fantastic view.
I never dreamt I'd get that close.
uncovering a secret library
described in my “Bradshaw's Guide“...
- This is your oldest book?
- Yes, it is.
(man) There are two others in existence.
and visiting a seaside town
born in the railway age.
Whoa! Off we go.