Great British Railway Journeys (2010–…): Season 6, Episode 10 - High Street Kensington to London Bridge - full transcript
[OPENING THEME MUSIC]
For Victorian Britons, George Bradshaw
was a household name.
At a time when railways
were new...
Bradshaw's guidebook inspired
them to take to the tracks.
I'm using a Bradshaw's guide to understand
how trains transformed Britain.
Its landscape...
its industry, society...
and leisure time.
As I arias-cross the country a hundred
and fifty years later...
it helps me to discover
the Britain of today.
All week I've been using Bradshaw's
to rediscover London...
as it was in the
age of steam.
I'm now concluding my rail journeys
around the world's first metropolis.
Today, I want to look at
great institutions...
born in - or which flourished during -
the reign of Queen Victoria.
A variety of cultural, charitable and
popular organisations...
that, to this day, define the capital more than
rhyming slang or the sound of Bow Bells.
Alongside my usual guidebook, I've been delving
into other historic Bradshaw's publications...
including a later edition
from 1875...
to shine a light on
Victorian London.
Today I'm tracing a route from affluent
Kensington to Battersea and Vauxhall...
finishing up at one of Britain's busiest
stations, London Bridge.
On this stretch I'll be getting a fresh
perspective on a Victorian landmark...
Ohh...! That is a long Way to...
Oh, I mustn't look down!
I mustn't look down!
Learning how London's most
famous flower market...
had a darker side in
Bradshaw's day...
Flower sellers would use it almost
as a cover for begging...
or, at worst, prostitution.
Oh, so to be a "flower girl" had a
sort of double meaning?
Absolutely.
And discovering how the capital's 19th-century
railways are being equipped for the 21st.
What we see here is the new platforms that
We're just preparing at the minute.
The scale of this enterprise - the scale of this
vision - it is positively Victorian.
I'm on the Circle Line, heading
for High Street Kensington.
This stretch opened in 1868, and was soon
being used by well-to-do commuters...
who might well have passed the journey flicking
through the pages of an irreverent publication.
"Ascending Fleet Street, we pass on the
left the office of the inimitable Punch"...
"and a few doors beyond, that
of Bradshaw's guide."
I'm not at Fleet Street, but near the home of a
Punch cartoonist who, as reliably as my handbook...
steers us through the Victorian age -
albeit sardonically.
Today's popular satirical television
and radio shows...
can trace roots back to the lampoonery
of the magazine Punch.
I'm unearthing its Victorian origins
in Kensington...
Where, encouraged by the new railway,
19th-century property developers...
built smart homes by the hundred for
the burgeoning middle classes.
In 1875, artist and Punch cartoonist
Edward Linley Sambourne...
moved in to number 18, Stafford Terrace. His
home has been beautifully preserved as a museum...
and I'm taking a tour with cultural
historian Clare Horrocks.
Clare, politicians had been satirised and
caricatured long before the invention of Punch.
What was special about Punch?
I think What's special about Punch is that it's
reaching out to a much more middle-class audience.
It's much more of a
family magazine...
“particularly as you move through into
the 1850s and 1860s.
But it does pack a punch,
doesn't it?
I mean, it's something that the ruling
class have to be wary of?
Very much so.
Before the advent of Punch
in 1841
satire often took the form of crude pamphlets -
bawdy in tone and frequently libellous.
Employing top artists and generally
skirting around libel...
Punch became the respectable
face of the genre.
Alongside biting political commentary,
Sambourne and his colleagues...
gently lampooned the preoccupations
of the weekly's refined readership.
What we can see here is the use of the spider to
satirise the chignon, and female fashion.
What's quite interesting is you
can see the flies as earrings.
[LAUGHTER]
An early version of
Spider-Woman!
A keen observer of the changing
face of Victorian Britain...
Sambourne took advantage of modern
technology - including photography...
which by the late 19th century had
reached the mass market.
Sambournés studio.
Indeed, this is Where he worked from 1899.
And here's some examples...
of how he would use the photography
to help him get the shape...
of the characters that he
was sketching.
And, an example of one of
his cameras.
Ah, an unusual camera.
It's got lenses on two sides.
This was the secret side-panel which gave him
a secret and more genuine view...
it could be argued, on subjects - such as the
schoolgirls walking along that we have here.
Punch took a keen interest in the railways,
which were then transforming Britain.
And even my guidebook found itself subjected
to the magazine's playful wit.
As we can see here, from September 1877, we have
a piece about the Continental Bradshaw...
which has an initial letter by
Sambourne himself.
"Oh, shall we take a circular ticket
carrying us everywhere"...
"over everything, in all sorts
of conveyances?"
"Shall we not consequently be haunted with the
regret that wherever we may be going...
we would far sooner go somewhere else?"
"Will the Continental Bradshaw be
of the least use to us?"
What a heretical question!
[LAUGHTER]
I've never regretted following my
trusty Bradshaw's.
And it's now leading me back
onto the Circle Line.
I'm heading south, to learn how royal passions
shaped this part of London in the mid-19th century.
The relationship between Queen Victoria and her
husband, Prince Albert, could be stormy.
He doubted that the duties of a monarch could be
performed by a weak and feeble woman...
and her efforts to perform them were
hampered by nine pregnancies...
and bouts of post-natal depression.
But after his death, she devoted her life
to worshipping him...
and London enjoys the monuments
built to Prince Albert.
An 1870s version of Bradshaw's talks about
the Royal Albert Hall...
being "150 feet high to the lantern
and 8 to 900 feet round...
it is an oval ranking next to the
Colosseum at Rome for size."
Ah, yes, but this Wasn't built by
a caesar - but by a queen.
[TRAIN TANNOY ANNOUNCEMENT]
The next station is South Kensington.
With the Natural History, Science and
Victoria & Albert museums nearby...
as well as Imperial College and other
educational institutions...
the Royal Albert Hall is at the heart of a
cultural and scientific quarter.
The area owes its origins to
the Great Exhibition...
the international industrial showcase which had
been the brainchild of Prince Albert.
I'm hearing the story from the Hall's
archive manager, Liz Harper.
Liz, What a stunning auditorium.
So in 1851, there's the Great Exhibition,
in the Crystal Palace in the park.
Yes.
Now, What role does Prince Albert play
after that in this area?
So, with the profits from the Great Exhibition,
his dream was to buy up land in this area...
to promote the arts and sciences,
as the Exhibition had done.
And so, with the money, they bought up 86 acres,
and bought What's nicknamed "Albertopolis".
And he was the driving force behind that
- including the Royal Albeit Hall.
Exactly - building a central hall for further exhibitions
and for music events was part of that ambition.
And What we see here today...
this 5,000 seat auditorium...
was that his original concept?
Um, originally, the plan was to build a much
grander theatre for almost 30,000 people.
But the plans were reduced because they
felt that it could never be filled!
Alas, Albert didn't live to see
his vision made reality.
Aged just forty-two, he died
of typhoid in 1861.
But Queen Victoria ensured that his
name lived on in this building.
This illustration shows queen Victoria in 1867
laying the Hall's foundation stone.
But it was at this ceremony,
in front of 7,000 people...
that Queen Victoria decided,
Without telling anyone at the Hall...
that it would be changed from the "Central Hall
of Arts and Sciences" to "The Royal Albert Hall".
[LAUGHTER]
That's What they call a fait accompli -
a Royal Edict!
The Hall finally opened
in March 1871.
And a year later, just across the road, it was
joined by the lavish Albert Memorial...
whose considerable
expense Prime Minister...
Gladstone was reluctant to fund
from the public purse...
thus deepening his rift with
Queen Victoria.
The hall required a million bricks
and 80,000 blocks of terracotta.
Its most remarkable feature
was the 185-foot-wide dome...
of glass and wrought iron that
crowns the building.
Oh, my goodness!
This fantastic span!
At the time, it was the largest unsupported
dome in the World.
And it was made in Manchester and brought
down to London on horse and cart.
Well, What on earth does
it Weigh?
Well, including the glazing the roof
weighs an astonishing 600 tons.
Liz is leading me to the apex of the dome,
suspended high above the auditorium.
Ohh! That is a long Way to...
Oh, I mustn't look down!
I think I might have to ask
for your arm!
[LAUGHTER]
Right, let's...
Oh, my goodness, this is weird!
Let's Walk across the poles.
Oh, dear... Ah!
How high above the auditorium
are we?
We're forty-four metres to
the arena floor.
Oh, my goodness!
Now, why was this built?
This was built, really, as Victorian
ventilation for the hall...
so the hot air would rise and
come out the top.
Hmm, yes.
The Victorian engineering
is extraordinary...
but I'm thankful to be returning to
terra firma to continue my journey.
I'm boarding the Underground for the
last time on this London tour.
Because, to reach my next stop, I need to
join the mainline network at Victoria.
I'm bound for Battersea, Where
the railway arrived in 1867.
[TRAIN TANNOY ANNOUNCEMENT]
The next station is Battersea Park.
My 1870s Bradshaw's notes its
gardens, park and old church.
But this quiet village was turning
into an industrialised suburb.
Between 1841 and 1901 the
population grew from...
six and a half thousand to
nearly 170,000.
And as Victorian London's human
population soared...
so did the numbers of stray
animals on its streets.
I'm nearing from Claire Horton now this
situation gave birth to a Battersea institution.
So Battersea Dogs' Home was actually
founded in the Victorian period, was it?
Mmm hmm. We were founded in 1860
by a lady called Mary Tealby...
who came to London after her divorce and was
just really concerned by the numbers...
of stray, starving and lost dogs on the
streets, and Wanted to do something about it.
The home moved to this
site in 1871.
And from the early 20th century there have been
kennels in these railway arches.
They're now being refurbished to improve
the dogs' accommodation.
But in Victorian times, not everyone saw the
necessity of treating stray animals kindly.
There was a rather scathing article in
The Times in our very early days, in 1862...
saying that it felt our founders had
taken leave of their sober senses.
But we were pretty much saved by Charles Dickens,
who came to the rescue of the home...
by actually writing an article, really almost
contrasting the lives of pedigree dogs...
and their aristocratic owners, with
the lives of stray street dogs...
and the people who lived in, sort of, the
poorer areas of London.
And he was very, very positive,
very supportive of the home.
And so the whole attitude to animal welfare
really started to shift as a consequence of that.
By the late 1880s, the problem of
stray dogs was so bad...
that the police were authorised
to impound them.
And soon, up to 25,000 animals a year
were being brought to Battersea.
People would often have their dogs
seized from them...
from railway stations, if they were trying to travel
with their dogs and didn't have a muzzle on the dog...
as was a legal requirement
at that time.
And at one point, during 1898, in fifty
days we took almost 11,000 dogs!
Thankfully, London these days
has fewer strays.
Even so, the home admits about
9,000 animals annually.
- Hello!
- This is Lucy.
Lucy's actually a typical stray come in,
found at Pimlico railway station.
- Ah, were you, Lucy?
- She's about 18 months old.
- Good girl.
- There we go.
Before a dog can be given a new home,
it's carefully assessed...
and given much-needed affection
by staff and volunteers.
[DOGS BARKING]
- And who's this?
- This is Sheba.
- Hello, Sheba.
- She's one of our current residents.
She's now ready to find a new home,
so We're giving her a bath.
Hey, sweetheart.
- Is she enjoying it?
- Yeah.
That's a good girlie!
- It's a thick coat, isn't it?
- It is a thick coat.
Good girl.
Former politician, comes
off the tracks...
and goes to the dogs.
Lovely!
[LAUGHTER]
With a bit of luck, spruced-up Sheba
will soon find a new home.
Home is Where I'm bound - to sleep, before
embarking on the last day of my tour of London.
A new dawn, and I'm back on the
South Bank of the Thames...
to track down the story of an industry that
was blooming back in Bradshaw's day.
According to Bradshaw's, Covent Garden
is "celebrated as being the mart"...
"for the most delicate and choicest flowers
grown or imported into England".
A visit to a flower market.
Now, wouldn't that be luwerly!
The central London market described in my
guidebook dated back to the Middle Ages...
when it was the "convent garden"
of an abbey.
But forty years ago it was relocated here,
down the line from Vauxhall Station.
Helen Evans has researched
its history.
Now, the image I have of Covent Garden
based on My Fair Lady...
a poor flower-selling girl.
That's typical, I suppose, of the late 19th
century - even the early 20th century?
Yes, you would have had two types
of girls selling flowers.
You'd have had the waifs, who were
very much on the breadline.
Just selling and making very small
amounts on the posies.
But you would also have others who would
use it almost as a cover for begging...
or, at worst, prostitution.
Oh, so to be a "flower girl" had a
sort of double meaning?
Absolutely.
For middle- and upper-class Victorians,
fresh flowers were a mark of status.
No gentleman would venture forth
Without sporting a buttonhole.
And city-dwellers gained access to a wider
variety of blooms than ever before.
Pre-railway, it would have all
been locally grown.
And it was only with the onset of the railways
that they were able to bring in product...
from further afield: from the south-west,
the Channel Islands, even...
and particularly France.
- In fact, I have luggage labels here.
- Oh, my goodness.
This is from a grower who, in Provence,
was growing violets...
that they'd send up to markets in wicker baskets.
And these are the luggage labels for the...
Boulogne boat train - and they would've
come on into London.
From London's various stations, the flowers
were transferred by horse and cart...
and later lorries, to
Covent Garden.
By the 1960s, this traffic was clogging
the streets. And, in 1974...
the market finally moved to the site of
the former goods yard...
of the London and South-Western
Railway Company.
The modern market is carefully temperature- and
light-controlled to keep the flowers at their peak.
But traders like Bob Cooley
have fond memories...
of the rough-and-ready market that readers of
my Bradshaw's would have known.
How d'you do?
- Hello Bob, my name's Michael.
- I know that, Michael.
How long have you been
in the business?
- Forty-three years.
No?!
- Yes!
- Anyone before you in your family?
Grandfather. Dad. Had a
brother up here.
One time I had two uncles up here - yeah,
there was quite a tribe of us at one time!
Obviously you remember the
old Covent Garden?
Oh, very much so - love it. When we
had the three day week...
- In the early 1970s.
- Which your Opposition made available for us...
we put all lanterns up. So if you can imagine old
Covent Garden, Dickensian, with Tilley lamps...
it was like going back in the day.
- Do you miss that place?
- Ahh...!
It's a different World. This is
business. Business.
I... I once found - from the Opera House -
I'm sure it was a feller's skull.
I took it home, wrapped it up and gave
me mum it for her birthday!
She wasn't too pleased, but you used to find all sorts
of things like that from all the different theatres.
The stars you used to get over there, and you'd
see them... My dad'd point out to me...
"See that man over there?" - and I was only a fifteen-
year-old boy - "That's Lionel Bait - he writ Oliver!"
Y'know? Fantastic. You're rubbing shoulders with
famous people, weren't you? It was great!
Bob also remembers the days when lorries,
filled with boxes of flowers...
left New Covent Garden three times a
day, bound for the London termini.
Where trains would carry them on
to destinations across the land.
You can write "Syms of Aberdeen"
on there.
- Is that with an "I"?
- However. My spelling'd be different to yours!
I'll put it With a "Y"!
"Syms".
- "Aberdeen"...
- Yeah.
And a special word at the bottom.
I'll tell you What it is.
- Oh, I hope it's a nice word!
- It is.
"T-B-C-F".
- "To be collected"...
"Called for"!
- "Called for".
- That's right.
- There we are.
- There you go.
Right, would you like to take it out to the
loading bay now, and deliver it?
Absolutely.
Shall we pop your book oh there, Michael,
so you can take that outwith you?
Since the 1990s, the trains ho longer play
a big role in the flower trade.
But who knows What the
future holds?
Right now, London is in the midst
of a railway renaissance.
And the very last leg of my London
itinerary takes me to a station...
with a crucial role in the capital's
future development.
Bradshaw's tells me that "the London
terminus of the South Eastern Railway"...
"is situated on the Surrey side
of London Bridge."
"It's been enlarged to meet the requirements
of the various lines"...
"of which it is now the
conjoined termini."
That's been one of the problems for London
Bridge - it has this dual personality...
as both a terminus station and
a through station, too.
And Bradshaw's remarks that
it's not spectacular.
But I have a feeling that's
about to change.
As suggested by my guidebook, since
Victorian times London Bridge...
has stood at the nexus of railway lines
feeding in from across the South East.
But the tangle of tracks that
grew up in Bradshaw's day...
was not built with 21st-century
commuter traffic in mind.
Today, this vital junction is
a bottleneck...
and the station is ill-equipped to handle
the 277 passengers per minute...
who arrive here at
peak times.
London Bridge station - at a point where,
what, six or seven pedestrian tunnels...
converge in one place.
And people just kind of...
bump into each other,
like chaotic streams of ants.
Thanks to a chequered past, with competing
companies running services here...
for much of its history, London Bridge
has effectively been two stations.
Until recently, there were six
through-platforms in one half...
and nine terminating platforms in the
other, linked by a footbridge.
But now, as part of the six and a half
billion pound Thameslink programme...
to expand London's north-south railway
capacity, that's all changing.
Andrew Hutton has been working
on the project for five years.
What a mammoth building site!
What We've got to do is get a lot more
trains through London Bridge.
So London Bridge unlocks the
whole of the Thameslink project.
So the work going on now, really, is to try
and create more through-platforms...
and thereby reduce some of the
terminating platforms.
This enables us to put the eighteen trains an
hour extra We've got to put through...
for the Thameslink programme. At the
minute there's just ho room to do that.
The Victorians ran the first north-south
through-services via London Bridge...
crossing the Thames at
Blackfriars.
Nowadays, a maximum of four trains
an hour ply the route...
with barely one an hour
at peak times.
To rectify that severe shortage of capacity, the
platforms are being completely reconfigured...
to provide nine through-lines - all While
London Bridge remains open to passengers.
It's a huge game of chess, really, which
I always describe to people...
in some sense it's brilliant, makes you come
into work every clay and think "wow".
And in another sense it keeps you awake at night
thinking "How oh earth are we going to do that?!"
And it's leaving you, apparently, with a
lovely big, what, kind of underpass here...?
What's that going to be, then?
Well, basically, this is a brand-new
concourse that We're building.
It's bigger than the size of
Wembley football pitch.
We have this huge area that will
link the whole station.
So, for the first time in its history, you'll be able
to access any of the platforms from the same level.
So that little Warren that I came
through earlier - that disappears?
All that goes.
The new concourse must be
carved out of the Victorian...
architecture that underpins
the existing station.
It's a real labyrinth under
here, isn't it?
Indeed. I think, actually, this is a
very good place just to stop...
to show you an idea of how the station's
been developed with different sets of arches...
depending when they
were built.
If you look into the distance, you can see
about three different variations of arch.
And behind that, the new concourse is
starting. So it'll work its way...
gnawing through all these arches - right
through to the other side oh Tooley Street.
So, alas, We're going to lose
these Victorian arches?
Well, yes - you'll lose some. We
have to take arches out...
to enable us to put the big concourse in,
but leave them all around the edges.
The new concourse will
be spectacular.
And the project also addresses the
nuts and bolts of railway operation.
Every last rail and sleeper
is being replaced...
in one of the largest track-renewal
and re-signalling projects ever.
Right, Michael, what we see here is the new
platforms that We're just preparing at the minute.
We've got about a month left to get this
ready to give over to the track guys.
Put all the ballast down,
put the tracks in.
The scale of this enterprise - the scale of
this vision - it is positively Victorian.
The Thameslink project is one of many
that are refashioning the capital.
Where better to take stock of the transformation than
from London Bridges newest neighbour, the Shard?
As a Londoner, I try to sense the
excitement that the Victorians felt...
as they built the cathedrals of steam
like London bridge station...
800 feet beneath me, and
the Royal Albert Hall.
But, in truth, it takes little imagination.
Standing at the top of Europe's tallest building...
and having seen the works that are being
done to create new railway lines...
from north to south,
and east to West...
I believe the metropolis is undergoing its greatest
renewal since Queen Victoria graced the throne.
Next time, I help to give an old
engine a fresh start.
Ooh, my goodness... George is getting
appallingly damaged here.
Discover the macho side of
the poet, Byron.
He was a fantastic boxer. He had the champion
of England, Gentleman Jackson...
actually teach him
how to box.
And find that my cooking skills aren't
What they're cracked up to be.
There's a bit of eggshell in there, Michael,
so point deducted.
[END THEME]
For Victorian Britons, George Bradshaw
was a household name.
At a time when railways
were new...
Bradshaw's guidebook inspired
them to take to the tracks.
I'm using a Bradshaw's guide to understand
how trains transformed Britain.
Its landscape...
its industry, society...
and leisure time.
As I arias-cross the country a hundred
and fifty years later...
it helps me to discover
the Britain of today.
All week I've been using Bradshaw's
to rediscover London...
as it was in the
age of steam.
I'm now concluding my rail journeys
around the world's first metropolis.
Today, I want to look at
great institutions...
born in - or which flourished during -
the reign of Queen Victoria.
A variety of cultural, charitable and
popular organisations...
that, to this day, define the capital more than
rhyming slang or the sound of Bow Bells.
Alongside my usual guidebook, I've been delving
into other historic Bradshaw's publications...
including a later edition
from 1875...
to shine a light on
Victorian London.
Today I'm tracing a route from affluent
Kensington to Battersea and Vauxhall...
finishing up at one of Britain's busiest
stations, London Bridge.
On this stretch I'll be getting a fresh
perspective on a Victorian landmark...
Ohh...! That is a long Way to...
Oh, I mustn't look down!
I mustn't look down!
Learning how London's most
famous flower market...
had a darker side in
Bradshaw's day...
Flower sellers would use it almost
as a cover for begging...
or, at worst, prostitution.
Oh, so to be a "flower girl" had a
sort of double meaning?
Absolutely.
And discovering how the capital's 19th-century
railways are being equipped for the 21st.
What we see here is the new platforms that
We're just preparing at the minute.
The scale of this enterprise - the scale of this
vision - it is positively Victorian.
I'm on the Circle Line, heading
for High Street Kensington.
This stretch opened in 1868, and was soon
being used by well-to-do commuters...
who might well have passed the journey flicking
through the pages of an irreverent publication.
"Ascending Fleet Street, we pass on the
left the office of the inimitable Punch"...
"and a few doors beyond, that
of Bradshaw's guide."
I'm not at Fleet Street, but near the home of a
Punch cartoonist who, as reliably as my handbook...
steers us through the Victorian age -
albeit sardonically.
Today's popular satirical television
and radio shows...
can trace roots back to the lampoonery
of the magazine Punch.
I'm unearthing its Victorian origins
in Kensington...
Where, encouraged by the new railway,
19th-century property developers...
built smart homes by the hundred for
the burgeoning middle classes.
In 1875, artist and Punch cartoonist
Edward Linley Sambourne...
moved in to number 18, Stafford Terrace. His
home has been beautifully preserved as a museum...
and I'm taking a tour with cultural
historian Clare Horrocks.
Clare, politicians had been satirised and
caricatured long before the invention of Punch.
What was special about Punch?
I think What's special about Punch is that it's
reaching out to a much more middle-class audience.
It's much more of a
family magazine...
“particularly as you move through into
the 1850s and 1860s.
But it does pack a punch,
doesn't it?
I mean, it's something that the ruling
class have to be wary of?
Very much so.
Before the advent of Punch
in 1841
satire often took the form of crude pamphlets -
bawdy in tone and frequently libellous.
Employing top artists and generally
skirting around libel...
Punch became the respectable
face of the genre.
Alongside biting political commentary,
Sambourne and his colleagues...
gently lampooned the preoccupations
of the weekly's refined readership.
What we can see here is the use of the spider to
satirise the chignon, and female fashion.
What's quite interesting is you
can see the flies as earrings.
[LAUGHTER]
An early version of
Spider-Woman!
A keen observer of the changing
face of Victorian Britain...
Sambourne took advantage of modern
technology - including photography...
which by the late 19th century had
reached the mass market.
Sambournés studio.
Indeed, this is Where he worked from 1899.
And here's some examples...
of how he would use the photography
to help him get the shape...
of the characters that he
was sketching.
And, an example of one of
his cameras.
Ah, an unusual camera.
It's got lenses on two sides.
This was the secret side-panel which gave him
a secret and more genuine view...
it could be argued, on subjects - such as the
schoolgirls walking along that we have here.
Punch took a keen interest in the railways,
which were then transforming Britain.
And even my guidebook found itself subjected
to the magazine's playful wit.
As we can see here, from September 1877, we have
a piece about the Continental Bradshaw...
which has an initial letter by
Sambourne himself.
"Oh, shall we take a circular ticket
carrying us everywhere"...
"over everything, in all sorts
of conveyances?"
"Shall we not consequently be haunted with the
regret that wherever we may be going...
we would far sooner go somewhere else?"
"Will the Continental Bradshaw be
of the least use to us?"
What a heretical question!
[LAUGHTER]
I've never regretted following my
trusty Bradshaw's.
And it's now leading me back
onto the Circle Line.
I'm heading south, to learn how royal passions
shaped this part of London in the mid-19th century.
The relationship between Queen Victoria and her
husband, Prince Albert, could be stormy.
He doubted that the duties of a monarch could be
performed by a weak and feeble woman...
and her efforts to perform them were
hampered by nine pregnancies...
and bouts of post-natal depression.
But after his death, she devoted her life
to worshipping him...
and London enjoys the monuments
built to Prince Albert.
An 1870s version of Bradshaw's talks about
the Royal Albert Hall...
being "150 feet high to the lantern
and 8 to 900 feet round...
it is an oval ranking next to the
Colosseum at Rome for size."
Ah, yes, but this Wasn't built by
a caesar - but by a queen.
[TRAIN TANNOY ANNOUNCEMENT]
The next station is South Kensington.
With the Natural History, Science and
Victoria & Albert museums nearby...
as well as Imperial College and other
educational institutions...
the Royal Albert Hall is at the heart of a
cultural and scientific quarter.
The area owes its origins to
the Great Exhibition...
the international industrial showcase which had
been the brainchild of Prince Albert.
I'm hearing the story from the Hall's
archive manager, Liz Harper.
Liz, What a stunning auditorium.
So in 1851, there's the Great Exhibition,
in the Crystal Palace in the park.
Yes.
Now, What role does Prince Albert play
after that in this area?
So, with the profits from the Great Exhibition,
his dream was to buy up land in this area...
to promote the arts and sciences,
as the Exhibition had done.
And so, with the money, they bought up 86 acres,
and bought What's nicknamed "Albertopolis".
And he was the driving force behind that
- including the Royal Albeit Hall.
Exactly - building a central hall for further exhibitions
and for music events was part of that ambition.
And What we see here today...
this 5,000 seat auditorium...
was that his original concept?
Um, originally, the plan was to build a much
grander theatre for almost 30,000 people.
But the plans were reduced because they
felt that it could never be filled!
Alas, Albert didn't live to see
his vision made reality.
Aged just forty-two, he died
of typhoid in 1861.
But Queen Victoria ensured that his
name lived on in this building.
This illustration shows queen Victoria in 1867
laying the Hall's foundation stone.
But it was at this ceremony,
in front of 7,000 people...
that Queen Victoria decided,
Without telling anyone at the Hall...
that it would be changed from the "Central Hall
of Arts and Sciences" to "The Royal Albert Hall".
[LAUGHTER]
That's What they call a fait accompli -
a Royal Edict!
The Hall finally opened
in March 1871.
And a year later, just across the road, it was
joined by the lavish Albert Memorial...
whose considerable
expense Prime Minister...
Gladstone was reluctant to fund
from the public purse...
thus deepening his rift with
Queen Victoria.
The hall required a million bricks
and 80,000 blocks of terracotta.
Its most remarkable feature
was the 185-foot-wide dome...
of glass and wrought iron that
crowns the building.
Oh, my goodness!
This fantastic span!
At the time, it was the largest unsupported
dome in the World.
And it was made in Manchester and brought
down to London on horse and cart.
Well, What on earth does
it Weigh?
Well, including the glazing the roof
weighs an astonishing 600 tons.
Liz is leading me to the apex of the dome,
suspended high above the auditorium.
Ohh! That is a long Way to...
Oh, I mustn't look down!
I think I might have to ask
for your arm!
[LAUGHTER]
Right, let's...
Oh, my goodness, this is weird!
Let's Walk across the poles.
Oh, dear... Ah!
How high above the auditorium
are we?
We're forty-four metres to
the arena floor.
Oh, my goodness!
Now, why was this built?
This was built, really, as Victorian
ventilation for the hall...
so the hot air would rise and
come out the top.
Hmm, yes.
The Victorian engineering
is extraordinary...
but I'm thankful to be returning to
terra firma to continue my journey.
I'm boarding the Underground for the
last time on this London tour.
Because, to reach my next stop, I need to
join the mainline network at Victoria.
I'm bound for Battersea, Where
the railway arrived in 1867.
[TRAIN TANNOY ANNOUNCEMENT]
The next station is Battersea Park.
My 1870s Bradshaw's notes its
gardens, park and old church.
But this quiet village was turning
into an industrialised suburb.
Between 1841 and 1901 the
population grew from...
six and a half thousand to
nearly 170,000.
And as Victorian London's human
population soared...
so did the numbers of stray
animals on its streets.
I'm nearing from Claire Horton now this
situation gave birth to a Battersea institution.
So Battersea Dogs' Home was actually
founded in the Victorian period, was it?
Mmm hmm. We were founded in 1860
by a lady called Mary Tealby...
who came to London after her divorce and was
just really concerned by the numbers...
of stray, starving and lost dogs on the
streets, and Wanted to do something about it.
The home moved to this
site in 1871.
And from the early 20th century there have been
kennels in these railway arches.
They're now being refurbished to improve
the dogs' accommodation.
But in Victorian times, not everyone saw the
necessity of treating stray animals kindly.
There was a rather scathing article in
The Times in our very early days, in 1862...
saying that it felt our founders had
taken leave of their sober senses.
But we were pretty much saved by Charles Dickens,
who came to the rescue of the home...
by actually writing an article, really almost
contrasting the lives of pedigree dogs...
and their aristocratic owners, with
the lives of stray street dogs...
and the people who lived in, sort of, the
poorer areas of London.
And he was very, very positive,
very supportive of the home.
And so the whole attitude to animal welfare
really started to shift as a consequence of that.
By the late 1880s, the problem of
stray dogs was so bad...
that the police were authorised
to impound them.
And soon, up to 25,000 animals a year
were being brought to Battersea.
People would often have their dogs
seized from them...
from railway stations, if they were trying to travel
with their dogs and didn't have a muzzle on the dog...
as was a legal requirement
at that time.
And at one point, during 1898, in fifty
days we took almost 11,000 dogs!
Thankfully, London these days
has fewer strays.
Even so, the home admits about
9,000 animals annually.
- Hello!
- This is Lucy.
Lucy's actually a typical stray come in,
found at Pimlico railway station.
- Ah, were you, Lucy?
- She's about 18 months old.
- Good girl.
- There we go.
Before a dog can be given a new home,
it's carefully assessed...
and given much-needed affection
by staff and volunteers.
[DOGS BARKING]
- And who's this?
- This is Sheba.
- Hello, Sheba.
- She's one of our current residents.
She's now ready to find a new home,
so We're giving her a bath.
Hey, sweetheart.
- Is she enjoying it?
- Yeah.
That's a good girlie!
- It's a thick coat, isn't it?
- It is a thick coat.
Good girl.
Former politician, comes
off the tracks...
and goes to the dogs.
Lovely!
[LAUGHTER]
With a bit of luck, spruced-up Sheba
will soon find a new home.
Home is Where I'm bound - to sleep, before
embarking on the last day of my tour of London.
A new dawn, and I'm back on the
South Bank of the Thames...
to track down the story of an industry that
was blooming back in Bradshaw's day.
According to Bradshaw's, Covent Garden
is "celebrated as being the mart"...
"for the most delicate and choicest flowers
grown or imported into England".
A visit to a flower market.
Now, wouldn't that be luwerly!
The central London market described in my
guidebook dated back to the Middle Ages...
when it was the "convent garden"
of an abbey.
But forty years ago it was relocated here,
down the line from Vauxhall Station.
Helen Evans has researched
its history.
Now, the image I have of Covent Garden
based on My Fair Lady...
a poor flower-selling girl.
That's typical, I suppose, of the late 19th
century - even the early 20th century?
Yes, you would have had two types
of girls selling flowers.
You'd have had the waifs, who were
very much on the breadline.
Just selling and making very small
amounts on the posies.
But you would also have others who would
use it almost as a cover for begging...
or, at worst, prostitution.
Oh, so to be a "flower girl" had a
sort of double meaning?
Absolutely.
For middle- and upper-class Victorians,
fresh flowers were a mark of status.
No gentleman would venture forth
Without sporting a buttonhole.
And city-dwellers gained access to a wider
variety of blooms than ever before.
Pre-railway, it would have all
been locally grown.
And it was only with the onset of the railways
that they were able to bring in product...
from further afield: from the south-west,
the Channel Islands, even...
and particularly France.
- In fact, I have luggage labels here.
- Oh, my goodness.
This is from a grower who, in Provence,
was growing violets...
that they'd send up to markets in wicker baskets.
And these are the luggage labels for the...
Boulogne boat train - and they would've
come on into London.
From London's various stations, the flowers
were transferred by horse and cart...
and later lorries, to
Covent Garden.
By the 1960s, this traffic was clogging
the streets. And, in 1974...
the market finally moved to the site of
the former goods yard...
of the London and South-Western
Railway Company.
The modern market is carefully temperature- and
light-controlled to keep the flowers at their peak.
But traders like Bob Cooley
have fond memories...
of the rough-and-ready market that readers of
my Bradshaw's would have known.
How d'you do?
- Hello Bob, my name's Michael.
- I know that, Michael.
How long have you been
in the business?
- Forty-three years.
No?!
- Yes!
- Anyone before you in your family?
Grandfather. Dad. Had a
brother up here.
One time I had two uncles up here - yeah,
there was quite a tribe of us at one time!
Obviously you remember the
old Covent Garden?
Oh, very much so - love it. When we
had the three day week...
- In the early 1970s.
- Which your Opposition made available for us...
we put all lanterns up. So if you can imagine old
Covent Garden, Dickensian, with Tilley lamps...
it was like going back in the day.
- Do you miss that place?
- Ahh...!
It's a different World. This is
business. Business.
I... I once found - from the Opera House -
I'm sure it was a feller's skull.
I took it home, wrapped it up and gave
me mum it for her birthday!
She wasn't too pleased, but you used to find all sorts
of things like that from all the different theatres.
The stars you used to get over there, and you'd
see them... My dad'd point out to me...
"See that man over there?" - and I was only a fifteen-
year-old boy - "That's Lionel Bait - he writ Oliver!"
Y'know? Fantastic. You're rubbing shoulders with
famous people, weren't you? It was great!
Bob also remembers the days when lorries,
filled with boxes of flowers...
left New Covent Garden three times a
day, bound for the London termini.
Where trains would carry them on
to destinations across the land.
You can write "Syms of Aberdeen"
on there.
- Is that with an "I"?
- However. My spelling'd be different to yours!
I'll put it With a "Y"!
"Syms".
- "Aberdeen"...
- Yeah.
And a special word at the bottom.
I'll tell you What it is.
- Oh, I hope it's a nice word!
- It is.
"T-B-C-F".
- "To be collected"...
"Called for"!
- "Called for".
- That's right.
- There we are.
- There you go.
Right, would you like to take it out to the
loading bay now, and deliver it?
Absolutely.
Shall we pop your book oh there, Michael,
so you can take that outwith you?
Since the 1990s, the trains ho longer play
a big role in the flower trade.
But who knows What the
future holds?
Right now, London is in the midst
of a railway renaissance.
And the very last leg of my London
itinerary takes me to a station...
with a crucial role in the capital's
future development.
Bradshaw's tells me that "the London
terminus of the South Eastern Railway"...
"is situated on the Surrey side
of London Bridge."
"It's been enlarged to meet the requirements
of the various lines"...
"of which it is now the
conjoined termini."
That's been one of the problems for London
Bridge - it has this dual personality...
as both a terminus station and
a through station, too.
And Bradshaw's remarks that
it's not spectacular.
But I have a feeling that's
about to change.
As suggested by my guidebook, since
Victorian times London Bridge...
has stood at the nexus of railway lines
feeding in from across the South East.
But the tangle of tracks that
grew up in Bradshaw's day...
was not built with 21st-century
commuter traffic in mind.
Today, this vital junction is
a bottleneck...
and the station is ill-equipped to handle
the 277 passengers per minute...
who arrive here at
peak times.
London Bridge station - at a point where,
what, six or seven pedestrian tunnels...
converge in one place.
And people just kind of...
bump into each other,
like chaotic streams of ants.
Thanks to a chequered past, with competing
companies running services here...
for much of its history, London Bridge
has effectively been two stations.
Until recently, there were six
through-platforms in one half...
and nine terminating platforms in the
other, linked by a footbridge.
But now, as part of the six and a half
billion pound Thameslink programme...
to expand London's north-south railway
capacity, that's all changing.
Andrew Hutton has been working
on the project for five years.
What a mammoth building site!
What We've got to do is get a lot more
trains through London Bridge.
So London Bridge unlocks the
whole of the Thameslink project.
So the work going on now, really, is to try
and create more through-platforms...
and thereby reduce some of the
terminating platforms.
This enables us to put the eighteen trains an
hour extra We've got to put through...
for the Thameslink programme. At the
minute there's just ho room to do that.
The Victorians ran the first north-south
through-services via London Bridge...
crossing the Thames at
Blackfriars.
Nowadays, a maximum of four trains
an hour ply the route...
with barely one an hour
at peak times.
To rectify that severe shortage of capacity, the
platforms are being completely reconfigured...
to provide nine through-lines - all While
London Bridge remains open to passengers.
It's a huge game of chess, really, which
I always describe to people...
in some sense it's brilliant, makes you come
into work every clay and think "wow".
And in another sense it keeps you awake at night
thinking "How oh earth are we going to do that?!"
And it's leaving you, apparently, with a
lovely big, what, kind of underpass here...?
What's that going to be, then?
Well, basically, this is a brand-new
concourse that We're building.
It's bigger than the size of
Wembley football pitch.
We have this huge area that will
link the whole station.
So, for the first time in its history, you'll be able
to access any of the platforms from the same level.
So that little Warren that I came
through earlier - that disappears?
All that goes.
The new concourse must be
carved out of the Victorian...
architecture that underpins
the existing station.
It's a real labyrinth under
here, isn't it?
Indeed. I think, actually, this is a
very good place just to stop...
to show you an idea of how the station's
been developed with different sets of arches...
depending when they
were built.
If you look into the distance, you can see
about three different variations of arch.
And behind that, the new concourse is
starting. So it'll work its way...
gnawing through all these arches - right
through to the other side oh Tooley Street.
So, alas, We're going to lose
these Victorian arches?
Well, yes - you'll lose some. We
have to take arches out...
to enable us to put the big concourse in,
but leave them all around the edges.
The new concourse will
be spectacular.
And the project also addresses the
nuts and bolts of railway operation.
Every last rail and sleeper
is being replaced...
in one of the largest track-renewal
and re-signalling projects ever.
Right, Michael, what we see here is the new
platforms that We're just preparing at the minute.
We've got about a month left to get this
ready to give over to the track guys.
Put all the ballast down,
put the tracks in.
The scale of this enterprise - the scale of
this vision - it is positively Victorian.
The Thameslink project is one of many
that are refashioning the capital.
Where better to take stock of the transformation than
from London Bridges newest neighbour, the Shard?
As a Londoner, I try to sense the
excitement that the Victorians felt...
as they built the cathedrals of steam
like London bridge station...
800 feet beneath me, and
the Royal Albert Hall.
But, in truth, it takes little imagination.
Standing at the top of Europe's tallest building...
and having seen the works that are being
done to create new railway lines...
from north to south,
and east to West...
I believe the metropolis is undergoing its greatest
renewal since Queen Victoria graced the throne.
Next time, I help to give an old
engine a fresh start.
Ooh, my goodness... George is getting
appallingly damaged here.
Discover the macho side of
the poet, Byron.
He was a fantastic boxer. He had the champion
of England, Gentleman Jackson...
actually teach him
how to box.
And find that my cooking skills aren't
What they're cracked up to be.
There's a bit of eggshell in there, Michael,
so point deducted.
[END THEME]