Great British Railway Journeys (2010–…): Season 7, Episode 14 - Bristol to Glastonbury - full transcript
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 crisscross the country
150 years later,
it helps me to discover
the Britain of today.
Britain's industrial heartland
is far behind me as I travel south,
discovering some of the great
Victorian ideas and innovations
that swept aside the old order
and ushered in the modern age.
My route, which began in Birmingham,
now arrives in South West England,
Where I'll be visiting
ancient ports and sacred sites
before ending up in one of Britain's
most glorious national parks.
This fourth leg begins in Bristol,
moves up to Avonmouth
and turns south to Nailsea
before ending up at Highbridge
and Burnham-on-Sea.
On this part of the journey,
I enter the foul smelling world
of a Victorian tannery.
I find myself well out of my
comfort zone here.
Is it dangerous?
- It's pretty dangerous.
[HE LAUGHS]
Soak up the splendour of one
of Britain's finest Gothic mansions.
Hah, a gentleman's library indeed.
And get in touch with
my spiritual side in Glastonbury.
Stay bright.
- Yeah, absolutely, and you.
Birmingham seems far behind me
as I approach the county of Somerset.
Bradshaw's tells me that,
"The county,
from its favourable climate and soil,
"stands very high in reputation
for agricultural and rural produce."
And amongst those products
were farm animals,
of which we make use of every part,
from heart to soul.
Bristol, from the Middle Ages
to the 18th century,
was one of the three most prosperous
cities in England
thanks to its seafaring links,
and my guidebook points out
its fine historic buildings.
By the 19th century, the population
was expanding rapidly
and Bristol,
like any other Victorian city,
was blighted by dirt and disease.
A major contribution
came from the 60 or so tanneries
that surrounded the city.
Necessary providers of leather
for the new industries
but filthy and unhealthy.
Thomas Ware and Son
was founded in 1840,
and I'm heading there
to meet Barry Knight,
who has 30 years of experience
in the business.
I find myself, Barry,
well out of my comfort zone here.
An extraordinary sight, all these pits
filled with goodness knows What
and, I have to say,
a terrible stench.
What's going on here?
Well, We're taking
domestic cattle hides
that have come from Somerset.
They've come to us packed in salt,
and then we need to remove the salt
and put them through
a series of pits...
And I'm just smelling
the natural smell of cow, am I?
This is a fatty animal smell
basically, but a lot of the smells
are chemicals
that are coming from the pits.
What chemicals
are you putting in those pits?
It's largely lime, slaked lime,
that have come out of lime kilns
from close by in Somerset
and the slaked lime
turns into hydrated lime.
It's going to loosen the hair
and open the fibre structure
in such a way that we can actually
tan the leather in a later stage.
Is this process very different from
What one would have seen
150 years ago?
If a tanner was to come back
from 150 years ago, 500 years ago,
he would instantly recognise
everything that's going off here.
You're obviously doing something
very traditional here.
How rare is that?
Well, We've gone from about 6,000
heavy-leather tanners in the UK
since World War ll,
but unfortunately,
there's only three of us left
doing traditional methods.
What's the difference
between traditional
and whatever the modern
method is, then?
Well, traditional, by that I mean
it's vegetable-tanned leather.
And basically,
it's a long, slow process -
three to four months
would be typical.
The more commercial tanneries
would be turning leather over
in three, four, five,
maybe ten days, start to finish.
One natural ingredient
that played a key role
in traditional leather tanning
was dog dirt,
which was collected
from the local hunt kennels
and added in with the lime.
The enzymes that it contained
helped to flatten the hides
and make them more pliable.
Do you yourself
remember using dog dirt?
No, I don't, but
when I first came into the industry,
I was working alongside some of
the old guys who were using dog dirt.
They told me it stopped them
from biting their fingernails.
After the hides were removed
from this noxious cocktail,
they were scraped clean of hair,
a job which is now done by machine.
Next, it's through to
the tanning area,
Where the preservation of the leather
takes place.
What a vast space, Barry.
What part of the process
have we reached now?
What are you doing to the pelts?
All of the pits have got
vegetable matter inside them.
The vegetable matter will actually
penetrate into the hide structure
and it'll change
the chemical composition.
And once it's tanned through,
it's almost impossible
for the leather to rot or decay.
So it's a permanent means
of preservation.
What is going on
in all of these pits?
Well, there's 320 pits.
There's two separate parts
of the yard
but each has got a slight slope,
so the hides will come into
the first bit for one day
and we pull the hide
into the next bit oh the second day
and so on and so on, as it goes down.
It's a counter-current system,
so the hide will travel one Way
and the liquors, fed by gravity,
travel the other Way.
And What are the liquors?
The liquors, basically it's
extract from the vegetable matter.
So, the main tanning ingredients
are mimosa, which is an acacia tree.
We have chestnut, obviously
you know What a chestnut tree is.
There's quebracho,
which is a South American hardwood
and myrobalan, which is a nut
that comes from India.
And is the liquor changing
as it goes through these pits?
Yeah, it becomes Weaker
because the hide is actually
drawing up all of the nutrients.
What do you think conditions
would have been like in tanneries,
say, 150 years ago?
It must have been grim.
In Winter,
it's absolutely freezing cold here.
In summer, it gets roasting hot.
The chemicals that we use now,
the guys are protected,
but back then,
there were no health and safety.
The hides when they come,
they're packed with bacteria,
it would have been a horrible place.
In the 19th century,
leather was more in demand than ever.
In a pre-plastic world,
it was needed for everything,
from drive belts for machinery
to ladies' shoes and corsetry.
The railways were big consumers.
The seats had leather upholstery
and a thin strip
inserted in the Window frames
prevented them from rattling.
These days,
Barry's high-quality product
goes to make luxury items
like saddlery and ladies' handbags.
And there's nothing to rival leather
in a shoe.
Les, can I introduce you to Michael?
Hello, Les.
- Hello, mate.
So, obviously, you're cutting out...
What, these are half soles, are they?
These are half soles
for the shoe repairer, yeah.
Any chance I could have
a go at that?
Yes, you can have a go,
by all means.
Is it dangerous?
- It's pretty dangerous.
[HE LAUGHS]
Thank you.
So, this is obviously
a very sharp thing.
Yes, a very sharp knife.
And the idea is to maximise
the space, yeah?
That's correct.
- Ls that looking good?
Yeah, it's fine.
Let's have a go at that.
Press here and...
- That's it.
There we go.
Have a go at another one.
Pulling in tighter, a little bit.
You don't want to waste anything
do you, Les?
No, not to waste anything.
- There we go.
Upon my soul, I didn't know
I was capable of that.
Les, thank you very much.
- Thank you.
Leaving behind the distinctive
Victorian whiff of the tannery,
I'm heading for the purer air
of the old port.
In the 15th century,
the Italian explorer John Cabot
set sail from here to become
the first European to make landfall
on mainland America.
During the 18th century,
Bristol was the second busiest
harbour in England, after London.
These days, much of the traffic
is made up of tourists
coming to visit Brunel's mighty iron
passenger ship, SS Great Britain.
"Bristol has from the earliest times
been an important seaport
"from whence old navigators
used to start."
But even by the time
of my Bradshaw's Guide,
the winding river
in the centre of the city
was becoming too small
for modern ships that were larger,
and the solution was new docks
closer to the mouth of the Avon.
[COMMENTARY]
"For 2,000 years, give or take a few,
"ships have been coming
to the mouth of the Avon from abroad
"but not until a mere century ago,
to Avonmouth docks."
"That is the name of
the Port of Bristol's front door,
"the great dock system
"where the Avon
flows into the Bristol Channel."
"That is where the big ships go,
carrying the cargoes of the world."
To take a closer look at these docks,
I've caught the train out
to Avonmouth.
All tickets and passes, please.
There we go.
- That's great.
Will I get much of a view
of the river as I go down?
For Avonmouth, this side,
you will do, yes.
Oh, good, good, good.
Thanks very much.
This six-mile stretch of line
was built in 1862
by the newly created
Bristol Port Railway and Pier Company
to ferry goods and passengers
out to the new docks.
The man in charge today
is Simon Bird.
Simon, very good to see you.
- Welcome to Avonmouth.
What were the sorts of changes
in ships
in the middle of the 19th century
that made it necessary to move them
out of the centre of Bristol?
We saw ships getting larger
and as those vessels got larger
the vessels are unable
to go up into Bristol docks.
As the rise and fall of the tide
here between high and low water
is 15m, the vessels needed
somewhere safe
to berth and secure.
At low water,
the Avon largely dries out.
And there's a lovely picture,
which shows the SS Gypsy,
which broke her back
on a bend in the River Avon
called Horseshoe Bend.
She just lost the water,
she blocked the river entrance
for Weeks on end,
which meant ships couldn't go up
or come out of Bristol docks
at that time.
When the port first opened in 1877,
much of the cargo
arriving at Avonmouth
came from the West Indies,
including sugar, cocoa and tobacco,
as well as tea.
By the 1930s, it was also
a busy passenger terminal
for pleasure cruisers to
the Mediterranean and Scandinavia.
Meanwhile, British manufactured goods
bound for export
arrived by rail
from all over the country
Within feet of Where the ships
were tied up.
Well, here, evidently,
are some railway tracks
but no trains, of course.
Sadly, in the 20th century,
rail seemed to fall out of fashion,
I think in the country generally,
let alone in the port.
The humble truck
is far more flexible,
has been flexible
in moving cargoes around.
But here we are today,
rail is going back into ports.
And you'll see
lots of the major ports,
Bristol no exception,
is increasing
its rail infrastructure and links.
For which trades?
Our containers are a big user
of the rail sector,
cars will use more and more rail
and then you look at steel -
steel slabs, steel coil.
Now, the Victorians
had to take account of
increasing sizes of vessels
and move their port.
Will you, like the Victorians,
have to build a new dock, a new port?
Yes, we are.
Ships just keep getting larger,
that's been the constant theme
in the maritime World.
The current container vessels,
which are operating
from Asia to Europe,
are 400m long and are 60m wide,
so we here in Bristol have a project
to build a new port facility
into the estuary,
outside the lock entrances.
By going into the deep water, We're
able to accommodate those vessels
at all states of the tide.
And so just like the Victorians,
the answer is to go further and
further out to sea?
Absolutely.
Ingenious and ambitious
Victorian engineers
battled nature and the elements
to maintain Bristol's position
as a major West Coast seaport.
I've arrived back in the city centre,
Where I'll spend the night.
But first, I'm heading
to the old docks
to find out about a much earlier
and less admirable period
in Bristol's maritime history.
The 7 Stars pub,
down by the old port,
is famous thanks to its connections
with Thomas Clarkson,
leading campaigner
against the slave trade,
who between 1787 and 1793 -
with the help of the pub landlord -
risked his life to expose the true
horrors of the trade in human beings.
Present-day landlord Steve Smith
is well versed in the story.
Now, slaves weren't actually passing
through the city of Bristol,
were they?
No. It was a triangle,
a trading triangle, if you like.
So, the ships would leave here,
go to West Africa,
and they'd pick the slaves up
to the Caribbean
and later on, the eastern seaboard
of the States,
and then they would bring back
to Bristol
the cargo they picked up there -
sugar, molasses, tobacco.
So, the vessels, the crews,
the captains that were in Bristol,
they were part of the slave trade?
And the merchants that ran it
were the merchants of Bristol.
What role did the landlord here,
Thompson, play in all of this?
Thompson befriended Clarkson,
Clarkson stayed here
on some 13 occasions.
And those two together would go out
late at night...
and seek out the captains
and members of the crew
that were Willing to talk.
Many Weren't,
but over a period of time,
that's when the evidence
was put together.
And the evidence that he put together
oh the mistreatment of the slaves,
do you think this was quite important
in the abolition campaign?
Incredibly so.
You know, he was trying to break
down a wall of silence, in a Way.
You know, huge sums were made
through the brokerage of slaves,
and the city has done very well
on it,
and nobody wants to kill the goose.
Steve, the abolition
of the slave trade
is something we can be quite
proud of as Brits.
Shall we raise our glasses
to Thomas Clarkson?
Thomas Clarkson
and the abolition of slavery.
The next day, I'm up early to return
to Bristol Temple Meads station
to pick up
the First Great Western service
heading towards the coast.
My word of the day is guano.
It's posh speak for bird droppings.
But with the Midas touch
of a Victorian entrepreneur,
it could be converted into gold.
I shall be leaving the train
at Nailsea,
which Bradshaw's tells me
"is a place of no importance,"
but it's of great interest to me.
Nailsea and Backwell is
the nearest station to Tyntesfield,
a Gothic mansion, one of
the most extravagant in the country,
built on the proceeds
of one of the greatest fortunes
made in the Victorian age.
It was the family home
of William Gibbs,
an entrepreneur whose business
transporting and selling
Peruvian guano
to the farmers of Europe,
capitalised on the recent discovery
that its high nitrogen, potassium
and phosphate content
made it a potent fertiliser.
Eric Evans, one of Tyntesfield's
tour guides, is showing me around.
Tyntesfield really is quite a pile,
isn't it?
Tell me about William Gibbs,
who built it.
He was a very successful
wool and cloth trader
across the whole of Europe,
in fact beyond, into South America.
And at some point, he makes
the discovery that guano is useful.
Well, this was sort of accidental.
His junior partner in Peru
sent a message back.
He said he had the opportunity
to sign this contract
with the Peruvian government
to bring the guano back
to Europe and to England.
And William was, I think, reluctant
and sent back the message
accordingly.
However, by the time the message
had got back
to the junior partner
in South America,
he had actually signed up
the contract,
so William had to then make the best
of it, which he of course did.
Gibbs' great Wealth made Tyntesfield
a most luxuriously appointed
country house.
It's regarded as a masterpiece
of the Gothic Revival style,
inspired by mediaeval design
but unusually full of light
thanks to its multitude
of large arched windows.
The staircase is really a gem,
isn't it? Absolutely magnificent.
No expense was spared.
The slate bed of the billiard table
was heated
to prevent the cloth
from getting damp.
The redevelopment bill
came to 70,000 pounds in 1865 -
equivalent to the profit
that he made in just one year.
Hah, a gentleman's library indeed.
What was it about the guano
that made it so valuable?
Really, it was so high in nitrates,
which is the product that
actually gives you the fertiliser.
Now, I kind of imagine them
down in Peru, on those islands,
scraping the bird droppings
off the rock,
but it didn't really look like that,
did it?
No, no.
It was on a massive scale.
You were talking about
mountains of the stuff.
Over centuries,
the birds had dropped the guano.
And What sort of quantities
are we talking about?
Well, We're not sure exactly,
but we think that something
in the region of 60,000 tonnes.
And in the harbour in South America,
it was just full of ships
of the stuff,
Waiting to be brought back
to Europe.
And who was it that extracted
the guano?
Well, it was the Peruvian government
who were doing the mining,
and they had had indented
Chinese labour,
probably slaves, effectively,
in those days.
And then the Gibbs family
shipped the stuff back to Europe
and to England.
And What were conditions like
for these labourers?
They were pretty grim.
You know, the sort of dust
of the stuff would have been awful
in terms of breathing
and that sort of thing.
Like many new Victorian millionaires,
William Gibbs was known as a pillar
of the establishment
and a religious man.
He was ah adherent of the Tractarian
movement of High Church Anglicans
and his family motto,
translated from the Spanish, reads,
"God is my shelter and my hope."
In later life,
he paid for the construction
of several churches and chapels
all over the country,
including his private chapel
at Tyntesfield,
which was completed only in 1875,
the year that he died.
He was a religious man,
did that mean that he lived
an austere sort of life?
Yes, he was teetotal,
he believed in prayer twice a day,
morning and evening.
In fact, all the staff
were expected to attend as well.
Before we had the chapel,
they had ah oratory Within the house
with pews for 50 people,
so that the staff
could come together with the family.
And how would you describe
William Gibbs' legacy?
Well, there's Tyntesfield
for a start.
But he also contributed
to the building and restoration of
19 churches and chapels.
That's a lot of building
on a foundation of guano.
Yes.
Leaving the splendour
of Tyntesfield behind,
I'm rejoining the train at Nailsea
en route to my final destination
of the day.
How are we all enjoying
the English summer then?
We're Waiting for it.
[LAUGHTER]
There we are. At least he's stopped
hear the shelter, which is nice.
I shall be leaving this crowded train
at Highbridge and Burnham,
headed for Glastonbury.
Bradshaw's says,
"Here are considerable ruins
of a famous abbey,
"which occupied an area of 60 acres."
For the Victorians,
ruins were romantic,
and ancient vestiges
were shrouded in myth and legend.
The town of Glastonbury is situated
on the low-lying Somerset Levels
and has been inhabited
since Neolithic times.
The area that surrounds it
is known as the Vale of Avalon,
which lays claim to be
Britain's most spiritual site
thanks to its early Christian,
pagan and Arthurian connections.
Something for everyone, it seems.
What's attracted you to Glastonbury
today?
I really like the history.
Oh, which part of it?
The ancient history,
all the legends.
They say the tor was Merlin's Tower.
I just like all that magic.
What attracted you to Glastonbury?
I'm just trying to get away
from the matrix of society, really.
What made you come here today?
I've come here today
'cos I'm part of a hen party.
No!
So, We're having a cream tea
down near the abbey.
Hello. Hello.
I don't often meet someone
more brightly dressed than I am.
I know who you are.
- Yes.
Michael.
- Ls this your shop?
It is.
- What do you do in this shop?
We offer cosmic wares
of the universe.
Stay bright.
- Yeah, absolutely, and you.
Bye.
Just to the south of the town
stand the ruins
of the 7th-century Glastonbury Abbey,
which was destroyed
when King Henry VIII
ordered the dissolution
of the monasteries in 1536.
I'm meeting tour guide Tor Webster,
a Glastonbury resident
of some 14 years,
who's going to show me around.
Bradshaw's tells me about
Glastonbury Abbey covering 60 acres,
it must have been enormous.
Give me an idea of the dimensions
of the buildings that arose here.
Yeah, well, the height was 58011,
which is enormous.
This was the second largest and most
affluent abbey after Westminster,
sometimes even greater
than Westminster
in historical references.
So it was pretty big, yeah.
Benedictine, I think?
Benedictine monks, yeah.
There was about 50 or 60 monks
living here,
and then you had
a lot of lay brothers
that were doing the farming
and such.
They were
completely self-sustainable.
And What were they engaged in?
Glastonbury was a major scriptorium
Where they were writing and copying
religious text.
They had What was known as
the perpetual choir here,
one of the perpetual choirs
of England,
Where a monk was singing
all the time.
So, they had services
going through the night.
So, it was a very important place,
you know.
In amongst the swirling mists of myth
and legend that surround this place,
the most potent is that Christ
himself travelled here
from the Holy Land as a young man.
Another popular theory
is that his uncle
brought the Holy Grail here
after the Crucifixion,
which in turn leads
to the Arthurian legends,
which have at their heart
the quest for the Grail.
Whatever we think about them,
these stories have been around
for 1,000 years,
which might go to explain
why many people
have come to treat them
as historical fact.
In 1191, the monks dug to find
the tombs of Arthur and Guinevere.
Do you think they were successful?
Yeah, they found the plaque saying
"Here lies
King Arthur and Guinevere,"
so it was pretty conclusive.
But, do excuse me,
aren't these people legends?
Well, I personally believe
that it was King Arthur,
who was more of a, kind of,
archetypal character.
To me, he's a hero, you know?
And everybody loves a hero.
And he is ah ancient hero
connected to the histories of...
the spiritual history of England
and the Celtic Christian church.
I think in Victorian times, there was
quite a resurgence of interest
in Arthur and Guinevere,
whether a myth or not.
Why do you think that would be?
Well, there was a resurgence
of mystic spirituality
and I think that people
were getting a bit disillusioned
by the Church at the time
and were looking for new ways,
new connections, and Glastonbury
definitely offered that.
Glastonbury,
and particularly the abbey, is
clearly a place
of great spirituality that
attracts many different religions.
Yeah. We have over 70 practising
faiths and traditions
in Glastonbury,
and we all pretty much get along.
You know, we can get along
because there's a thread of love.
Love is all you need.
- Love is all you need.
[HE CHUCKLES]
With that very modern sentiment
echoing in my ears,
it's time to take leave
of this Victorian place of pilgrimage
and reflect on the huge
social changes witnessed by that age.
You wouldn't Want to enquire
too closely
into how some Victorian fortunes
were made.
Conditions for tanners were appalling
and the chemicals that they used,
damaging to health,
as was the guano
to those Chinese workers
who mined it for William Gibbs.
But when Victoria was still a girl,
thanks to abolitionists like
Thomas Clarkson of Bristol,
Britain had set an example
to the world
by abolishing slavery
throughout the Empire.
That great reform invoked
the idealism of a legendary age
when Arthur reigned at Camelot.
Next time, I get to grips with
a miracle of Victorian engineering...
I've never felt so much power.
ALL: Traitor! Traitor!
Stand trial in Taunton and
suffer the full weight of the law.
I plead guilty and throw myself
upon the mercy of this court.
And go looking for hidden treasure
on Dartmoor.
I've found it!
- Hooray!
[END THEME]
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 crisscross the country
150 years later,
it helps me to discover
the Britain of today.
Britain's industrial heartland
is far behind me as I travel south,
discovering some of the great
Victorian ideas and innovations
that swept aside the old order
and ushered in the modern age.
My route, which began in Birmingham,
now arrives in South West England,
Where I'll be visiting
ancient ports and sacred sites
before ending up in one of Britain's
most glorious national parks.
This fourth leg begins in Bristol,
moves up to Avonmouth
and turns south to Nailsea
before ending up at Highbridge
and Burnham-on-Sea.
On this part of the journey,
I enter the foul smelling world
of a Victorian tannery.
I find myself well out of my
comfort zone here.
Is it dangerous?
- It's pretty dangerous.
[HE LAUGHS]
Soak up the splendour of one
of Britain's finest Gothic mansions.
Hah, a gentleman's library indeed.
And get in touch with
my spiritual side in Glastonbury.
Stay bright.
- Yeah, absolutely, and you.
Birmingham seems far behind me
as I approach the county of Somerset.
Bradshaw's tells me that,
"The county,
from its favourable climate and soil,
"stands very high in reputation
for agricultural and rural produce."
And amongst those products
were farm animals,
of which we make use of every part,
from heart to soul.
Bristol, from the Middle Ages
to the 18th century,
was one of the three most prosperous
cities in England
thanks to its seafaring links,
and my guidebook points out
its fine historic buildings.
By the 19th century, the population
was expanding rapidly
and Bristol,
like any other Victorian city,
was blighted by dirt and disease.
A major contribution
came from the 60 or so tanneries
that surrounded the city.
Necessary providers of leather
for the new industries
but filthy and unhealthy.
Thomas Ware and Son
was founded in 1840,
and I'm heading there
to meet Barry Knight,
who has 30 years of experience
in the business.
I find myself, Barry,
well out of my comfort zone here.
An extraordinary sight, all these pits
filled with goodness knows What
and, I have to say,
a terrible stench.
What's going on here?
Well, We're taking
domestic cattle hides
that have come from Somerset.
They've come to us packed in salt,
and then we need to remove the salt
and put them through
a series of pits...
And I'm just smelling
the natural smell of cow, am I?
This is a fatty animal smell
basically, but a lot of the smells
are chemicals
that are coming from the pits.
What chemicals
are you putting in those pits?
It's largely lime, slaked lime,
that have come out of lime kilns
from close by in Somerset
and the slaked lime
turns into hydrated lime.
It's going to loosen the hair
and open the fibre structure
in such a way that we can actually
tan the leather in a later stage.
Is this process very different from
What one would have seen
150 years ago?
If a tanner was to come back
from 150 years ago, 500 years ago,
he would instantly recognise
everything that's going off here.
You're obviously doing something
very traditional here.
How rare is that?
Well, We've gone from about 6,000
heavy-leather tanners in the UK
since World War ll,
but unfortunately,
there's only three of us left
doing traditional methods.
What's the difference
between traditional
and whatever the modern
method is, then?
Well, traditional, by that I mean
it's vegetable-tanned leather.
And basically,
it's a long, slow process -
three to four months
would be typical.
The more commercial tanneries
would be turning leather over
in three, four, five,
maybe ten days, start to finish.
One natural ingredient
that played a key role
in traditional leather tanning
was dog dirt,
which was collected
from the local hunt kennels
and added in with the lime.
The enzymes that it contained
helped to flatten the hides
and make them more pliable.
Do you yourself
remember using dog dirt?
No, I don't, but
when I first came into the industry,
I was working alongside some of
the old guys who were using dog dirt.
They told me it stopped them
from biting their fingernails.
After the hides were removed
from this noxious cocktail,
they were scraped clean of hair,
a job which is now done by machine.
Next, it's through to
the tanning area,
Where the preservation of the leather
takes place.
What a vast space, Barry.
What part of the process
have we reached now?
What are you doing to the pelts?
All of the pits have got
vegetable matter inside them.
The vegetable matter will actually
penetrate into the hide structure
and it'll change
the chemical composition.
And once it's tanned through,
it's almost impossible
for the leather to rot or decay.
So it's a permanent means
of preservation.
What is going on
in all of these pits?
Well, there's 320 pits.
There's two separate parts
of the yard
but each has got a slight slope,
so the hides will come into
the first bit for one day
and we pull the hide
into the next bit oh the second day
and so on and so on, as it goes down.
It's a counter-current system,
so the hide will travel one Way
and the liquors, fed by gravity,
travel the other Way.
And What are the liquors?
The liquors, basically it's
extract from the vegetable matter.
So, the main tanning ingredients
are mimosa, which is an acacia tree.
We have chestnut, obviously
you know What a chestnut tree is.
There's quebracho,
which is a South American hardwood
and myrobalan, which is a nut
that comes from India.
And is the liquor changing
as it goes through these pits?
Yeah, it becomes Weaker
because the hide is actually
drawing up all of the nutrients.
What do you think conditions
would have been like in tanneries,
say, 150 years ago?
It must have been grim.
In Winter,
it's absolutely freezing cold here.
In summer, it gets roasting hot.
The chemicals that we use now,
the guys are protected,
but back then,
there were no health and safety.
The hides when they come,
they're packed with bacteria,
it would have been a horrible place.
In the 19th century,
leather was more in demand than ever.
In a pre-plastic world,
it was needed for everything,
from drive belts for machinery
to ladies' shoes and corsetry.
The railways were big consumers.
The seats had leather upholstery
and a thin strip
inserted in the Window frames
prevented them from rattling.
These days,
Barry's high-quality product
goes to make luxury items
like saddlery and ladies' handbags.
And there's nothing to rival leather
in a shoe.
Les, can I introduce you to Michael?
Hello, Les.
- Hello, mate.
So, obviously, you're cutting out...
What, these are half soles, are they?
These are half soles
for the shoe repairer, yeah.
Any chance I could have
a go at that?
Yes, you can have a go,
by all means.
Is it dangerous?
- It's pretty dangerous.
[HE LAUGHS]
Thank you.
So, this is obviously
a very sharp thing.
Yes, a very sharp knife.
And the idea is to maximise
the space, yeah?
That's correct.
- Ls that looking good?
Yeah, it's fine.
Let's have a go at that.
Press here and...
- That's it.
There we go.
Have a go at another one.
Pulling in tighter, a little bit.
You don't want to waste anything
do you, Les?
No, not to waste anything.
- There we go.
Upon my soul, I didn't know
I was capable of that.
Les, thank you very much.
- Thank you.
Leaving behind the distinctive
Victorian whiff of the tannery,
I'm heading for the purer air
of the old port.
In the 15th century,
the Italian explorer John Cabot
set sail from here to become
the first European to make landfall
on mainland America.
During the 18th century,
Bristol was the second busiest
harbour in England, after London.
These days, much of the traffic
is made up of tourists
coming to visit Brunel's mighty iron
passenger ship, SS Great Britain.
"Bristol has from the earliest times
been an important seaport
"from whence old navigators
used to start."
But even by the time
of my Bradshaw's Guide,
the winding river
in the centre of the city
was becoming too small
for modern ships that were larger,
and the solution was new docks
closer to the mouth of the Avon.
[COMMENTARY]
"For 2,000 years, give or take a few,
"ships have been coming
to the mouth of the Avon from abroad
"but not until a mere century ago,
to Avonmouth docks."
"That is the name of
the Port of Bristol's front door,
"the great dock system
"where the Avon
flows into the Bristol Channel."
"That is where the big ships go,
carrying the cargoes of the world."
To take a closer look at these docks,
I've caught the train out
to Avonmouth.
All tickets and passes, please.
There we go.
- That's great.
Will I get much of a view
of the river as I go down?
For Avonmouth, this side,
you will do, yes.
Oh, good, good, good.
Thanks very much.
This six-mile stretch of line
was built in 1862
by the newly created
Bristol Port Railway and Pier Company
to ferry goods and passengers
out to the new docks.
The man in charge today
is Simon Bird.
Simon, very good to see you.
- Welcome to Avonmouth.
What were the sorts of changes
in ships
in the middle of the 19th century
that made it necessary to move them
out of the centre of Bristol?
We saw ships getting larger
and as those vessels got larger
the vessels are unable
to go up into Bristol docks.
As the rise and fall of the tide
here between high and low water
is 15m, the vessels needed
somewhere safe
to berth and secure.
At low water,
the Avon largely dries out.
And there's a lovely picture,
which shows the SS Gypsy,
which broke her back
on a bend in the River Avon
called Horseshoe Bend.
She just lost the water,
she blocked the river entrance
for Weeks on end,
which meant ships couldn't go up
or come out of Bristol docks
at that time.
When the port first opened in 1877,
much of the cargo
arriving at Avonmouth
came from the West Indies,
including sugar, cocoa and tobacco,
as well as tea.
By the 1930s, it was also
a busy passenger terminal
for pleasure cruisers to
the Mediterranean and Scandinavia.
Meanwhile, British manufactured goods
bound for export
arrived by rail
from all over the country
Within feet of Where the ships
were tied up.
Well, here, evidently,
are some railway tracks
but no trains, of course.
Sadly, in the 20th century,
rail seemed to fall out of fashion,
I think in the country generally,
let alone in the port.
The humble truck
is far more flexible,
has been flexible
in moving cargoes around.
But here we are today,
rail is going back into ports.
And you'll see
lots of the major ports,
Bristol no exception,
is increasing
its rail infrastructure and links.
For which trades?
Our containers are a big user
of the rail sector,
cars will use more and more rail
and then you look at steel -
steel slabs, steel coil.
Now, the Victorians
had to take account of
increasing sizes of vessels
and move their port.
Will you, like the Victorians,
have to build a new dock, a new port?
Yes, we are.
Ships just keep getting larger,
that's been the constant theme
in the maritime World.
The current container vessels,
which are operating
from Asia to Europe,
are 400m long and are 60m wide,
so we here in Bristol have a project
to build a new port facility
into the estuary,
outside the lock entrances.
By going into the deep water, We're
able to accommodate those vessels
at all states of the tide.
And so just like the Victorians,
the answer is to go further and
further out to sea?
Absolutely.
Ingenious and ambitious
Victorian engineers
battled nature and the elements
to maintain Bristol's position
as a major West Coast seaport.
I've arrived back in the city centre,
Where I'll spend the night.
But first, I'm heading
to the old docks
to find out about a much earlier
and less admirable period
in Bristol's maritime history.
The 7 Stars pub,
down by the old port,
is famous thanks to its connections
with Thomas Clarkson,
leading campaigner
against the slave trade,
who between 1787 and 1793 -
with the help of the pub landlord -
risked his life to expose the true
horrors of the trade in human beings.
Present-day landlord Steve Smith
is well versed in the story.
Now, slaves weren't actually passing
through the city of Bristol,
were they?
No. It was a triangle,
a trading triangle, if you like.
So, the ships would leave here,
go to West Africa,
and they'd pick the slaves up
to the Caribbean
and later on, the eastern seaboard
of the States,
and then they would bring back
to Bristol
the cargo they picked up there -
sugar, molasses, tobacco.
So, the vessels, the crews,
the captains that were in Bristol,
they were part of the slave trade?
And the merchants that ran it
were the merchants of Bristol.
What role did the landlord here,
Thompson, play in all of this?
Thompson befriended Clarkson,
Clarkson stayed here
on some 13 occasions.
And those two together would go out
late at night...
and seek out the captains
and members of the crew
that were Willing to talk.
Many Weren't,
but over a period of time,
that's when the evidence
was put together.
And the evidence that he put together
oh the mistreatment of the slaves,
do you think this was quite important
in the abolition campaign?
Incredibly so.
You know, he was trying to break
down a wall of silence, in a Way.
You know, huge sums were made
through the brokerage of slaves,
and the city has done very well
on it,
and nobody wants to kill the goose.
Steve, the abolition
of the slave trade
is something we can be quite
proud of as Brits.
Shall we raise our glasses
to Thomas Clarkson?
Thomas Clarkson
and the abolition of slavery.
The next day, I'm up early to return
to Bristol Temple Meads station
to pick up
the First Great Western service
heading towards the coast.
My word of the day is guano.
It's posh speak for bird droppings.
But with the Midas touch
of a Victorian entrepreneur,
it could be converted into gold.
I shall be leaving the train
at Nailsea,
which Bradshaw's tells me
"is a place of no importance,"
but it's of great interest to me.
Nailsea and Backwell is
the nearest station to Tyntesfield,
a Gothic mansion, one of
the most extravagant in the country,
built on the proceeds
of one of the greatest fortunes
made in the Victorian age.
It was the family home
of William Gibbs,
an entrepreneur whose business
transporting and selling
Peruvian guano
to the farmers of Europe,
capitalised on the recent discovery
that its high nitrogen, potassium
and phosphate content
made it a potent fertiliser.
Eric Evans, one of Tyntesfield's
tour guides, is showing me around.
Tyntesfield really is quite a pile,
isn't it?
Tell me about William Gibbs,
who built it.
He was a very successful
wool and cloth trader
across the whole of Europe,
in fact beyond, into South America.
And at some point, he makes
the discovery that guano is useful.
Well, this was sort of accidental.
His junior partner in Peru
sent a message back.
He said he had the opportunity
to sign this contract
with the Peruvian government
to bring the guano back
to Europe and to England.
And William was, I think, reluctant
and sent back the message
accordingly.
However, by the time the message
had got back
to the junior partner
in South America,
he had actually signed up
the contract,
so William had to then make the best
of it, which he of course did.
Gibbs' great Wealth made Tyntesfield
a most luxuriously appointed
country house.
It's regarded as a masterpiece
of the Gothic Revival style,
inspired by mediaeval design
but unusually full of light
thanks to its multitude
of large arched windows.
The staircase is really a gem,
isn't it? Absolutely magnificent.
No expense was spared.
The slate bed of the billiard table
was heated
to prevent the cloth
from getting damp.
The redevelopment bill
came to 70,000 pounds in 1865 -
equivalent to the profit
that he made in just one year.
Hah, a gentleman's library indeed.
What was it about the guano
that made it so valuable?
Really, it was so high in nitrates,
which is the product that
actually gives you the fertiliser.
Now, I kind of imagine them
down in Peru, on those islands,
scraping the bird droppings
off the rock,
but it didn't really look like that,
did it?
No, no.
It was on a massive scale.
You were talking about
mountains of the stuff.
Over centuries,
the birds had dropped the guano.
And What sort of quantities
are we talking about?
Well, We're not sure exactly,
but we think that something
in the region of 60,000 tonnes.
And in the harbour in South America,
it was just full of ships
of the stuff,
Waiting to be brought back
to Europe.
And who was it that extracted
the guano?
Well, it was the Peruvian government
who were doing the mining,
and they had had indented
Chinese labour,
probably slaves, effectively,
in those days.
And then the Gibbs family
shipped the stuff back to Europe
and to England.
And What were conditions like
for these labourers?
They were pretty grim.
You know, the sort of dust
of the stuff would have been awful
in terms of breathing
and that sort of thing.
Like many new Victorian millionaires,
William Gibbs was known as a pillar
of the establishment
and a religious man.
He was ah adherent of the Tractarian
movement of High Church Anglicans
and his family motto,
translated from the Spanish, reads,
"God is my shelter and my hope."
In later life,
he paid for the construction
of several churches and chapels
all over the country,
including his private chapel
at Tyntesfield,
which was completed only in 1875,
the year that he died.
He was a religious man,
did that mean that he lived
an austere sort of life?
Yes, he was teetotal,
he believed in prayer twice a day,
morning and evening.
In fact, all the staff
were expected to attend as well.
Before we had the chapel,
they had ah oratory Within the house
with pews for 50 people,
so that the staff
could come together with the family.
And how would you describe
William Gibbs' legacy?
Well, there's Tyntesfield
for a start.
But he also contributed
to the building and restoration of
19 churches and chapels.
That's a lot of building
on a foundation of guano.
Yes.
Leaving the splendour
of Tyntesfield behind,
I'm rejoining the train at Nailsea
en route to my final destination
of the day.
How are we all enjoying
the English summer then?
We're Waiting for it.
[LAUGHTER]
There we are. At least he's stopped
hear the shelter, which is nice.
I shall be leaving this crowded train
at Highbridge and Burnham,
headed for Glastonbury.
Bradshaw's says,
"Here are considerable ruins
of a famous abbey,
"which occupied an area of 60 acres."
For the Victorians,
ruins were romantic,
and ancient vestiges
were shrouded in myth and legend.
The town of Glastonbury is situated
on the low-lying Somerset Levels
and has been inhabited
since Neolithic times.
The area that surrounds it
is known as the Vale of Avalon,
which lays claim to be
Britain's most spiritual site
thanks to its early Christian,
pagan and Arthurian connections.
Something for everyone, it seems.
What's attracted you to Glastonbury
today?
I really like the history.
Oh, which part of it?
The ancient history,
all the legends.
They say the tor was Merlin's Tower.
I just like all that magic.
What attracted you to Glastonbury?
I'm just trying to get away
from the matrix of society, really.
What made you come here today?
I've come here today
'cos I'm part of a hen party.
No!
So, We're having a cream tea
down near the abbey.
Hello. Hello.
I don't often meet someone
more brightly dressed than I am.
I know who you are.
- Yes.
Michael.
- Ls this your shop?
It is.
- What do you do in this shop?
We offer cosmic wares
of the universe.
Stay bright.
- Yeah, absolutely, and you.
Bye.
Just to the south of the town
stand the ruins
of the 7th-century Glastonbury Abbey,
which was destroyed
when King Henry VIII
ordered the dissolution
of the monasteries in 1536.
I'm meeting tour guide Tor Webster,
a Glastonbury resident
of some 14 years,
who's going to show me around.
Bradshaw's tells me about
Glastonbury Abbey covering 60 acres,
it must have been enormous.
Give me an idea of the dimensions
of the buildings that arose here.
Yeah, well, the height was 58011,
which is enormous.
This was the second largest and most
affluent abbey after Westminster,
sometimes even greater
than Westminster
in historical references.
So it was pretty big, yeah.
Benedictine, I think?
Benedictine monks, yeah.
There was about 50 or 60 monks
living here,
and then you had
a lot of lay brothers
that were doing the farming
and such.
They were
completely self-sustainable.
And What were they engaged in?
Glastonbury was a major scriptorium
Where they were writing and copying
religious text.
They had What was known as
the perpetual choir here,
one of the perpetual choirs
of England,
Where a monk was singing
all the time.
So, they had services
going through the night.
So, it was a very important place,
you know.
In amongst the swirling mists of myth
and legend that surround this place,
the most potent is that Christ
himself travelled here
from the Holy Land as a young man.
Another popular theory
is that his uncle
brought the Holy Grail here
after the Crucifixion,
which in turn leads
to the Arthurian legends,
which have at their heart
the quest for the Grail.
Whatever we think about them,
these stories have been around
for 1,000 years,
which might go to explain
why many people
have come to treat them
as historical fact.
In 1191, the monks dug to find
the tombs of Arthur and Guinevere.
Do you think they were successful?
Yeah, they found the plaque saying
"Here lies
King Arthur and Guinevere,"
so it was pretty conclusive.
But, do excuse me,
aren't these people legends?
Well, I personally believe
that it was King Arthur,
who was more of a, kind of,
archetypal character.
To me, he's a hero, you know?
And everybody loves a hero.
And he is ah ancient hero
connected to the histories of...
the spiritual history of England
and the Celtic Christian church.
I think in Victorian times, there was
quite a resurgence of interest
in Arthur and Guinevere,
whether a myth or not.
Why do you think that would be?
Well, there was a resurgence
of mystic spirituality
and I think that people
were getting a bit disillusioned
by the Church at the time
and were looking for new ways,
new connections, and Glastonbury
definitely offered that.
Glastonbury,
and particularly the abbey, is
clearly a place
of great spirituality that
attracts many different religions.
Yeah. We have over 70 practising
faiths and traditions
in Glastonbury,
and we all pretty much get along.
You know, we can get along
because there's a thread of love.
Love is all you need.
- Love is all you need.
[HE CHUCKLES]
With that very modern sentiment
echoing in my ears,
it's time to take leave
of this Victorian place of pilgrimage
and reflect on the huge
social changes witnessed by that age.
You wouldn't Want to enquire
too closely
into how some Victorian fortunes
were made.
Conditions for tanners were appalling
and the chemicals that they used,
damaging to health,
as was the guano
to those Chinese workers
who mined it for William Gibbs.
But when Victoria was still a girl,
thanks to abolitionists like
Thomas Clarkson of Bristol,
Britain had set an example
to the world
by abolishing slavery
throughout the Empire.
That great reform invoked
the idealism of a legendary age
when Arthur reigned at Camelot.
Next time, I get to grips with
a miracle of Victorian engineering...
I've never felt so much power.
ALL: Traitor! Traitor!
Stand trial in Taunton and
suffer the full weight of the law.
I plead guilty and throw myself
upon the mercy of this court.
And go looking for hidden treasure
on Dartmoor.
I've found it!
- Hooray!
[END THEME]