Great British Railway Journeys (2010–…): Season 5, Episode 15 - Cheltenham to Wolverhampton - 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 go,
what to see and where to stay.
And now, 170 years later,
I'm aboard for a series of rail
adventures across the United Kingdom
to see what of Bradshaw's Britain
remains.
I'm now completing my journey
from England's south coast
to the West Midlands.
This last leg will take me
from Cheltenham Spa,
where refined people took the waters
for their health,
to Wolverhampton,
where amidst the coal and smoke,
craftsmen developed techniques
of the greatest finesse.
On this leg, I drive a car powered
by the technology of the Victorians...
Whoa! This is real motoring.
This is the way it was.
I visit the castle
of the King of Salt...
It's as though a French château
had landed
in the Worcestershire countryside.
You've got to take it
with a pinch of salt.
And I fight a losing battle
in the Wars of the Roses.
Ready for the slaughter.
Harder. Come on!
Getting a taste of blood.
My journey began in Southampton,
took in Hampshire and Berkshire,
went west to Bristol,
crossed the River Severn,
moved on to Gloucestershire
and ends today in the West Midlands.
This leg begins in Cheltenham,
takes in a Tewkesbury condiment,
learns of another in Droitwich
and ends in Wolverhampton.
I'm heading north
on the old Great Western Railway,
which in Bradshaw's day offered
an escape from smoggy industrial cities
to the country's most famous spa towns,
like my first destination, Cheltenham.
Legend has it that in 1116,
a flock oi pigeons discovered
the town's first spring
and local entrepreneurs,
noticing how the birds thrived,
realised that there was
money to be made.
My "Bradshaw's" suggests
that they were right.
"Cheltenham," says Bradshaw's, "is
celebrated for its medicinal waters."
"It's been, for the last 60 years,
one of the most elegant and fashionable
watering places in England."
"The promenade leads to the Montpellier
Spa and the Rotunda pump room."
The trouble is, you can never bank
on things remaining the same.
King George III look the waters here
in 1788 and the town's popularity grew.
New spas and, from the 1840s,
up to six railway stations were built.
A bank since 1882, the Montpellier Spa
building opened in 1817
and nine years later,
architect JB Papworth added the Rotunda
pump room mentioned in my "Bradshaw's".
Well, it's evident why this lovely
pump room was called the Rotunda,
with its classical dome.
In fact, it reminds me
of the Pantheon in Rome.
How wonderfully suited to Cheltenham,
a place of the utmost fashion.
Excuse me.
You're doing a guided tour, obviously.
This lovely pump room, was it inspired
by the Pantheon in Rome?
(guide) Much of Cheltenham is inspired
by classical architecture.
And what would have been going on here
in the days of the spa?
Well, the ladies and gentlemen
would have come in here
and there would have been
a large Grecian urn
where the pump was installed.
They would have taken the waters,
listened to music,
done a little dancing.
It was a social
as well as a health-giving experience.
It was a place of sophistication
and elegance.
Yes, Cheltenham was known
for leisure and pleasure.
(Michael) I can see from your group
that elegance and sophistication
remain the key words today.
- Well, since you came in, of course.
- Thank you so much.
I'm intrigued by how people
reached here
before the railways arrived in 1840,
and "Bradshaw's" may have the answer.
My guide describes how Mr Gurney's
locomotive carriages took 55 minutes
to get from Cheltenham to Gloucester.
Not along tracks, but by road.
I had never heard
of locomotive road carriages.
I've travelled to Elmstone Hardwicke,
five miles Northwest of Cheltenham,
to meet director oi the National Steam
Car Association, Stuart Gray.
- Stuart.
- Hello, Michael.
What a lovely sight.
By the vapour rising all around us,
I take it this is a steam car?
It is, yeah. It's a Stanley.
1910 Stanley Steamer.
I never thought about steam cars.
Were they common?
(Stuart) In the United States
they were common,
because the United States
had gone down the route
of developing steam cars
as their sort of pioneering car
before Henry Ford came along
in about 1910.
Now, Mr Gurney apparently was running
a steam carriage in 1831.
I mean, that is just, well, you know,
decades and decades
before the petrol car.
(Stuart) He was very much a pioneer.
He was a Cornish scientist.
He was also a chemist
and inventor.
He invented the Gurney Stove,
an early type of boiler,
and the Buds-Light, which was bright
enough to light London's streets,
and many other steam-based innovations.
Goldsworthy Gurney was appointed
the Superintendent oi Heating,
Lighting and Ventilation
in the Houses of Parliament in 1854
and knighted by Queen Victoria
in recognition oi his inventions.
But back in 1831,
he had found himself running
steam-powered buses in Gloucestershire.
You know, 55 minutes from Cheltenham
to Gloucester is not bad, is it?
- He was going some.
- He was going some.
(Stuart) He had a successful boiler.
He had found out
how he could maximise heat transfer.
Reaching speeds of up to 15mph,
Gurney's steam carriages
first ran in London,
and then from the capital to Bath.
But the turnpike trustees on
the Cheltenham to Gloucester route,
favouring the stagecoach,
imposed prohibitive tolls
on mechanically propelled carriages.
Those protectionist measures
quickly halted Goldsworthy's
transport business.
So, Stuart, give me
a guided tour of a steam car.
I've no idea what we'll find.
So, first of all, underneath the hood
is the boiler.
The boiler's a fire-tube boiler.
It has 527 tubes.
- Just like a locomotive on a railway.
- Just like a locomotive.
The engine is actually at the back
of the car. Very good acceleration.
Stanleys were the first cars to exceed
100 miles an hour.
- No!
- Yes.
Well, I don't think we should do
100 today, but can we take a ride?
Absolutely.
- Would you mind holding my Bradshaw's?
- Indeed.
- (Michael) Brake off?
- Brake off.
Oh, and we are moving.
Whoa!
I've driven steam engines before,
but of course they were on rails
and you didn't have to think
about steering at the same time.
- I'm enjoying this.
- (Stuart) Plenty of stored power.
We've got nearly 500lbs
of steam pressure.
- How good are the brakes on this thing?
- They're reasonable.
(laughs) Stuart, this is real motoring.
This is the way it was.
You could imagine being
on the top of Gurney's carriage.
I'd love it.
I had never heard of Gurney. Yet another
great discovery in Bradshaw's.
Back to Cheltenham Spa Station
to continue towards
my next destination, Tewkesbury.
Bradshaw's tells me that at Tewkesbury,
"Cloth and mustard were made
in Shakespeare's time,
hence the proverb 'as thick
as Tewkesbury mustard'."
Not one that I know.
Tewkesbury now has no railway stations.
It used to have two.
But I shall be getting off at Ashchurch
and looking for traces
of old railway lines.
(tannoy) Ladies and gentlemen,
now arriving at Ashchurch.
Tewkesbury Station fell victim
to the railway cuts and closed in 1961,
but a remnant of the line
is still causing controversy.
Flanked by two rivers,
low-lying Tewkesbury sits on one
of Britain's most risky flood plains.
The track embankment in this field
is thought to have hindered drainage
during the floods of 2007,
the worst in living memory.
Removing (he embankment is the job
of Hood Risk Manager Anthony Perry.
What's the lie of the land?
We've got the Warwickshire Avon
behind us
that flows from Coventry,
through Stratford,
and then it meets the River Severn
just over to our right
here in Tewkesbury.
So am I right in thinking
that it's the very convergence,
confluence of two rivers here
that gives you the big problems?
Yes. There's a lot of run-off.
A lot of water has to flow
through Tewkesbury.
The Victorians were excellent engineers.
Didn't they understand
the flood plain issue
when they put the embankment in here?
Well, they did put some culverts
through the embankment,
but at those times
people lived with the flooding.
When a flood occurred,
they would brush out the flagstones
and they would be back
in their homes very quickly.
Now when flooding occurs,
people can be out for 12 months.
Despite its propensity to flood,
Tewkesbury is one of England's
best preserved medieval towns.
Excuse me, just before you go.
I've been looking at some
of the lovely buildings in Tewkesbury
and your office is one of the finest.
When does it date back to?
(woman) Well, actually
it dates back to 1431.
I was looking at these things.
What is this iron structure?
I've never seen that before.
Well, it was a fish shop
and a game shop,
so they used to hang hare and pheasant
and things from here.
So before all
the health and safety legislation,
you could hang your hare outside
and it didn't matter
if it gathered a few flies.
In Shakespeare's play "Henry IV",
that master of insults, Falstaff,
says of an adversary that "his wit's
as thick as Tewkesbury mustard".
I'm told its flavour
and consistency
come from pungent local horseradish.
Supposedly, Tewkesbury mustard balls
covered in gold leaf
were presented to Henry VIII in 1535,
and I wonder whether this condiment
is still fit for a king.
- (woman) Hello.
- Hello.
Hi.
I was looking for
some Tewkesbury mustard, please.
Yes, of course. Yeah.
Have you heard an expression
or a proverb
which is mentioned in Bradshaw's Guide,
"as thick as Tewkesbury mustard'?
- Have you heard that?
- You know, I have, yes.
It's not something
that I tend to use personally.
I think people might be a bit offended.
- There's various varieties?
- There are, yes.
Different strengths, different names,
all sorts.
- Do you want to...?
- Yeah, please.
(woman) OK. At the moment we've got in
the Catherine Pan's Tewkesbury mustard
and we've also got in
the Queen Margaret's.
Oh, it's got to be the Queen Margaret,
because she was the queen of Henry VI
and she came a cropper
here at Tewkesbury.
- Yes.
Pungent, English, thick...
- (laughs)
- “and swung.
Mm. Wow.
Queen Margaret must have been
a strong lady,
and I've met some of those in my time.
I'm sure you have.
Following my guidebook,
I'm heading a mile south of the town
toward Tewkesbury's most grisly spot.
Bradshaw's has brought me
to the Bloody Meadow,
which the book tells me "is famous
for the great defeat by Edward IV
of the Lancastrians
under Queen Margaret in 1417".
But clearly Bradshaw's
has the date wrong.
Typographical error. 1411.
From the mid-15th century,
the House of York, led by Edward IV,
and the House of Lancaster,
led by Henry VI,
fought a series of civil wars over 30
years known as the Wars of the Roses.
Each was directly descended
from Edward III
and they were fighting
for the English crown.
Their final brutal battle took place
here at Tewkesbury's Bloody Meadow.
Armour-maker Bernie Willoughby
knows more.
So tell me what happened
at the Battle of Tewkesbury.
The Lancastrians had been
effectively run lo ground.
Their lines broke.
They started to run and this is where
the Yorkists caught up with them.
This is where they were cut to pieces.
(Michael) New' Bradshaw's says ma,
"The heroic Queen Margaret
was taken prisoner by the Yorkists
and her son was killed."
- ls that accurate?
- That's true, yes.
(Bernie) They took her back to London
in a cage.
She was exhibited through the streets.
(Michael) Very humiliating end
for poor Queen Margaret.
Mew members of the Plantagenet
Medieval Society are training today
and I'm hoping
they've not sharpened their swords.
- Ready for the slaughter.
- Oh, yes.
- Hello, gentlemen.
- Good afternoon, Michael.
Good afternoon. So, let me just get
my helmet on, ready for action.
Thank you.
- So, you guys re-enact the battles?
- (man) We do.
- And you actually fight?
- Full contact.
(Michael)
How many injuries do you have?
(man) Most of the fingers on my hands
are broken, but that's about it.
(Michael) Just show me some basics.
OK. What I'm going to do, Michael,
is I'm going to try
and hit you four times.
I'm going to be going
for your shoulders, then your legs.
Alright.
So I'm coming for your shoulder.
And again.
And again. That's it.
- Now, I want you to do the same to me.
- OK.
- Come to me.
- Shoulder.
Harder, come on!
And then the head.
Go for my head.
(chuckles)
I'm getting a taste for blood.
How many people do you get
for one of your re-enactments?
Usually about 3,000 re-enactors
for a whole weekend
and then probably
10,000 people watching,
maybe 15,000 on a good year.
So you've got hundreds of people
on either side. What's it like?
Exhilarating. Fearful.
Your bloodlust's up.
My ancestors fought in many battles
over the centuries
and being able to take on that mantle,
put the armour on,
dressed as one of my ancestors,
very, very exciting.
(Michael) Can I see
the professionals in action?
Thank you.
Unwilling to put my helmet to the test,
I'm heating a hasty retreat
to Ashchurch Station,
from where I'll travel
to Worcester Shrub Hill
and change onto a northbound
London Midland service.
Having changed trains in Worcester,
I'm now headed for Droitwich.
Bradshaw's tells me, "The principal
manufacture is fine salt,
obtained by evaporating
the water of brine springs
more than 100 feet
below the surface of the earth."
And tonight I shall stay
in what was once the house
of one who produced the finest quality,
known locally as the King of Salt.
Droitwich sits on beds of rock salt and
the brine springs emanating from them
have made it synonymous
with the condiment since the Iron Age.
In the 19th century, John Corbett,
the son of a lowly boatman,
made his fortune from the mineral.
The King of Salt's castle, Château
Impney, is my hotel for the night.
What a beautiful place to end my day
and spend the night.
It's as though a French château
had landed
in the Worcestershire countryside.
You've got to take it
with a pinch of salt.
Rejuvenated, I'm breakfasting with
local historian Barbara Middlemass
to find out more about John Corbett.
Explain to me how, in Victorian times,
you could make a fortune out of salt.
(Barbara) Well, salt was a commodity
that everybody wanted.
You needed salt for flavouring.
You flavoured your egg
with salt this morning.
The housewife needed it
for preservation.
They didn't have deep freezes, Michael.
Salt was needed by everybody.
The Romans made salt in Droitwich
2,000 years ago
and they used it at times for wages.
At the age of 7.9,
John raised the finance
to buy a contaminated brine we“
at nearby Bromsgrove.
Using engineering knowledge that he'd
gleaned from his apprenticeship,
he fixed it, sank deep new wells
and created the biggest
salt factory in Europe,
producing 110,000 tons per year.
The salt was delivered by canal barge
and filled a staggering
1,000 railway freight wagons daily.
I'm bowled over by the house,
but why did he decide
to do it in the French style?
(Barbara) Because of his wife's
connections with Paris.
She'd been born in Paris,
so it reminded her of home.
- (Michael) What is the style, exactly?
- Louis XIII.
Apart from this house,
did he leave his mark on Droitwich?
Very much so. In 1899 he provided
the money and the land
to build a railway station
lo bring people into Droitwich.
He was trying to promote the town
as a spa resort.
He's a real Victorian figure, isn't he?
Self-made man, engineer, philanthropist.
(Barbara) Yes. Very much so.
The Salt King opened
St Andrew's Brine Baths in 1887,
making Droitwich the only salt spa town
in Britain.
The baths closed recently, and I wonder
whether the locals remember them.
- Hi.
- Hello there.
Have you had any experience
of brine yourself in Droitwich?
Oh, yeah. I used to come up a lot
and go to the brine baths up here.
Was it pleasant?
Was it not kind of oily?
No, but you had to be very careful
not to get it in your eyes.
And you'd come out after a...
Two or three days,
you'd still be finding bits of salt
in your ears and in your hair,
but it was very relaxing, anyway.
I'm leaving Droitwich and heading
Northwest to Smethwick Galton Bridge
to change onto the final train
of my current journey.
My very last stop will be Wolverhampton.
Bradshaw's has some good news
and some bad.
"Wolverhampton has never suffered
from the plague,
but it did not escape
the cholera in 1849."
"The houses are of brick and there are
not any remarkable edifices."
Nonetheless, using Bradshaw's,
I will discover remarkable things
about Wolverhampton.
Few places better represent
the Industrial Revolution
than Wolverhampton.
In the 17th century
the town made shoe buckles.
By the 19th, it was at the heart
of British manufacturing.
And the Great Western Railway
was here, toe,
running locomotives to and from
this station, now disused.
Bradshaw's reminds us
that there used to be two ways
from London to Wolverhampton.
"126 miles on the narrow gauge,
or 142 miles on the broad gauge
via Oxford and Worcester."
This was the most northerly outpost
of the Great Western Railway.
And although it's many years
since this station was used,
luckily it's quite well preserved.
The GWR opened
Wolverhampton Low Level Station in 1854
and in November 1866,
an eagerly awaited train arrived.
Its feted passenger alighted
and took an open carriage to
the town square re-named in her honour.
Here in Queen Square in Wolverhampton
there stands a fine equestrian statue
of Prince Albert,
the husband of Queen Victoria.
It looks as though they're just
finishing the restoration of the statue
and I've arranged to lake a closer look.
Victoria had withdrawn from public life
for five years to mourn Albert,
but ended her exile
that day in Wolverhampton.
I'm keen to know how the town prepared
for such a momentous visit.
Museum curator Helen Steatham
should know more.
It's a lovely statue.
Where was Queen Victoria
at that moment of the unveiling?
(Helen) A great pavilion had been built
that was festooned with flowers
and ribbons and drapes
and she was sitting in the pavilion.
It was actually Mr Thornycroft, who
created the statue, who unveiled it.
The queen stood up and acknowledged
and it was said
she had a tear in her eye.
It's thought that the reason she decided
to come to Wolverhampton,
having turned down
lots of other invitations,
was because she'd received letters
from some widows from Wolverhampton,
offering condolences,
and she'd remembered this.
People came from all over the Midlands
on the train.
It was a real grand occasion.
With only nine days' notice,
the town went into full speed ahead
and created marvellous arches
to illustrate the crafts of the town.
They included coal and all the metal
and ironworks
and one full of shopkeepers' goods
that was topped off with japanned ware,
which must have looked amazing.
I couldn't tell you what japanning is,
so I'm heading to Bantock House Museum,
south-west of the city centre.
Since the town showed off
its japanning skills to Her Majesty,
I want lo discover what it is
and what, if anything,
links Wolverhampton to Japan.
My guide is
former curator Yvonne Jones.
Hello, Yvonne.
What exactly is japanning?
It's a means of decorating
a variety of materials
with a varnish
which came to be known as Japan Varnish.
It look its name from that country
simply because it was imitating
the Oriental lacquers
that were imported into this country
from Japan, China and India
some centuries earlier.
(Michael) Give me an idea
of how popular japanned items became
in Victorian Britain.
A lady writing in the 1850s described
japanned goods as being so popular
that there wasn't a home in the country
that could be found without an example.
There were japanned papier mâché hats.
Japanned coffins.
They weren't very common, though.
And perhaps most interesting of all
were railway carriage doors,
many of which were shipped to Italy.
Ah, yes. They would have
very elegant carriage doors in Italy.
Sadly, japanning has
virtually died out,
but in the museum workshop,
metalsmith John Grayson
is placing images on metal
using 19th-century
enamelling techniques.
- Hello, John.
- Hello, Michael.
I understand you've been doing work
that's reminiscent of what was being
done in Wolverhampton 100 years ago.
Yeah. I'm interested in keeping alive
some of that history
and some of that tradition.
How do you set about enamelling?
Well, pop on an apron
and we'll give it a go.
So, what we're going to do is put
some enamel onto a plain piece of copper
and then fire it in a kiln, so fusing
glass basically to the copper surface.
- Right.
- OK?
We're going to dip the copper
into the enamel
and just let the enamel drain off
a little bit.
Put it onto the trivet and then
it'll be ready to go in the kiln.
- Pop it right in the middle.
- Right in the middle, like that? Whoa!
The heat coming out of there is amazing.
Obviously this is a little kiln.
In the Victorian era, when they'd have
been enamelling big railway signs,
they'd have had massive kilns
to do eight-foot square panels.
(Michael) Those beautiful station names
were enamelled?
Yes, because it's
a very durable surface.
Ideally these should have
a number of coats, a bit like japanning,
building up the layers to make
the colours nice and bright.
The next thing we're going to do is
put an image onto the surface.
Is that again something
the Victorians would have done?
- Yes. We're going to use a transfer.
- Familiar building.
I think so. A few years spent there,
I should imagine.
A few years.
First of all we need to cut it
roughly to size,
so what I'd do is use the enamel
as a template.
(Michael) Parliament faces cuts.
(John) We've got a tray of water, so
the transfer just needs to go in there
and then we slide it onto the surface
of the enamel.
Now you've got to stretch
all of the air bubbles out of it.
- How's that looking?
- Yep, that's perfect.
- One Houses of Parliament.
- Mm.
- That has to be fired again, does it?
- Yeah.
I commit Parliament to the fire.
So now that it's cooled down, that
beautiful yellow colour has re-emerged.
Yeah, it's nice and bright again
and really glossy,
so that's virtually finished.
Just needs to be put into its mount.
There you go.
Ah, I can wear Parliament
close to my heart.
Just as I do my "Bradshaw's".
The names of great Victorians
like Brunel and Prince Albert
are familiar to us all.
What I enjoy about my journeys
is uncovering
the lives of other admirable figures
previously unknown to me.
Goldsworthy Gurney and John Corbett
were both brilliant engineers
who deserve to be commemorated.
Thanks to my travels with my Bradshaw's,
I've remembered them today.
On my next adventure, I'll hang out
with a notorious Victorian criminal...
This is a replica
of James Rush's death mask.
It does show very, very clearly where
the rope has cut directly into his neck.
Isn't that grim?
“Meet a polecat who's just a nipper...
Ooh!
(both laugh)
You've got a claim to fame.
You bit a politician.
“And chip away at an age-old craft.
- Could you make a flint out of that?
- Yeah, perfect. Let's see how you did.
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 go,
what to see and where to stay.
And now, 170 years later,
I'm aboard for a series of rail
adventures across the United Kingdom
to see what of Bradshaw's Britain
remains.
I'm now completing my journey
from England's south coast
to the West Midlands.
This last leg will take me
from Cheltenham Spa,
where refined people took the waters
for their health,
to Wolverhampton,
where amidst the coal and smoke,
craftsmen developed techniques
of the greatest finesse.
On this leg, I drive a car powered
by the technology of the Victorians...
Whoa! This is real motoring.
This is the way it was.
I visit the castle
of the King of Salt...
It's as though a French château
had landed
in the Worcestershire countryside.
You've got to take it
with a pinch of salt.
And I fight a losing battle
in the Wars of the Roses.
Ready for the slaughter.
Harder. Come on!
Getting a taste of blood.
My journey began in Southampton,
took in Hampshire and Berkshire,
went west to Bristol,
crossed the River Severn,
moved on to Gloucestershire
and ends today in the West Midlands.
This leg begins in Cheltenham,
takes in a Tewkesbury condiment,
learns of another in Droitwich
and ends in Wolverhampton.
I'm heading north
on the old Great Western Railway,
which in Bradshaw's day offered
an escape from smoggy industrial cities
to the country's most famous spa towns,
like my first destination, Cheltenham.
Legend has it that in 1116,
a flock oi pigeons discovered
the town's first spring
and local entrepreneurs,
noticing how the birds thrived,
realised that there was
money to be made.
My "Bradshaw's" suggests
that they were right.
"Cheltenham," says Bradshaw's, "is
celebrated for its medicinal waters."
"It's been, for the last 60 years,
one of the most elegant and fashionable
watering places in England."
"The promenade leads to the Montpellier
Spa and the Rotunda pump room."
The trouble is, you can never bank
on things remaining the same.
King George III look the waters here
in 1788 and the town's popularity grew.
New spas and, from the 1840s,
up to six railway stations were built.
A bank since 1882, the Montpellier Spa
building opened in 1817
and nine years later,
architect JB Papworth added the Rotunda
pump room mentioned in my "Bradshaw's".
Well, it's evident why this lovely
pump room was called the Rotunda,
with its classical dome.
In fact, it reminds me
of the Pantheon in Rome.
How wonderfully suited to Cheltenham,
a place of the utmost fashion.
Excuse me.
You're doing a guided tour, obviously.
This lovely pump room, was it inspired
by the Pantheon in Rome?
(guide) Much of Cheltenham is inspired
by classical architecture.
And what would have been going on here
in the days of the spa?
Well, the ladies and gentlemen
would have come in here
and there would have been
a large Grecian urn
where the pump was installed.
They would have taken the waters,
listened to music,
done a little dancing.
It was a social
as well as a health-giving experience.
It was a place of sophistication
and elegance.
Yes, Cheltenham was known
for leisure and pleasure.
(Michael) I can see from your group
that elegance and sophistication
remain the key words today.
- Well, since you came in, of course.
- Thank you so much.
I'm intrigued by how people
reached here
before the railways arrived in 1840,
and "Bradshaw's" may have the answer.
My guide describes how Mr Gurney's
locomotive carriages took 55 minutes
to get from Cheltenham to Gloucester.
Not along tracks, but by road.
I had never heard
of locomotive road carriages.
I've travelled to Elmstone Hardwicke,
five miles Northwest of Cheltenham,
to meet director oi the National Steam
Car Association, Stuart Gray.
- Stuart.
- Hello, Michael.
What a lovely sight.
By the vapour rising all around us,
I take it this is a steam car?
It is, yeah. It's a Stanley.
1910 Stanley Steamer.
I never thought about steam cars.
Were they common?
(Stuart) In the United States
they were common,
because the United States
had gone down the route
of developing steam cars
as their sort of pioneering car
before Henry Ford came along
in about 1910.
Now, Mr Gurney apparently was running
a steam carriage in 1831.
I mean, that is just, well, you know,
decades and decades
before the petrol car.
(Stuart) He was very much a pioneer.
He was a Cornish scientist.
He was also a chemist
and inventor.
He invented the Gurney Stove,
an early type of boiler,
and the Buds-Light, which was bright
enough to light London's streets,
and many other steam-based innovations.
Goldsworthy Gurney was appointed
the Superintendent oi Heating,
Lighting and Ventilation
in the Houses of Parliament in 1854
and knighted by Queen Victoria
in recognition oi his inventions.
But back in 1831,
he had found himself running
steam-powered buses in Gloucestershire.
You know, 55 minutes from Cheltenham
to Gloucester is not bad, is it?
- He was going some.
- He was going some.
(Stuart) He had a successful boiler.
He had found out
how he could maximise heat transfer.
Reaching speeds of up to 15mph,
Gurney's steam carriages
first ran in London,
and then from the capital to Bath.
But the turnpike trustees on
the Cheltenham to Gloucester route,
favouring the stagecoach,
imposed prohibitive tolls
on mechanically propelled carriages.
Those protectionist measures
quickly halted Goldsworthy's
transport business.
So, Stuart, give me
a guided tour of a steam car.
I've no idea what we'll find.
So, first of all, underneath the hood
is the boiler.
The boiler's a fire-tube boiler.
It has 527 tubes.
- Just like a locomotive on a railway.
- Just like a locomotive.
The engine is actually at the back
of the car. Very good acceleration.
Stanleys were the first cars to exceed
100 miles an hour.
- No!
- Yes.
Well, I don't think we should do
100 today, but can we take a ride?
Absolutely.
- Would you mind holding my Bradshaw's?
- Indeed.
- (Michael) Brake off?
- Brake off.
Oh, and we are moving.
Whoa!
I've driven steam engines before,
but of course they were on rails
and you didn't have to think
about steering at the same time.
- I'm enjoying this.
- (Stuart) Plenty of stored power.
We've got nearly 500lbs
of steam pressure.
- How good are the brakes on this thing?
- They're reasonable.
(laughs) Stuart, this is real motoring.
This is the way it was.
You could imagine being
on the top of Gurney's carriage.
I'd love it.
I had never heard of Gurney. Yet another
great discovery in Bradshaw's.
Back to Cheltenham Spa Station
to continue towards
my next destination, Tewkesbury.
Bradshaw's tells me that at Tewkesbury,
"Cloth and mustard were made
in Shakespeare's time,
hence the proverb 'as thick
as Tewkesbury mustard'."
Not one that I know.
Tewkesbury now has no railway stations.
It used to have two.
But I shall be getting off at Ashchurch
and looking for traces
of old railway lines.
(tannoy) Ladies and gentlemen,
now arriving at Ashchurch.
Tewkesbury Station fell victim
to the railway cuts and closed in 1961,
but a remnant of the line
is still causing controversy.
Flanked by two rivers,
low-lying Tewkesbury sits on one
of Britain's most risky flood plains.
The track embankment in this field
is thought to have hindered drainage
during the floods of 2007,
the worst in living memory.
Removing (he embankment is the job
of Hood Risk Manager Anthony Perry.
What's the lie of the land?
We've got the Warwickshire Avon
behind us
that flows from Coventry,
through Stratford,
and then it meets the River Severn
just over to our right
here in Tewkesbury.
So am I right in thinking
that it's the very convergence,
confluence of two rivers here
that gives you the big problems?
Yes. There's a lot of run-off.
A lot of water has to flow
through Tewkesbury.
The Victorians were excellent engineers.
Didn't they understand
the flood plain issue
when they put the embankment in here?
Well, they did put some culverts
through the embankment,
but at those times
people lived with the flooding.
When a flood occurred,
they would brush out the flagstones
and they would be back
in their homes very quickly.
Now when flooding occurs,
people can be out for 12 months.
Despite its propensity to flood,
Tewkesbury is one of England's
best preserved medieval towns.
Excuse me, just before you go.
I've been looking at some
of the lovely buildings in Tewkesbury
and your office is one of the finest.
When does it date back to?
(woman) Well, actually
it dates back to 1431.
I was looking at these things.
What is this iron structure?
I've never seen that before.
Well, it was a fish shop
and a game shop,
so they used to hang hare and pheasant
and things from here.
So before all
the health and safety legislation,
you could hang your hare outside
and it didn't matter
if it gathered a few flies.
In Shakespeare's play "Henry IV",
that master of insults, Falstaff,
says of an adversary that "his wit's
as thick as Tewkesbury mustard".
I'm told its flavour
and consistency
come from pungent local horseradish.
Supposedly, Tewkesbury mustard balls
covered in gold leaf
were presented to Henry VIII in 1535,
and I wonder whether this condiment
is still fit for a king.
- (woman) Hello.
- Hello.
Hi.
I was looking for
some Tewkesbury mustard, please.
Yes, of course. Yeah.
Have you heard an expression
or a proverb
which is mentioned in Bradshaw's Guide,
"as thick as Tewkesbury mustard'?
- Have you heard that?
- You know, I have, yes.
It's not something
that I tend to use personally.
I think people might be a bit offended.
- There's various varieties?
- There are, yes.
Different strengths, different names,
all sorts.
- Do you want to...?
- Yeah, please.
(woman) OK. At the moment we've got in
the Catherine Pan's Tewkesbury mustard
and we've also got in
the Queen Margaret's.
Oh, it's got to be the Queen Margaret,
because she was the queen of Henry VI
and she came a cropper
here at Tewkesbury.
- Yes.
Pungent, English, thick...
- (laughs)
- “and swung.
Mm. Wow.
Queen Margaret must have been
a strong lady,
and I've met some of those in my time.
I'm sure you have.
Following my guidebook,
I'm heading a mile south of the town
toward Tewkesbury's most grisly spot.
Bradshaw's has brought me
to the Bloody Meadow,
which the book tells me "is famous
for the great defeat by Edward IV
of the Lancastrians
under Queen Margaret in 1417".
But clearly Bradshaw's
has the date wrong.
Typographical error. 1411.
From the mid-15th century,
the House of York, led by Edward IV,
and the House of Lancaster,
led by Henry VI,
fought a series of civil wars over 30
years known as the Wars of the Roses.
Each was directly descended
from Edward III
and they were fighting
for the English crown.
Their final brutal battle took place
here at Tewkesbury's Bloody Meadow.
Armour-maker Bernie Willoughby
knows more.
So tell me what happened
at the Battle of Tewkesbury.
The Lancastrians had been
effectively run lo ground.
Their lines broke.
They started to run and this is where
the Yorkists caught up with them.
This is where they were cut to pieces.
(Michael) New' Bradshaw's says ma,
"The heroic Queen Margaret
was taken prisoner by the Yorkists
and her son was killed."
- ls that accurate?
- That's true, yes.
(Bernie) They took her back to London
in a cage.
She was exhibited through the streets.
(Michael) Very humiliating end
for poor Queen Margaret.
Mew members of the Plantagenet
Medieval Society are training today
and I'm hoping
they've not sharpened their swords.
- Ready for the slaughter.
- Oh, yes.
- Hello, gentlemen.
- Good afternoon, Michael.
Good afternoon. So, let me just get
my helmet on, ready for action.
Thank you.
- So, you guys re-enact the battles?
- (man) We do.
- And you actually fight?
- Full contact.
(Michael)
How many injuries do you have?
(man) Most of the fingers on my hands
are broken, but that's about it.
(Michael) Just show me some basics.
OK. What I'm going to do, Michael,
is I'm going to try
and hit you four times.
I'm going to be going
for your shoulders, then your legs.
Alright.
So I'm coming for your shoulder.
And again.
And again. That's it.
- Now, I want you to do the same to me.
- OK.
- Come to me.
- Shoulder.
Harder, come on!
And then the head.
Go for my head.
(chuckles)
I'm getting a taste for blood.
How many people do you get
for one of your re-enactments?
Usually about 3,000 re-enactors
for a whole weekend
and then probably
10,000 people watching,
maybe 15,000 on a good year.
So you've got hundreds of people
on either side. What's it like?
Exhilarating. Fearful.
Your bloodlust's up.
My ancestors fought in many battles
over the centuries
and being able to take on that mantle,
put the armour on,
dressed as one of my ancestors,
very, very exciting.
(Michael) Can I see
the professionals in action?
Thank you.
Unwilling to put my helmet to the test,
I'm heating a hasty retreat
to Ashchurch Station,
from where I'll travel
to Worcester Shrub Hill
and change onto a northbound
London Midland service.
Having changed trains in Worcester,
I'm now headed for Droitwich.
Bradshaw's tells me, "The principal
manufacture is fine salt,
obtained by evaporating
the water of brine springs
more than 100 feet
below the surface of the earth."
And tonight I shall stay
in what was once the house
of one who produced the finest quality,
known locally as the King of Salt.
Droitwich sits on beds of rock salt and
the brine springs emanating from them
have made it synonymous
with the condiment since the Iron Age.
In the 19th century, John Corbett,
the son of a lowly boatman,
made his fortune from the mineral.
The King of Salt's castle, Château
Impney, is my hotel for the night.
What a beautiful place to end my day
and spend the night.
It's as though a French château
had landed
in the Worcestershire countryside.
You've got to take it
with a pinch of salt.
Rejuvenated, I'm breakfasting with
local historian Barbara Middlemass
to find out more about John Corbett.
Explain to me how, in Victorian times,
you could make a fortune out of salt.
(Barbara) Well, salt was a commodity
that everybody wanted.
You needed salt for flavouring.
You flavoured your egg
with salt this morning.
The housewife needed it
for preservation.
They didn't have deep freezes, Michael.
Salt was needed by everybody.
The Romans made salt in Droitwich
2,000 years ago
and they used it at times for wages.
At the age of 7.9,
John raised the finance
to buy a contaminated brine we“
at nearby Bromsgrove.
Using engineering knowledge that he'd
gleaned from his apprenticeship,
he fixed it, sank deep new wells
and created the biggest
salt factory in Europe,
producing 110,000 tons per year.
The salt was delivered by canal barge
and filled a staggering
1,000 railway freight wagons daily.
I'm bowled over by the house,
but why did he decide
to do it in the French style?
(Barbara) Because of his wife's
connections with Paris.
She'd been born in Paris,
so it reminded her of home.
- (Michael) What is the style, exactly?
- Louis XIII.
Apart from this house,
did he leave his mark on Droitwich?
Very much so. In 1899 he provided
the money and the land
to build a railway station
lo bring people into Droitwich.
He was trying to promote the town
as a spa resort.
He's a real Victorian figure, isn't he?
Self-made man, engineer, philanthropist.
(Barbara) Yes. Very much so.
The Salt King opened
St Andrew's Brine Baths in 1887,
making Droitwich the only salt spa town
in Britain.
The baths closed recently, and I wonder
whether the locals remember them.
- Hi.
- Hello there.
Have you had any experience
of brine yourself in Droitwich?
Oh, yeah. I used to come up a lot
and go to the brine baths up here.
Was it pleasant?
Was it not kind of oily?
No, but you had to be very careful
not to get it in your eyes.
And you'd come out after a...
Two or three days,
you'd still be finding bits of salt
in your ears and in your hair,
but it was very relaxing, anyway.
I'm leaving Droitwich and heading
Northwest to Smethwick Galton Bridge
to change onto the final train
of my current journey.
My very last stop will be Wolverhampton.
Bradshaw's has some good news
and some bad.
"Wolverhampton has never suffered
from the plague,
but it did not escape
the cholera in 1849."
"The houses are of brick and there are
not any remarkable edifices."
Nonetheless, using Bradshaw's,
I will discover remarkable things
about Wolverhampton.
Few places better represent
the Industrial Revolution
than Wolverhampton.
In the 17th century
the town made shoe buckles.
By the 19th, it was at the heart
of British manufacturing.
And the Great Western Railway
was here, toe,
running locomotives to and from
this station, now disused.
Bradshaw's reminds us
that there used to be two ways
from London to Wolverhampton.
"126 miles on the narrow gauge,
or 142 miles on the broad gauge
via Oxford and Worcester."
This was the most northerly outpost
of the Great Western Railway.
And although it's many years
since this station was used,
luckily it's quite well preserved.
The GWR opened
Wolverhampton Low Level Station in 1854
and in November 1866,
an eagerly awaited train arrived.
Its feted passenger alighted
and took an open carriage to
the town square re-named in her honour.
Here in Queen Square in Wolverhampton
there stands a fine equestrian statue
of Prince Albert,
the husband of Queen Victoria.
It looks as though they're just
finishing the restoration of the statue
and I've arranged to lake a closer look.
Victoria had withdrawn from public life
for five years to mourn Albert,
but ended her exile
that day in Wolverhampton.
I'm keen to know how the town prepared
for such a momentous visit.
Museum curator Helen Steatham
should know more.
It's a lovely statue.
Where was Queen Victoria
at that moment of the unveiling?
(Helen) A great pavilion had been built
that was festooned with flowers
and ribbons and drapes
and she was sitting in the pavilion.
It was actually Mr Thornycroft, who
created the statue, who unveiled it.
The queen stood up and acknowledged
and it was said
she had a tear in her eye.
It's thought that the reason she decided
to come to Wolverhampton,
having turned down
lots of other invitations,
was because she'd received letters
from some widows from Wolverhampton,
offering condolences,
and she'd remembered this.
People came from all over the Midlands
on the train.
It was a real grand occasion.
With only nine days' notice,
the town went into full speed ahead
and created marvellous arches
to illustrate the crafts of the town.
They included coal and all the metal
and ironworks
and one full of shopkeepers' goods
that was topped off with japanned ware,
which must have looked amazing.
I couldn't tell you what japanning is,
so I'm heading to Bantock House Museum,
south-west of the city centre.
Since the town showed off
its japanning skills to Her Majesty,
I want lo discover what it is
and what, if anything,
links Wolverhampton to Japan.
My guide is
former curator Yvonne Jones.
Hello, Yvonne.
What exactly is japanning?
It's a means of decorating
a variety of materials
with a varnish
which came to be known as Japan Varnish.
It look its name from that country
simply because it was imitating
the Oriental lacquers
that were imported into this country
from Japan, China and India
some centuries earlier.
(Michael) Give me an idea
of how popular japanned items became
in Victorian Britain.
A lady writing in the 1850s described
japanned goods as being so popular
that there wasn't a home in the country
that could be found without an example.
There were japanned papier mâché hats.
Japanned coffins.
They weren't very common, though.
And perhaps most interesting of all
were railway carriage doors,
many of which were shipped to Italy.
Ah, yes. They would have
very elegant carriage doors in Italy.
Sadly, japanning has
virtually died out,
but in the museum workshop,
metalsmith John Grayson
is placing images on metal
using 19th-century
enamelling techniques.
- Hello, John.
- Hello, Michael.
I understand you've been doing work
that's reminiscent of what was being
done in Wolverhampton 100 years ago.
Yeah. I'm interested in keeping alive
some of that history
and some of that tradition.
How do you set about enamelling?
Well, pop on an apron
and we'll give it a go.
So, what we're going to do is put
some enamel onto a plain piece of copper
and then fire it in a kiln, so fusing
glass basically to the copper surface.
- Right.
- OK?
We're going to dip the copper
into the enamel
and just let the enamel drain off
a little bit.
Put it onto the trivet and then
it'll be ready to go in the kiln.
- Pop it right in the middle.
- Right in the middle, like that? Whoa!
The heat coming out of there is amazing.
Obviously this is a little kiln.
In the Victorian era, when they'd have
been enamelling big railway signs,
they'd have had massive kilns
to do eight-foot square panels.
(Michael) Those beautiful station names
were enamelled?
Yes, because it's
a very durable surface.
Ideally these should have
a number of coats, a bit like japanning,
building up the layers to make
the colours nice and bright.
The next thing we're going to do is
put an image onto the surface.
Is that again something
the Victorians would have done?
- Yes. We're going to use a transfer.
- Familiar building.
I think so. A few years spent there,
I should imagine.
A few years.
First of all we need to cut it
roughly to size,
so what I'd do is use the enamel
as a template.
(Michael) Parliament faces cuts.
(John) We've got a tray of water, so
the transfer just needs to go in there
and then we slide it onto the surface
of the enamel.
Now you've got to stretch
all of the air bubbles out of it.
- How's that looking?
- Yep, that's perfect.
- One Houses of Parliament.
- Mm.
- That has to be fired again, does it?
- Yeah.
I commit Parliament to the fire.
So now that it's cooled down, that
beautiful yellow colour has re-emerged.
Yeah, it's nice and bright again
and really glossy,
so that's virtually finished.
Just needs to be put into its mount.
There you go.
Ah, I can wear Parliament
close to my heart.
Just as I do my "Bradshaw's".
The names of great Victorians
like Brunel and Prince Albert
are familiar to us all.
What I enjoy about my journeys
is uncovering
the lives of other admirable figures
previously unknown to me.
Goldsworthy Gurney and John Corbett
were both brilliant engineers
who deserve to be commemorated.
Thanks to my travels with my Bradshaw's,
I've remembered them today.
On my next adventure, I'll hang out
with a notorious Victorian criminal...
This is a replica
of James Rush's death mask.
It does show very, very clearly where
the rope has cut directly into his neck.
Isn't that grim?
“Meet a polecat who's just a nipper...
Ooh!
(both laugh)
You've got a claim to fame.
You bit a politician.
“And chip away at an age-old craft.
- Could you make a flint out of that?
- Yeah, perfect. Let's see how you did.