Great British Railway Journeys (2010–…): Season 5, Episode 9 - Leicester to Loughborough - 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.
During the course of my journeys,
I've often been struck
by how the Victorians pushed out
the boundaries of human knowledge.
Today I want to see
how subsequent generations
inherited their spirit
with new things being discovered
and indeed unearthed.
All this week,
I've been travelling away from
the capital and its toiling masses,
heading north on Stephenson
London-to-Birmingham line.
I have yet to explore tire Victorian
manufacturing hub of the East Midlands
before ending my journey
in the Yorkshire city of Leeds.
On today's journey I travel
on the first Victorian main line
through Leicestershire to Rothley
to meet up with
the last main line to be built.
And then, it's a short hop
to Loughborough.
On this leg of the journey,
I swap hats and view fife
from the other side oi the tracks?“...
Rothley! This is Rothley! All aboard!
I discover an astronomical invention
that gave Hollywood a facelift...
- Am I on the dot?
- (Man) Yes, you are indeed.
(cheers)
I never expected to get that right.
And my mettle is tested
at the world's largest bell foundry.
To say I'm out of my comfort zone
is to put it mildly.
There is molten metal
leaping around in the room.
As we approach Leicester,
my Bradshaw's reminds me
that "the famous
crook-backed King Richard III
was brought here
after the Battle of Bosworth Field,
and buried at the Grey Priory."
Nowadays we can find out
whether Bradshaw's was right.
My guidebook also quotes Shakespeare
whose view of Richard
was that he was a vile swine.
Both the Victorians and indeed I
have been greatly influenced
in our view of Richard by the Bard.
The Bard and Bradshaw would be amazed
that, centuries later,
the body of Richard
would be discovered in a ca! park.
(tannoy) Leicester Station
is going to be our final destination.
(Michael) Richard of York,
later Richard III,
was named protector
of two princes, his nephews.
To secure his succession to the throne,
it's rumoured that he had them murdered
in the Tower of London.
I'm interested to knew whether
Shakespeare's view of Richard
is supported by historical fact.
I'm meeting Professor Gail Marshall
from Leicester University
in the historic
New Walk area of the city.
Bradshaw's quotes
Shakespeare's view of Richard Ill
as a vile swine; a pretty negative view.
Was that the settled view of the time?
Well, it was the view that
he attributes to the Earl of Richmond
who'd later become Henry VII,
so it's very much the Tudor view.
But what Shakespeare does,
which is quite interesting,
is add to that considerably.
He makes Richard
a more interesting villain.
He gives him the most tremendous
linguistic resources,
he gives him a limp as well,
but the linguistic resources
are the things
that captured
the Elizabethans' imagination
and still capture our imagination
and captured Bradshaw's imagination,
loo.
Do we know yet
whether Richard Ill was a villain?
I don't think we can possibly know that.
The sources are so contradictory.
What we know is that Shakespeare's
version of Richard as a great villain,
though an interesting villain,
is one that's persisted.
But I think what
we can also think about now, uniquely,
is the new source that we've got
which is the very source
of Richard's own body
which has just been discovered.
And I think that that visual image
we have of the skeleton
is possibly something
that might begin to dispel
our sense of Richard as a rather...
as a simply villainous character.
It's truly remarkable
that 528 years later,
we have this new evidence.
There were indications that Richard's
body had been buried in Leicester
in Grey Friar's Friary.
Today there's nothing left
of the friary,
so looking for his body was like
looking for a needle in a haystack.
But under this white marquee
in a council car park
turned out to be the spot.
Very kindly,
the Leicester University archaeologists
Richard Buckley and Matthew Morris
have agreed to meet me
at the site oi their great discovery.
- So who actually found him?
- That'll be me.
- Were you looking for him?
- Well, yes and no.
The project was looking
with the hope of finding him,
but it was always
going to be a long shot.
There was no way we knew
we were going to find him
within the first couple of hours
of the excavation.
It wasn't until
we'd literally found the vertebrae
that we actually suddenly
sort of had a dawning realisation
that actually this could be
who we were looking for all along.
Because it had this S-curvature?
And it was a really obvious
S-curvature in the ground.
You couldn't mistake it
for anything other than scoliosis.
(Michael) And had it been assumed
that Shakespeare was right,
that Richard had this disability?
We came into it with an open mind.
We thought we might excavate
up to six sets of remains
of individuals who were males,
of course,
and we might be lucky
to find some evidence
that one of them died in battle.
We didn't think for a minute
we would find an individual
who had such obvious characteristics
like the scoliosis.
The other obvious indicators were
the injuries that Richard sustained
at the Battle of Bosworth Field
in 1485.
Fighting his Lancastrian rival,
Henry Tudor,
some of his army defected,
leaving Richard vulnerable.
He suffered numerous blows to the head.
His naked body was then
paraded through Leicester.
How lucky was it
that you discovered that bone?
Incredibly lucky.
I mean, we always planned
on putting a trench broadly here,
but the minutiae of the placement,
50 centimetres here,
50 centimetres there.
And you can see, that was
the edge of our original trench.
If I'd moved it
slightly further that way,
we'd have missed him entirely.
All of this is a modern cellar
and came to within
that far above his legs.
If they'd dug it any deeper
than they had,
we wouldn't have had him from
the waist down at the very least.
If they'd made it slightly wider,
we might not have had him at all.
(Michael) Extraordinary.
Remarkably, it was world-renowned work
on DNA done over many years
that enabled scientists
to provide comprehensive proof
that this was the lost king of England
and that he'd died a bloody death
aged 32.
I'm meeting Professor Schürer
at Leicester University's
Genetics Department
where Richard's body was sent
for DNA profiling.
Now, I believe that DNA was discovered
about half a century ago, wasn't it?
But a great breakthrough was made at
the University of Leicester, wasn't it?
Absolutely. In fact, at 9:05
on September 10th, 1984,
now Sir Alec Jeffreys
had an absolute breakthrough
when he realised that DNA could be
fingerprinted in such a way
that meant that everybody
had an individual marker.
I can see why they'd bring
the bones for DNA testing,
but what I don't understand is how
they'd identify the DNA as Richard's.
(Schürer) It's important to realise
there are two fundamental parts
of our DNA
that are inherited from our father,
which is the Y chromosome.
That passes from father to son,
father to son, father to son,
and from our mother, we inherit DNA,
both sons and daughters inherit
mitochondrial DNA.
But only women can pass it on.
So what we were able to do was to trace
living modern-day descendants
through Anne of York, his eldest sister.
So was this another fantastic chance
that there was a daughter,
followed by a daughter,
followed by a daughter?
It's so much of a chance,
had we actually discovered the skeleton
maybe in 30 or 40 years' time,
that line would have died out.
All of the living-day descendants
of Anne of York
are the last of their line.
They will not be passing on
mitochondrial DNA to a next generation.
This is the stuff of fiction.
Absolutely extraordinary.
Anne died giving birth to her only
daughter from her second marriage,
Anne St Leger. But in each
successive generation after,
there was a daughter
followed by a daughter.
In fact, Professor Schürer already knew
about Canadian furniture maker,
Michael Ibsen,
descended through 17 generations.
But he was also able to trace
another living descendant of Anne
who remains anonymous.
Testing both their DNAs
gave Schürer proof positive.
When we first of all realised
that A, those two people matched
who had never met in their lives,
had no idea oi their existence,
and then of course,
the whole thing triangulated
with the mitochondrial DNA
extracted from the skeleton.
And that was another eureka moment.
So, you had two people
whose DNA matched,
then you bring the sample
from the bone and it matches, too?
- Indeed.
- Closely?
Very, very closely. Yes.
No doubt about it, the fellow
in the car park is Richard Ill.
The fellow in the car park
is Richard Ill.
I find the fortuitous discovery
of Richard and the happy coincidences
that allowed the university to offer
proof of his identity really exciting.
A modern Bradshaw would surely
recommend a visit to Leicester
to understand how science
can make history five
and solve the puzzles that have
perplexed us fer centuries.
Much as Pd like to discover more,
I must travel on,
lust seven minutes down the fine.
My next stop will be Syston,
known to Bradshaw's as Syston Junction,
where I intend to focus
on a Victorian invention
which has since stolen the limelight.
Syston was noteworthy enough to get
a mention in the Domesday Book.
And the town is now known
for the part it played in photography.
In the 1800s, the Victorians
rapidly developed photography.
And Cooke Optics became renowned
for creating the triplet lens
that eliminated fuzzy photos.
From its historic
Stoughton Street factory,
its lenses were exported
all around the world.
Today it's still one of
the lop lens suppliers to Hollywood
and I'm meeting its
chief operating officer, Alan Merrells.
How did you first get
involved with Hollywood, then?
The defining point really
was when films became talkies
and were no longer silent.
The silent movies were lit by arc lights
which were extremely noisy.
So you had to invent the silent light?
Well, we didn't invent the silent light,
but we actually had a lens
that allowed a lot more light through
and it enabled cinematographers
to use a lower level of light
to shoot the movies.
- (Michael) What's going on here?
- This is traditional polishing.
It's been done like this
for hundreds of years, really.
It's quite an old machine
but we're using traditional techniques.
Using multiple lenses in a block here.
It's being actually polished
with a pitch polisher.
This goes back hundreds of years
how we polish this.
It's basically jeweller's rouge.
I suppose we're talking
minute degrees of accuracy.
Correct.
Approximately a millionth of an inch.
(Michael)
Fantastic. Thank you very much indeed.
What makes the triplet special
is that it's made up
of three precision tenses,
and as you focus the camera,
the three work together
to bring the picture into focus.
It became the lens of choice
for professional photographers
like Frank Hurley
who, in 1914,
followed Ernest Shackleton
on his expedition to the South Pole.
Today, the skills of
these Leicestershire craftsmen
are still highly prized,
creating the Cooke Look
with their finest prime lenses.
So what exactly are you up to here?
What I'm doing at the moment
is calibrating the focus lens.
And each focus lens has been calibrated,
so what you do is,
ten foot reads ten foot.
- (Michael) Are you doing that by eye?
- We are indeed.
- How long have you been doing this?
- I've been doing it for 15 years.
- Can I do it for 15 seconds?
- Of course you can.
- I'll move it.
- So what do I have to do?
Just focus a Siemens star.
Can you see an image there?
I can see... Yeah, a kind of fan shape.
- If I move it, it'll disappear.
- Yeah.
Now you try and focus it.
I can see a star
and I've got to bring that into focus.
(man) That's what you're looking for,
a sharp image.
OK, so I'll over-correct,
so I don't go beyond it.
That's gone beyond it.
- Until you get a sharp image.
- How's that?
- You look at it yourself.
- Am I on the dot?
- Yes, you are indeed.
- (cheers)
I never expected to get that right. Wow.
I'm beginning to feel
a whole new career coming on,
this time on the other side
of the camera.
I can also see why the lenses have
such an impressive filmography,
everything from James Bond
to Harry Potter.
And in recognition oi their 17.0 years
of service to Hollywood,
they have just been awarded an Oscar.
For the team here in Leicester,
many of whom are second-
and third-generation Cooke employees,
it's a huge honour.
As the day draws to an end,
I'm going to alight at Sileby Station.
Bradshaw's tells me
that in the vicinity
is Mountsorrel, a lovely spot,
and draws attention to Rothley Temple
belonging to J Parker Esq.
A good place to spend the night.
I'll be interested to know
how Rothley found its way
not only into Bradshaw's
but also into the history books.
From 1231, Rothley was home
to the Knights Templar
who were rectors of
the magnificent Catholic church.
After their demise,
the Babington family began their eight
generations of residence until 1845.
Then the manor was sold off
to J Parker, an eminent local QC.
Today, Rothley Manor is a hotel
and the perfect piece
to break my journey.
I've found my spot in Leicestershire
to take my rest.
Richard Ill lay undisturbed
for 528 years.
I hope to wake in the morning.
I'm up early because I have a special
date at a very special station.
You won't find Rothley on the map,
or in "Bradshaw's".
This line, which was originally part
of the Great Central Railway,
was hum by entrepreneur
Sir Edward Watkin,
to provide a more direct line
from London Marylebone
to Sheffield and Manchester.
He also had ambitions
that his line would make it to France.
While it didn't survive long enough
to make it across the Channel,
it owes its life today to
a group of enthusiasts who saved it.
- Hello, Richard.
- Morning, Michael.
- Good to see you.
- And yourself. Sit down.
Now, this railway station, Rothley,
is not in my Bradshaw's guide,
presumably then, because this line
was built later than the 1860s?
A lot later.
It only opened in about 1900
and it survived for barely 60 years
before British Railways closed it.
(Michael)
How does it come to be reopened again?
(Richard) Around about 1969,
a preservation scheme was developed
by a small group of enthusiasts
and 44 years later,
here we are today with eight miles
of double-track railway.
Trains can pass each other
rather than having to wait
in passing loops at stations.
(Michael) And you're capable
of pretty high speeds as well?
(Richard) Yes, at times
we do testing of steam locos
up to 60 miles an hour.
That must be very good fun.
You must love doing that.
Absolutely.
Today, thanks to
the passion and enthusiasm
of Richard and the Great Central
Railway Heritage Trust
there are six working steam locomotives
and 17 carriages.
I've offered to work my passage
to Loughborough
behind the King Edward II.
Rothley! This is Rothley!
All aboard for Quorn and Woodhouse
and Loughborough Central!
I knew those years
of shouting in Parliament
would come in handy.
(blows whistle)
(blows whistle)
This majestic King-class locomotive
was built in Swindon in 1830
for the Great Western Railway
and was withdrawn from service
only in 1962.
- Tickets, please. Tickets, please.
- Good morning to you.
(chuckles)
I hope you're enjoying your ride.
We have, we've had a lovely breakfast.
We'll be relaxing
for the rest of the day.
- Just check you're...
- ll is today's.
Check you're legitimate.
- And I am a member.
- I think we'll put a hole in there.
Yes, you can do that.
I'll keep that one. (laughs)
It won't work in that one.
I don't think I can
put a hole in that one.
In steam's heyday,
a key part oi the service
was providing passengers
with hot cooked food.
Keeping up with tradition,
today's menus sound very tempting.
Sweet capsicum terrine
with basil vinaigrette
followed by pan-fried sea trout
and gateau.
I have a reservation with
resident chef, Liam Tinsley.
- This is a vintage kitchen, isn't it?
- Yes.
(Michael) What's the most
you can produce here?
A seven-course meal on Saturday nights.
A seven-course meal?
For how many people?
- 80.
- 80. That's absolutely fantastic.
How long have you been on the trains?
You're a young man.
I've been coming down
since I was eight.
I've been cooking since I was 16.
I've gone through an apprenticeship.
- I'm now an NVQ level 2 qualified chef.
- You're enjoying it, evidently.
- Oh, yeah.
- Fantastic. I wish I had time to stay.
That's OK. Nice meeting you.
I wish I could have a seven-course meal.
Bye-bye, Liam.
Bye, thank you.
Thanks to people power,
this line has been saved
and transformed
into something special.
In the future, the trust hopes
to tum the southern terminus
into a branch of
the National Railway Museum.
And the northern terminus
is my next destination, Loughborough.
(train whistle)
There was another sound
as evocative of the 19th century
as the locomotive whistle.
From factories and churches,
village halls and schools,
you could hear the sound of the bell.
And here at Loughborough is the place
where the story can be told.
It was a Loughborough parish church
which invited the world's largest bell
foundry to set up business in the town.
In 1839, they commissioned
John Taylor & Co to cast their bells,
with one condition:
that they make them in Loughborough.
The company moved
and has been here since,
sending bells ah over the country
thanks to the closeness
of the railway line.
I'm meeting one of the directors,
Andrew Higson.
What an amazing sight.
I feel as if I've walked into
a painting, into another century.
- An industrial cathedral.
- That's very well put.
So what goes on here? These things
with holes in cannot be bells.
No, they're not bells. These are
the cases in which we mould the bells.
They've got holes in them
so that the loam, which is
the moulding material, binds to it.
And each size of bell that we make,
we've got a different size case for.
This is the moulding process
actually in action.
You can that Bill is slapping
what looks like mud
on the inside of this case.
(Michael) Hello, Bill.
What is this gooey substance made of?
Three kinds of sand,
goat hair and horse manure.
- And what?
- Horse manure.
- Horse manure?
- Yeah.
(laughs) Goat hair.
(laughs) These are
the vital ingredients, are they?
- They are.
- Stood the lest of time.
Well, there's nothing better.
Why would a mixture of sand
and horse manure be the right lining
if you're putting in hot molten metal?
The clay and the sand, and the horse
manure has uric acid in it
and that acts as a plasticiser.
And the horses chew the straw
into really short pieces
and they lattice across
and it forms a really good bond.
And when it's dry,
it's as hard as anything you like.
It's like a semi-ceramic.
Getting the team's consistency
and thickness just right
takes all of Bill's
27 years' experience
of making bells of every size and type.
Now it's my tum to get my hands dirty.
I love the smell
of uric acid in the morning.
Apply it there and work it towards me.
So slap it down hard.
The bell I'm helping to make
is for ringing in peal,
and at over three foot wide,
ifs about average for this foundry.
When it's rung,
it sounds the note of A flat.
A! just under half a ton,
this mighty ringer is destined
for a church in Guildford.
- (Bill) Now turn the strickle.
- Your what?
(Bill) Strickle. This is what
this implement's called.
(Michael) Right.
Oh, yes. Look at the lovely shape of
bell you're creating with your strickle.
Get these beautiful lines,
and that's all going to be reflected
in the bell you're going to cast.
Once made, the mould is left for a week
then fired {or another week
in the gas drying stove.
Then it's ready for the cast.
Copper and tin are used
to smelt the bell
in a process that hasn't changed
in centuries.
This is obviously
the most fantastic temperature.
Whoa! Look at that.
To say I'm out of my comfort zone
is to put it mildly.
There is molten metal
leaping around in the room.
- What does this weigh, Roger?
- About 50 kilos there.
- Is there a technique to lifting it?
- Just keep it level, OK?
I'm definitely on the fast track
for apprentices.
Was pouring 50 kilos
of molten metal in my contract?
- (Roger) Superb.
- Wow, look at that.
I never thought I'd stand
this close to molten metal.
OK.
The heat coming off it
is absolutely fantastic.
I can feel it through my visor,
under my visor.
Take it easy, Roger. Thank you.
Are you ready now?
OK. There it is,
bubbling down into the moulds.
- Back in the ring?
- Take them down.
- Down?
- Yeah.
- (Roger) That's fine.
- Oh, my God.
When you take the visor off,
you really do feel the heat,
now coming from all these moulds
as well as from the crucible,
the heating pot.
- So what's actually in there, Roger?
- It's all hand bells.
- Well, ding-a-ling-a-ling.
- (Roger laughs)
It's uplifting to view a craft
that has passed down the generations.
But the foundry
also has a sad tale to tell.
During the First World War,
three cl John William Taylor's sons
were killed In action.
In celebration oi their lives
and those of other young men
who died in the Great War,
Taylor and local townspeople
created a memorial.
(bells chimes)
This memorial hell tower
in Loughborough's Queen's Park
houses a musical instrument
called a carillon.
It's like an organ,
with bells instead of pipes.
I'm going right to the top to meet
Caroline Sharpe, the carillonneur.
(bells play tune)
(Caroline) Hello. Come and join me.
Amazing instrument.
What were you playing by the way?
I was playing a piece by
Sir Edward Elgar called Memorial Chimes.
It's a piece of music that was written
specifically for this carillon
to be played in the opening ceremony
of when it opened in 1923.
- Are there many in Britain?
- There's 15 carillons in the UK.
This one's particularly unique,
because it's the only one that was built
specifically to house the bells
and house the carillon, so you could say
the whole building is the instrument.
Bells are rung by forcing
a clapper down onto the bell
from levers at a keyboard or clavier.
And I couldn't leave Loughborough,
or indeed Taylor's,
without trying the bells,
even if it's only a nursery rhyme.
One, two, three, four.
(bells play "London Bridge
is Falling Down")
(Caroline) Brilliant.
What fun!
You can make such a lot of noise.
You can. You feel very powerful up here.
I'm going to go and listen to it
from outside.
Thank you so much, Caroline.
(bells rim!)
In Hollywood, the craftsmen of a small
Leicester company are winning Oscars.
I was moved to stand by
the car park grave of King Richard Ill
and to view his life
through a Victorian lens.
One thing's for certain,
if the Great Central Railway
could be disinterred,
all over England
it would set the bells ringing.
On my next leg of my journey,
I see the grand designs
oi a Victorian Duke, “...
Derek, this building is huge.
(Derek) When it was built,
it was the largest in Europe
with the exception of the Manege
next to the Kremlin in Moscow.
I discover a treasure trove
of locomotive history...
This I do not believe!
Every square inch of wall
is filled with railway memorabilia.
“And I break a leg
on the stage in Leeds.
Welcome to this Valhalla
of Victorian variety.
Bravo!
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.
During the course of my journeys,
I've often been struck
by how the Victorians pushed out
the boundaries of human knowledge.
Today I want to see
how subsequent generations
inherited their spirit
with new things being discovered
and indeed unearthed.
All this week,
I've been travelling away from
the capital and its toiling masses,
heading north on Stephenson
London-to-Birmingham line.
I have yet to explore tire Victorian
manufacturing hub of the East Midlands
before ending my journey
in the Yorkshire city of Leeds.
On today's journey I travel
on the first Victorian main line
through Leicestershire to Rothley
to meet up with
the last main line to be built.
And then, it's a short hop
to Loughborough.
On this leg of the journey,
I swap hats and view fife
from the other side oi the tracks?“...
Rothley! This is Rothley! All aboard!
I discover an astronomical invention
that gave Hollywood a facelift...
- Am I on the dot?
- (Man) Yes, you are indeed.
(cheers)
I never expected to get that right.
And my mettle is tested
at the world's largest bell foundry.
To say I'm out of my comfort zone
is to put it mildly.
There is molten metal
leaping around in the room.
As we approach Leicester,
my Bradshaw's reminds me
that "the famous
crook-backed King Richard III
was brought here
after the Battle of Bosworth Field,
and buried at the Grey Priory."
Nowadays we can find out
whether Bradshaw's was right.
My guidebook also quotes Shakespeare
whose view of Richard
was that he was a vile swine.
Both the Victorians and indeed I
have been greatly influenced
in our view of Richard by the Bard.
The Bard and Bradshaw would be amazed
that, centuries later,
the body of Richard
would be discovered in a ca! park.
(tannoy) Leicester Station
is going to be our final destination.
(Michael) Richard of York,
later Richard III,
was named protector
of two princes, his nephews.
To secure his succession to the throne,
it's rumoured that he had them murdered
in the Tower of London.
I'm interested to knew whether
Shakespeare's view of Richard
is supported by historical fact.
I'm meeting Professor Gail Marshall
from Leicester University
in the historic
New Walk area of the city.
Bradshaw's quotes
Shakespeare's view of Richard Ill
as a vile swine; a pretty negative view.
Was that the settled view of the time?
Well, it was the view that
he attributes to the Earl of Richmond
who'd later become Henry VII,
so it's very much the Tudor view.
But what Shakespeare does,
which is quite interesting,
is add to that considerably.
He makes Richard
a more interesting villain.
He gives him the most tremendous
linguistic resources,
he gives him a limp as well,
but the linguistic resources
are the things
that captured
the Elizabethans' imagination
and still capture our imagination
and captured Bradshaw's imagination,
loo.
Do we know yet
whether Richard Ill was a villain?
I don't think we can possibly know that.
The sources are so contradictory.
What we know is that Shakespeare's
version of Richard as a great villain,
though an interesting villain,
is one that's persisted.
But I think what
we can also think about now, uniquely,
is the new source that we've got
which is the very source
of Richard's own body
which has just been discovered.
And I think that that visual image
we have of the skeleton
is possibly something
that might begin to dispel
our sense of Richard as a rather...
as a simply villainous character.
It's truly remarkable
that 528 years later,
we have this new evidence.
There were indications that Richard's
body had been buried in Leicester
in Grey Friar's Friary.
Today there's nothing left
of the friary,
so looking for his body was like
looking for a needle in a haystack.
But under this white marquee
in a council car park
turned out to be the spot.
Very kindly,
the Leicester University archaeologists
Richard Buckley and Matthew Morris
have agreed to meet me
at the site oi their great discovery.
- So who actually found him?
- That'll be me.
- Were you looking for him?
- Well, yes and no.
The project was looking
with the hope of finding him,
but it was always
going to be a long shot.
There was no way we knew
we were going to find him
within the first couple of hours
of the excavation.
It wasn't until
we'd literally found the vertebrae
that we actually suddenly
sort of had a dawning realisation
that actually this could be
who we were looking for all along.
Because it had this S-curvature?
And it was a really obvious
S-curvature in the ground.
You couldn't mistake it
for anything other than scoliosis.
(Michael) And had it been assumed
that Shakespeare was right,
that Richard had this disability?
We came into it with an open mind.
We thought we might excavate
up to six sets of remains
of individuals who were males,
of course,
and we might be lucky
to find some evidence
that one of them died in battle.
We didn't think for a minute
we would find an individual
who had such obvious characteristics
like the scoliosis.
The other obvious indicators were
the injuries that Richard sustained
at the Battle of Bosworth Field
in 1485.
Fighting his Lancastrian rival,
Henry Tudor,
some of his army defected,
leaving Richard vulnerable.
He suffered numerous blows to the head.
His naked body was then
paraded through Leicester.
How lucky was it
that you discovered that bone?
Incredibly lucky.
I mean, we always planned
on putting a trench broadly here,
but the minutiae of the placement,
50 centimetres here,
50 centimetres there.
And you can see, that was
the edge of our original trench.
If I'd moved it
slightly further that way,
we'd have missed him entirely.
All of this is a modern cellar
and came to within
that far above his legs.
If they'd dug it any deeper
than they had,
we wouldn't have had him from
the waist down at the very least.
If they'd made it slightly wider,
we might not have had him at all.
(Michael) Extraordinary.
Remarkably, it was world-renowned work
on DNA done over many years
that enabled scientists
to provide comprehensive proof
that this was the lost king of England
and that he'd died a bloody death
aged 32.
I'm meeting Professor Schürer
at Leicester University's
Genetics Department
where Richard's body was sent
for DNA profiling.
Now, I believe that DNA was discovered
about half a century ago, wasn't it?
But a great breakthrough was made at
the University of Leicester, wasn't it?
Absolutely. In fact, at 9:05
on September 10th, 1984,
now Sir Alec Jeffreys
had an absolute breakthrough
when he realised that DNA could be
fingerprinted in such a way
that meant that everybody
had an individual marker.
I can see why they'd bring
the bones for DNA testing,
but what I don't understand is how
they'd identify the DNA as Richard's.
(Schürer) It's important to realise
there are two fundamental parts
of our DNA
that are inherited from our father,
which is the Y chromosome.
That passes from father to son,
father to son, father to son,
and from our mother, we inherit DNA,
both sons and daughters inherit
mitochondrial DNA.
But only women can pass it on.
So what we were able to do was to trace
living modern-day descendants
through Anne of York, his eldest sister.
So was this another fantastic chance
that there was a daughter,
followed by a daughter,
followed by a daughter?
It's so much of a chance,
had we actually discovered the skeleton
maybe in 30 or 40 years' time,
that line would have died out.
All of the living-day descendants
of Anne of York
are the last of their line.
They will not be passing on
mitochondrial DNA to a next generation.
This is the stuff of fiction.
Absolutely extraordinary.
Anne died giving birth to her only
daughter from her second marriage,
Anne St Leger. But in each
successive generation after,
there was a daughter
followed by a daughter.
In fact, Professor Schürer already knew
about Canadian furniture maker,
Michael Ibsen,
descended through 17 generations.
But he was also able to trace
another living descendant of Anne
who remains anonymous.
Testing both their DNAs
gave Schürer proof positive.
When we first of all realised
that A, those two people matched
who had never met in their lives,
had no idea oi their existence,
and then of course,
the whole thing triangulated
with the mitochondrial DNA
extracted from the skeleton.
And that was another eureka moment.
So, you had two people
whose DNA matched,
then you bring the sample
from the bone and it matches, too?
- Indeed.
- Closely?
Very, very closely. Yes.
No doubt about it, the fellow
in the car park is Richard Ill.
The fellow in the car park
is Richard Ill.
I find the fortuitous discovery
of Richard and the happy coincidences
that allowed the university to offer
proof of his identity really exciting.
A modern Bradshaw would surely
recommend a visit to Leicester
to understand how science
can make history five
and solve the puzzles that have
perplexed us fer centuries.
Much as Pd like to discover more,
I must travel on,
lust seven minutes down the fine.
My next stop will be Syston,
known to Bradshaw's as Syston Junction,
where I intend to focus
on a Victorian invention
which has since stolen the limelight.
Syston was noteworthy enough to get
a mention in the Domesday Book.
And the town is now known
for the part it played in photography.
In the 1800s, the Victorians
rapidly developed photography.
And Cooke Optics became renowned
for creating the triplet lens
that eliminated fuzzy photos.
From its historic
Stoughton Street factory,
its lenses were exported
all around the world.
Today it's still one of
the lop lens suppliers to Hollywood
and I'm meeting its
chief operating officer, Alan Merrells.
How did you first get
involved with Hollywood, then?
The defining point really
was when films became talkies
and were no longer silent.
The silent movies were lit by arc lights
which were extremely noisy.
So you had to invent the silent light?
Well, we didn't invent the silent light,
but we actually had a lens
that allowed a lot more light through
and it enabled cinematographers
to use a lower level of light
to shoot the movies.
- (Michael) What's going on here?
- This is traditional polishing.
It's been done like this
for hundreds of years, really.
It's quite an old machine
but we're using traditional techniques.
Using multiple lenses in a block here.
It's being actually polished
with a pitch polisher.
This goes back hundreds of years
how we polish this.
It's basically jeweller's rouge.
I suppose we're talking
minute degrees of accuracy.
Correct.
Approximately a millionth of an inch.
(Michael)
Fantastic. Thank you very much indeed.
What makes the triplet special
is that it's made up
of three precision tenses,
and as you focus the camera,
the three work together
to bring the picture into focus.
It became the lens of choice
for professional photographers
like Frank Hurley
who, in 1914,
followed Ernest Shackleton
on his expedition to the South Pole.
Today, the skills of
these Leicestershire craftsmen
are still highly prized,
creating the Cooke Look
with their finest prime lenses.
So what exactly are you up to here?
What I'm doing at the moment
is calibrating the focus lens.
And each focus lens has been calibrated,
so what you do is,
ten foot reads ten foot.
- (Michael) Are you doing that by eye?
- We are indeed.
- How long have you been doing this?
- I've been doing it for 15 years.
- Can I do it for 15 seconds?
- Of course you can.
- I'll move it.
- So what do I have to do?
Just focus a Siemens star.
Can you see an image there?
I can see... Yeah, a kind of fan shape.
- If I move it, it'll disappear.
- Yeah.
Now you try and focus it.
I can see a star
and I've got to bring that into focus.
(man) That's what you're looking for,
a sharp image.
OK, so I'll over-correct,
so I don't go beyond it.
That's gone beyond it.
- Until you get a sharp image.
- How's that?
- You look at it yourself.
- Am I on the dot?
- Yes, you are indeed.
- (cheers)
I never expected to get that right. Wow.
I'm beginning to feel
a whole new career coming on,
this time on the other side
of the camera.
I can also see why the lenses have
such an impressive filmography,
everything from James Bond
to Harry Potter.
And in recognition oi their 17.0 years
of service to Hollywood,
they have just been awarded an Oscar.
For the team here in Leicester,
many of whom are second-
and third-generation Cooke employees,
it's a huge honour.
As the day draws to an end,
I'm going to alight at Sileby Station.
Bradshaw's tells me
that in the vicinity
is Mountsorrel, a lovely spot,
and draws attention to Rothley Temple
belonging to J Parker Esq.
A good place to spend the night.
I'll be interested to know
how Rothley found its way
not only into Bradshaw's
but also into the history books.
From 1231, Rothley was home
to the Knights Templar
who were rectors of
the magnificent Catholic church.
After their demise,
the Babington family began their eight
generations of residence until 1845.
Then the manor was sold off
to J Parker, an eminent local QC.
Today, Rothley Manor is a hotel
and the perfect piece
to break my journey.
I've found my spot in Leicestershire
to take my rest.
Richard Ill lay undisturbed
for 528 years.
I hope to wake in the morning.
I'm up early because I have a special
date at a very special station.
You won't find Rothley on the map,
or in "Bradshaw's".
This line, which was originally part
of the Great Central Railway,
was hum by entrepreneur
Sir Edward Watkin,
to provide a more direct line
from London Marylebone
to Sheffield and Manchester.
He also had ambitions
that his line would make it to France.
While it didn't survive long enough
to make it across the Channel,
it owes its life today to
a group of enthusiasts who saved it.
- Hello, Richard.
- Morning, Michael.
- Good to see you.
- And yourself. Sit down.
Now, this railway station, Rothley,
is not in my Bradshaw's guide,
presumably then, because this line
was built later than the 1860s?
A lot later.
It only opened in about 1900
and it survived for barely 60 years
before British Railways closed it.
(Michael)
How does it come to be reopened again?
(Richard) Around about 1969,
a preservation scheme was developed
by a small group of enthusiasts
and 44 years later,
here we are today with eight miles
of double-track railway.
Trains can pass each other
rather than having to wait
in passing loops at stations.
(Michael) And you're capable
of pretty high speeds as well?
(Richard) Yes, at times
we do testing of steam locos
up to 60 miles an hour.
That must be very good fun.
You must love doing that.
Absolutely.
Today, thanks to
the passion and enthusiasm
of Richard and the Great Central
Railway Heritage Trust
there are six working steam locomotives
and 17 carriages.
I've offered to work my passage
to Loughborough
behind the King Edward II.
Rothley! This is Rothley!
All aboard for Quorn and Woodhouse
and Loughborough Central!
I knew those years
of shouting in Parliament
would come in handy.
(blows whistle)
(blows whistle)
This majestic King-class locomotive
was built in Swindon in 1830
for the Great Western Railway
and was withdrawn from service
only in 1962.
- Tickets, please. Tickets, please.
- Good morning to you.
(chuckles)
I hope you're enjoying your ride.
We have, we've had a lovely breakfast.
We'll be relaxing
for the rest of the day.
- Just check you're...
- ll is today's.
Check you're legitimate.
- And I am a member.
- I think we'll put a hole in there.
Yes, you can do that.
I'll keep that one. (laughs)
It won't work in that one.
I don't think I can
put a hole in that one.
In steam's heyday,
a key part oi the service
was providing passengers
with hot cooked food.
Keeping up with tradition,
today's menus sound very tempting.
Sweet capsicum terrine
with basil vinaigrette
followed by pan-fried sea trout
and gateau.
I have a reservation with
resident chef, Liam Tinsley.
- This is a vintage kitchen, isn't it?
- Yes.
(Michael) What's the most
you can produce here?
A seven-course meal on Saturday nights.
A seven-course meal?
For how many people?
- 80.
- 80. That's absolutely fantastic.
How long have you been on the trains?
You're a young man.
I've been coming down
since I was eight.
I've been cooking since I was 16.
I've gone through an apprenticeship.
- I'm now an NVQ level 2 qualified chef.
- You're enjoying it, evidently.
- Oh, yeah.
- Fantastic. I wish I had time to stay.
That's OK. Nice meeting you.
I wish I could have a seven-course meal.
Bye-bye, Liam.
Bye, thank you.
Thanks to people power,
this line has been saved
and transformed
into something special.
In the future, the trust hopes
to tum the southern terminus
into a branch of
the National Railway Museum.
And the northern terminus
is my next destination, Loughborough.
(train whistle)
There was another sound
as evocative of the 19th century
as the locomotive whistle.
From factories and churches,
village halls and schools,
you could hear the sound of the bell.
And here at Loughborough is the place
where the story can be told.
It was a Loughborough parish church
which invited the world's largest bell
foundry to set up business in the town.
In 1839, they commissioned
John Taylor & Co to cast their bells,
with one condition:
that they make them in Loughborough.
The company moved
and has been here since,
sending bells ah over the country
thanks to the closeness
of the railway line.
I'm meeting one of the directors,
Andrew Higson.
What an amazing sight.
I feel as if I've walked into
a painting, into another century.
- An industrial cathedral.
- That's very well put.
So what goes on here? These things
with holes in cannot be bells.
No, they're not bells. These are
the cases in which we mould the bells.
They've got holes in them
so that the loam, which is
the moulding material, binds to it.
And each size of bell that we make,
we've got a different size case for.
This is the moulding process
actually in action.
You can that Bill is slapping
what looks like mud
on the inside of this case.
(Michael) Hello, Bill.
What is this gooey substance made of?
Three kinds of sand,
goat hair and horse manure.
- And what?
- Horse manure.
- Horse manure?
- Yeah.
(laughs) Goat hair.
(laughs) These are
the vital ingredients, are they?
- They are.
- Stood the lest of time.
Well, there's nothing better.
Why would a mixture of sand
and horse manure be the right lining
if you're putting in hot molten metal?
The clay and the sand, and the horse
manure has uric acid in it
and that acts as a plasticiser.
And the horses chew the straw
into really short pieces
and they lattice across
and it forms a really good bond.
And when it's dry,
it's as hard as anything you like.
It's like a semi-ceramic.
Getting the team's consistency
and thickness just right
takes all of Bill's
27 years' experience
of making bells of every size and type.
Now it's my tum to get my hands dirty.
I love the smell
of uric acid in the morning.
Apply it there and work it towards me.
So slap it down hard.
The bell I'm helping to make
is for ringing in peal,
and at over three foot wide,
ifs about average for this foundry.
When it's rung,
it sounds the note of A flat.
A! just under half a ton,
this mighty ringer is destined
for a church in Guildford.
- (Bill) Now turn the strickle.
- Your what?
(Bill) Strickle. This is what
this implement's called.
(Michael) Right.
Oh, yes. Look at the lovely shape of
bell you're creating with your strickle.
Get these beautiful lines,
and that's all going to be reflected
in the bell you're going to cast.
Once made, the mould is left for a week
then fired {or another week
in the gas drying stove.
Then it's ready for the cast.
Copper and tin are used
to smelt the bell
in a process that hasn't changed
in centuries.
This is obviously
the most fantastic temperature.
Whoa! Look at that.
To say I'm out of my comfort zone
is to put it mildly.
There is molten metal
leaping around in the room.
- What does this weigh, Roger?
- About 50 kilos there.
- Is there a technique to lifting it?
- Just keep it level, OK?
I'm definitely on the fast track
for apprentices.
Was pouring 50 kilos
of molten metal in my contract?
- (Roger) Superb.
- Wow, look at that.
I never thought I'd stand
this close to molten metal.
OK.
The heat coming off it
is absolutely fantastic.
I can feel it through my visor,
under my visor.
Take it easy, Roger. Thank you.
Are you ready now?
OK. There it is,
bubbling down into the moulds.
- Back in the ring?
- Take them down.
- Down?
- Yeah.
- (Roger) That's fine.
- Oh, my God.
When you take the visor off,
you really do feel the heat,
now coming from all these moulds
as well as from the crucible,
the heating pot.
- So what's actually in there, Roger?
- It's all hand bells.
- Well, ding-a-ling-a-ling.
- (Roger laughs)
It's uplifting to view a craft
that has passed down the generations.
But the foundry
also has a sad tale to tell.
During the First World War,
three cl John William Taylor's sons
were killed In action.
In celebration oi their lives
and those of other young men
who died in the Great War,
Taylor and local townspeople
created a memorial.
(bells chimes)
This memorial hell tower
in Loughborough's Queen's Park
houses a musical instrument
called a carillon.
It's like an organ,
with bells instead of pipes.
I'm going right to the top to meet
Caroline Sharpe, the carillonneur.
(bells play tune)
(Caroline) Hello. Come and join me.
Amazing instrument.
What were you playing by the way?
I was playing a piece by
Sir Edward Elgar called Memorial Chimes.
It's a piece of music that was written
specifically for this carillon
to be played in the opening ceremony
of when it opened in 1923.
- Are there many in Britain?
- There's 15 carillons in the UK.
This one's particularly unique,
because it's the only one that was built
specifically to house the bells
and house the carillon, so you could say
the whole building is the instrument.
Bells are rung by forcing
a clapper down onto the bell
from levers at a keyboard or clavier.
And I couldn't leave Loughborough,
or indeed Taylor's,
without trying the bells,
even if it's only a nursery rhyme.
One, two, three, four.
(bells play "London Bridge
is Falling Down")
(Caroline) Brilliant.
What fun!
You can make such a lot of noise.
You can. You feel very powerful up here.
I'm going to go and listen to it
from outside.
Thank you so much, Caroline.
(bells rim!)
In Hollywood, the craftsmen of a small
Leicester company are winning Oscars.
I was moved to stand by
the car park grave of King Richard Ill
and to view his life
through a Victorian lens.
One thing's for certain,
if the Great Central Railway
could be disinterred,
all over England
it would set the bells ringing.
On my next leg of my journey,
I see the grand designs
oi a Victorian Duke, “...
Derek, this building is huge.
(Derek) When it was built,
it was the largest in Europe
with the exception of the Manege
next to the Kremlin in Moscow.
I discover a treasure trove
of locomotive history...
This I do not believe!
Every square inch of wall
is filled with railway memorabilia.
“And I break a leg
on the stage in Leeds.
Welcome to this Valhalla
of Victorian variety.
Bravo!