Great British Railway Journeys (2010–…): Season 7, Episode 9 - Lymington Town to Exmouth - 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.
The southern shores of Britain
inspired creative Victorians.
On today's journey,
I Want to find out how,
during a period of great social
change, works of art, literature
and design helped to transform,
improve and even save lives.
With my Bradshaw's Guide in hand,
I'm travelling the length
of England's south coast.
I began in the east,
taking in forts and resorts.
I'll pass through the literary
landscape of the West Country
before concluding at the most
south-westerly tip of England.
Today, my journey begins
by the sea in Lymington.
Travelling inland to the town of
Dorchester, I pass through Axminster,
before concluding my journey
back on the coast in Exmouth.
Today, I investigate
the ins and outs of carpets...
This is how you Weave.
[MACHINERY GRINDS]
discover the little-known
railway verse of Thomas Hardy...
"And the Wheels moved on.
"Oh could it but be
that I had alighted there."
He missed his chance.
- He did indeed.
And brush up
on a forgotten artist.
You're doing a grand job, Michael.
I think, um, Danby would
be proud of you.
You old flatterer!
[LAUGHTER]
My first stop will be Lymington.
Bradshaw's tells me that it's
a "prettily situated town, whose
"maritime operations are chiefly
confined to the Isle of Wight."
Intriguingly, in 1901, there was
a plan to build a train tunnel
from Lymington to the island.
For me, that is one of the great
railway might-have-beens.
As it is, tourists have been
left to cross the brine,
with all its charms and perils.
With no tunnel, the pretty Georgian
market town of Lymington has been
connected to the Isle of Wight
by ferry since the mid-19th century.
Located at the western end of the
Solent, sailing defines Lymington.
There have been boatyards here
since medieval times
and it's famous for yacht building
and racing.
With such a watery heritage,
it's appropriate that
I'm arriving on a wet day.
Heading to
the Berthon Boat Company,
which builds lifeboats
and began in Bradshaw's day.
It's run by Brian May.
Hello, Brian.
- Good morning, Michael.
What have we here?
- We have a genuine original
19th-century
Berthon collapsible boat.
And I'd like you to help
me build it.
Let's go.
What an intriguing object.
The Berthon collapsible boat
was invented by
the Reverend EL Berthon.
He was Vicar of Romsey
from 1860-1892
and displayed a keen interest
in mechanical science.
Wow, this is quick to do, isn't it?
- It is.
It was designed to be a very
quick object to put together,
so that the users could either
use them for safety oh board ships,
or for deployment
in exploratory expeditions.
We've locked the seat in
with that pin!
Even as a novice, I could
assemble it in just two minutes.
And these could be used as a mast,
so some of them
would be used for sailing,
Otherwise you would get in and
row the boat with your passengers.
All set! Brian, come and join me.
At the beginning of the 19th century,
What was the legislation
regarding lifeboats on ships?
There was none, literally.
Um, the SS Orion in 1850
was What started it all.
She was a packet boat that
Went between Liverpool and Glasgow
and she foundered,
and the Reverend Clark,
who was a friend of the
Reverend Berthon, was on board
and he was one of the very few
to escape with his life.
And he then Went to visit
the Reverend Berthon and said,
"You must, with your inventive mind,
be able to do something about this,"
so he set about inventing
this boat.
Obviously, you could pack
a lot of these onto a ship.
How does it Work?
What are the sides made of?
The sides are made of flax,
a canvas, double skinned.
And he came up with a turpentine,
linseed and soap mixture
to make it Waterproof and, because
the canvas was so well protected,
it was sold as
"for use in all Weather",
whether it was 40 or 50 degrees
outside, or minus 40 or 50.
This ingenious craft was
demonstrated to Queen Victoria
at the Great Exhibition of 1851.
However, before it was used
as a lifeboat,
other applications
presented themselves.
During the Crimean and Boer wars,
the military appreciated a light,
collapsible vessel, which could be
hauled into remote environments.
It took a catastrophe for its value
as a lifeboat to become evident.
Now, one of the most infamous cases,
Where there were
not enough lifeboats,
was the sinking
of the Titanic in 1912.
Were there Berthon boats on board?
No, they did have
a competitor's boats on,
that took about 20-25 people,
but the sad thing was,
they could only cater for
a third of the maximum capacity.
On the first voyage,
there was two thirds capacity,
so they only had enough lifeboats
for half the people,
which is why so many people died.
When the Titania's sister ship,
the Olympic,
came into port a week later,
there was a furore, so 24 boats
immediately were put on board -
Berthon boats - for the hands,
'cos the deckhands wouldn't go to sea
Without sufficient boats.
But shortly afterwards,
another 300 were placed
on board for the passengers.
Essentially, it took 62 years to
achieve its status as a lifeboat.
In the meantime, it had been used
for theatres of war and exploring.
Thousands were made for
lifeboat use up to the 1930s.
As lighter materials were developed,
collapsible lifeboats of Berthon's
ilk were superseded.
Today, the company
that bears the Reverends name
still produces boats to save lives,
but they're on a larger scale.
Evidently, Brian, the business is
still lifeboats today? That's right.
We've built 14 lifeboats for the
Royal National Lifeboat Institute #
in the last 2, 3 years.
Quite a complicated thing,
a lifeboat, these days?
They are. They're 2.5 million
pounds each, for a 45-foot boat.
These ones are designed
very shallow, with jet engines,
so that they can go up beaches
and go very shallow.
"Up beaches"?
They actually come up the beach?
They get deployed off the beach
and, when they come back,
they whizz up the beach at 30 knots,
and the passengers,
or the people being saved,
can get off the boat.
The life-saving work
begun by the Reverend Berthon
is continued in the modern era.
Leaving Lymington behind,
I return to the rails
to continue my journey, rejoining
the main line at Brockenhurst.
My next stop will be Dorchester.
The guidebook says that it's
"The capital of Dorsetshire
in a pretty part of the South Downs,
"at the termination
of the South Western Railway."
Strange to think that the line
didn't yet go on as far as Weymouth.
For Thomas Hardy fans,
Dorsetshire will always be Wessex
and Dorchester
will always be Casterbridge.
The arrival of the railways
in rural areas like Dorset
was met with a mixture
of excitement and concern.
Many believed that rural life
would change forever,
and none more so than Thomas Hardy,
Writer and poet,
who was born in the small Dorset
hamlet of Higher Bockhampton in 1840.
In his novels,
the fictional county of Wessex
was based on people
and places around Dorchester
and his writing heavily featured
the coming of the railways.
A short Walk from the town,
I'm meeting Thomas Hardy expert,
Dr Jane Thomas, at Max Gate.'
Jane?
- Hello, Michael, Welcome to Max Gate.
One of the Victorian era's
most noted authors,
creator of Tess of the d'Urbervilles
and the Mayor of Casterbridge,
Hardy wrote with earthy realism.
The Working-class son
of a servant and a stonemason,
he criticised the Victorian
constraints, which made it hard
for people to rise through the
social ranks, as he aimed to do.
What impelled Hardy to
better himself?
I think it was his mother.
He had a very ambitious mother
and she was very careful
of his education,
and so she was responsible
for getting him
apprenticed to an architect,
so he'd become a professional
middle-class man and not a builder,
like his father and his brother,
and, it's interesting, when he
first Went to London
in the 1860s to seek his fortune,
he tried very hard to lose his
rural bearing and his rural accent.
As an architect in London,
he oversaw the excavation of the
graveyard of St Pancras Old Church
during the construction
of the new railway terminus.
But given that Max Gate
became his house, evidently,
he returned from London
to Dorchester?
Yes, he didn't get on
very well in London.
He found the pace of life there
very stressful
and he found the pollution
very injurious to his health.
And he also felt that he didn't
write very well in London,
that he was really inspired
by the area that he grew up in
and knew well in his childhood
and so, he moved back
to Dorchester fairly soon.
Continuing as an architect in
Dorchester, he wrote on the side.
Far From The Madding Crowd was
so successful that, at the age of 34,
he committed to writing full-time.
This house is obviously
the house of a successful man.
Yes, he designed it himself
and, in 1885, it really represented
the height of middle-class
convenience and comfort.
He received some
very important Writers,
such as JM Barrie, Rudyard Kipling,
George Bernard Shaw, and Edward VIII,
the Prince of Wales then,
also came here.
Hardy took his place
in polite society,
but the impediments
to social mobility
were a continuing theme
of the novels.
Jude the Obscure is the great novel
of social climbing,
Where a young boy,
a young orphaned boy,
decides he wants to go
to university,
and the whole of Jude the Obscure
is really about his attempt to
better himself, but of course,
it doesn't work for him at all.
Hardy published 14 novels,
49 short stories
and nearly 1,000 poems,
much written in this study.
How does he make use of railways
in his novels?
Railways are an opportunity
for dramatic speculation,
because you've got
lots of strangers meeting,
transient populations, people
who may or may never meet again,
lots of brief encounters
we might say.
So they provide him with quite
a lot of material for what-ifs.
I confess I only know
Thomas Hardy as a novelist,
but he was also
a considerable poet, Wasn't he?
Yes, he was. He claimed to have
spent more time writing poems
than writing novels, and being a poet
was his first calling
and, perhaps as ah example of how
he sees the romantic possibilities
in railways, you might want to read
Faintheart in a Railway Station?
Hmm, thank you.
"At nine in the morning,
there passed a church
"At ten, there passed me by the sea,
"At 12, a town of smoke and smirch,
"At two, a forest of oak and birch,
"And then, on a platform, she;
"A radiant stranger, who saw not me.
"I said, 'Get out to her! Do I dare?'
"But I kept my seat
in my search for a plea,
"And the Wheels moved on.
"O, could it but be
That I had alighted there!"
He missed his chance.
- He did indeed.
Thomas Hardy lived at Max Gate
until his death in 1928.
I'm making my Way back into the town
which was Hardy's inspiration
for Casterbridge.
I end my day at a hostelry,
referenced in both Bradshaw's
and Hardy's Mayor or Casterbridge -
The Kings Arms.
It's the morning of my second day.
Leaving Dorchester,
I continue my travels westwards,
rejoining the mainline at Yeovil in
Somerset and continuing into Devon.
My first stop of the new day
will be Axminster,
apparently situated on the River Axe.
"Some of the best and finest
description of carpets are made here."
As I Weave my Way
towards Devon, carpet making looms.
The route to Axminster skims along
the river and past lush pasture.
The landscape suited
farming sheep for wool
and the river drove the mills.
I'm keen to discover how Axminster
became synonymous with carpets.
At the town's new heritage centre,
I'll find out more from local
historian Laurence Hitchcock.
Hello, Laurence.
- Good morning, Michael.
Good morning,
Welcome to Thomas Whitty House.
Laurence, this is an extraordinary
object. Tell me about this carpet.
It is wonderful. It's recently come
back to its home.
It was handmade in this location
and We're very privileged to
actually have it back here
after 246 years.
So handmade by whom?
Well, Thomas Whitty, who invented
the Axminster Weave construction,
had a very large family.
He had six daughters,
three sons, and they all worked
in his manufactory.
They had small fingers,
nimble fingers,
and he was able to produce
the carpets slightly cheaper
than other manufacturers
by having a vertical loom
instead of a horizontal loom,
and so his business grew and grew
and became really quite
worldwide famous.
Apart from using his own family,
did he use child labour
more generally?
Yes. Generally speaking,
it was children and Women
who did the weaving for him.
Shocking today, child labour was the
norm in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Only in 1833 did the Factory Act
ban children from working
in textile factories, but even so,
only if under the age of nine.
When Whitty founded
the factory in the 1750s,
a big workforce was required to meet
the demands of the world of fashion.
The greatest day of his life
was when King George Ill visited
this manufactory with Queen
Charlotte and three princesses,
and it was a huge thing, and
she bought some carpet, the Queen,
and that promoted his business.
Thomas Whitty died in 1792 and,
43 years later, the business closed.
Some of his carpets survive,
such as this one,
which adorned the dining room of
Rockbeare Manor in Exeter from 1769.
I call them works of art.
You go to these lovely old palaces
and houses
and everybody knows about the
Renoirs and the Chippendale, but
these are works of art as well,
and they're remarkable.
When the Whitty factory
closed in 1835,
production of carpets switched
from Axminster to Kidderminster.
At the time of my Bradshaw's Guide,
when the Victorians were
carpeting their homes,
none was made in Axminster.
But the story didn't end there.
Hello, Josh.
- Hello, Michael, pleasure to meet you.
Josh Dutfield is the commercial
director of today's factory.
How was it that your ancestors came
to have the Axminster business?
My family's been holidaying
in Cornwall for some time
and originated in Glasgow
and moved into the carpeting
industry in Kidderminster,
so whilst on holiday, they decided
to stop off at Axminster,
Went to see the local vicar,
just for a tour around the town,
and the local vicar advised them
that, actually, there hadn't been
carpet production in the town
for nearly a century at that time,
so they took the decision - my great
grandfather and my grandfather-
to move their factory
from Kidderminster to the location
we have now,
predominantly because the rail line
actually backs onto
the back of the factory,
so that gave them
a logistical advantage as well.
And did they just kind of pick up
the old Axminster method and design?
What they use is
the basis of the Weave,
but added What's called
in our industry an eight pitch,
which is the finest specification
Axminster Weave you can get.
The luxurious Weave
devised by Whitty endures,
but the scores of Women
and children operating looms
have been replaced by machines.
These durable products carpet
hotels, shops and railway carriages.
The man responsible
for these bespoke pieces is
Gary Bridge, head of design.
So this, I guess, would be the
traditional way of designing
a carpet, would it?
Yeah, this is a good example of how
we used to do carpets originally,
so we used to draw them by hand and
then paint them oh this graph paper,
so this whole process
could take about a month
to mix the colours to paint it.
Now, this design on the floor,
which is a lovely looking thing,
What is that you're up to there?
This is the carpet We're making
for the saloon at Brighton Pavilion.
Originally done in 1830, it was
an original Thomas Whitty carpet.
Because there isn't much of the
carpet left, We've had to base this on
paintings done from the 1840s,
1850s, of the original carpet.
Then, in total, this'll probably
take about 15 months to design,
'cos of the intricacy and the size
of the rug.
Extraordinary!
That looks like a railway carpet.
Yeah, one of the
railway carpets we do.
And that's nicely resistant to
anybody who throws his
tea or coffee over the carpet?
- Yes.
I mean, the beauty of What
we do here is we do anything from
quite a simple design,
for this rail company here,
to some historic works for
beautiful locations to, obviously,
the cream of the job,
which is the Brighton Pavilion.
I think I'll go downstairs
and see how the boys
put your designs into action.
OK, nice.
- Thanks very much, Gary.
Bye-bye.
Operating one of the
computerised looms is Steve Marks.
I've been seeing some of the designs
that Gary's got upstairs.
How are they sent down to you
to Weave them?
Well, from the design department,
Gary will send it down
through the network,
which comes in through the cables
into our Jacquard computer here.
The Jacquard will then turn that
into motion movement,
Where it will lift the carriers
to the required height at the required
time for the required colour.
It picks each thread
as it's needed?
And all of that is seamlessly
done by computer?
Yes.
Can we give it a whirl?
- We certainly can.
This how you Weave.
[MACHINERY GRINDS]
This carpet is a special design.
Steve, that is beautiful!
Great British Railway Journeys
and a lovely picture of a locomotive.
That carpet is
in the best possible taste!
Leaving Axminster behind,
the final leg of my journey arrives
at the coast alongside the River Exe
on a beautiful section of track.
My next stop will be Exmouth.
"Situated on the eastern side
of the Exe,
"two projected sandbanks
form a partial enclosure.
"The river is about
a mile and a half across.
"The landscape has a rich softness."
It makes you Want to
dip your toes in the sea
and your paintbrush in the oils.
Until the 18th century, Exmouth
was a backwater fishing port
compared to its neighbour, Exeter.
But in the Victorian era,
it started to attract
a fashionable summer crowd.
The railway arrived in 1861, helping
Exmouth to become a scenic resort.
My guidebook notes that
it's a popular place for artists.
Bradshaw's says,
"Probably at no place in England
"are the effects
of sunrise and sunset
"more surprising or beautiful
than at Exmouth.
"Here Danby,
the celebrated landscape painter,
"fixed his residence and produced
most of his famous pictures."
Danby? Danby?
Who on earth can that man be?!
Excuse me, sir?
- Yeah?
Have you ever heard of
Francis Danby?
Ladies, have you ever heard
of Francis Danby?
No, afraid not.
- OK.
Francis Danby?
No, I'm not sure...
- I can't say I have.
No, we can't say we have.
Francis Danby?
- No.
Never heard of Francis Danby?
- No.
I can't find anyone
who's heard of him.
Aw.
- Goodness.
That is such a shame, isn't it?
- Such a shame.
Someone will know,
someone will know him.
So how is it that a painter
so Well-known to Bradshaw
is virtually unknown today?
One man keen to revive
Francis Darby's memory
is artist Ray Balkwill.
Ray - who, then, was
Francis Danby,
and What's the connection
with Exmouth?
Well, Francis Danby was
one of the leading painters
of the Romantic period
in the 19th century and,
in his heyday,
he was more popular than Constable.
His connection with Exmouth, he
moved down here in 1846,
really for the quality of light and
the magnificent sunsets we get here.
You've got a couple of examples of
his work here. May I see those?
Yes.
Well, this one was The Deluge,
which was painted in 1839.
As you can see,
it's quite melodramatic
and, to be honest, he was very,
very popular for this type of work.
This was at the height
of his fame, really.
This doesn't really appeal very
much to the modern taste,
except, of course, if you
happen to Want
20 naked Women
in your painting, I suppose.
Absolutely.
And when he came to Exmouth,
his mood changed dramatically
to one of tranquility,
peacefulness and calm
and it was more naturalistic.
These ships and masts remind me a bit
of late 19th-century French painters
and, the sky and the sea,
these colours remind me
rather of JMW Turner.
They are very Turner-esque.
But I think,
if you see the sunsets in Exmouth,
you realise actually
these colours are very, very true.
They look a little bit over the top, but
we get the most fantastic sunsets
down in Exmouth and I think
this is one of the reasons that
drew him here in the first place.
So popular was he that he exhibited
at London's Royal Academy 48 times
and, reputedly,
Queen Victoria bought a work of his
to hang in Osborne House.
Ray, why do you think that Francis
Danby has been largely forgotten?
Well, I think the main reason,
Michael, is that his work
more or less Went out of fashion
as soon as he died,
but some of his best work was lost,
so therefore, you know, I think
he's forgotten for that reason.
Ray is taking me to one
of Danby's favourite locations.
I'm intrigued to see What captivated
him and attracts artists today.
So, Ray, you've got, er, your easel
here and your artist friends.
Nice to meet you, Michael.
- This is Mark and Marcia.
Hello, Marcia.
Very good to see you.
Two very accomplished painters.
Ray, you're an artist yourself.
How are you finding the light today?
Oh, it's fantastic.
The clarity of light is amazing!
This is the Halden Hills across here
and you can almost see every tree.
But I thought you might like to have
a go at putting the sky in?
Hmm..!
Well, I'm no kind of artist at all.
Ray, here I am just
sort of daubing a bit.
But how... how would you describe
What it is to paint a good sky?
Well, I think you've got
to have a love of the subject
first of all, Michael, and, um,
in a Way, skies are so inspiring,
which is why Danby was so good
at them - he loved the subject.
You're doing a grand job, Michael.
I think, um,
Danby would be proud of you.
You old flatterer.
[LAUGHTER]
Tomas Whitty made Wonderful
Axminster carpets,
but his use of child labour
would horrify us today.
Thomas Hardy wrote about the harsh
living and working conditions of
the rural poor, and the injustices and
the tragedies that they might suffer.
Edward Berthon was a religious
man with a highly practical streak,
as he demonstrated when he invented
his collapsible lifeboat.
He set out to improve the value
the Victorians placed on human life.
Next time, I attempt to learn
the difficult art of crimping...
I don't think much of yours, Jason.
- No.
Get to marvel at one
of Brunel's finest feats...
It's lovely to see
a structure that's still here
so long after it was built still
in use for its original purpose.
Discover how
a small bay in Cornwall
effectively controlled
the British Empire...
Cornwall is still
the hub of communication.
They carried messages
all over the World.
And pick up the essentials
of the Cornish language.
Yeghes da!
[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.
The southern shores of Britain
inspired creative Victorians.
On today's journey,
I Want to find out how,
during a period of great social
change, works of art, literature
and design helped to transform,
improve and even save lives.
With my Bradshaw's Guide in hand,
I'm travelling the length
of England's south coast.
I began in the east,
taking in forts and resorts.
I'll pass through the literary
landscape of the West Country
before concluding at the most
south-westerly tip of England.
Today, my journey begins
by the sea in Lymington.
Travelling inland to the town of
Dorchester, I pass through Axminster,
before concluding my journey
back on the coast in Exmouth.
Today, I investigate
the ins and outs of carpets...
This is how you Weave.
[MACHINERY GRINDS]
discover the little-known
railway verse of Thomas Hardy...
"And the Wheels moved on.
"Oh could it but be
that I had alighted there."
He missed his chance.
- He did indeed.
And brush up
on a forgotten artist.
You're doing a grand job, Michael.
I think, um, Danby would
be proud of you.
You old flatterer!
[LAUGHTER]
My first stop will be Lymington.
Bradshaw's tells me that it's
a "prettily situated town, whose
"maritime operations are chiefly
confined to the Isle of Wight."
Intriguingly, in 1901, there was
a plan to build a train tunnel
from Lymington to the island.
For me, that is one of the great
railway might-have-beens.
As it is, tourists have been
left to cross the brine,
with all its charms and perils.
With no tunnel, the pretty Georgian
market town of Lymington has been
connected to the Isle of Wight
by ferry since the mid-19th century.
Located at the western end of the
Solent, sailing defines Lymington.
There have been boatyards here
since medieval times
and it's famous for yacht building
and racing.
With such a watery heritage,
it's appropriate that
I'm arriving on a wet day.
Heading to
the Berthon Boat Company,
which builds lifeboats
and began in Bradshaw's day.
It's run by Brian May.
Hello, Brian.
- Good morning, Michael.
What have we here?
- We have a genuine original
19th-century
Berthon collapsible boat.
And I'd like you to help
me build it.
Let's go.
What an intriguing object.
The Berthon collapsible boat
was invented by
the Reverend EL Berthon.
He was Vicar of Romsey
from 1860-1892
and displayed a keen interest
in mechanical science.
Wow, this is quick to do, isn't it?
- It is.
It was designed to be a very
quick object to put together,
so that the users could either
use them for safety oh board ships,
or for deployment
in exploratory expeditions.
We've locked the seat in
with that pin!
Even as a novice, I could
assemble it in just two minutes.
And these could be used as a mast,
so some of them
would be used for sailing,
Otherwise you would get in and
row the boat with your passengers.
All set! Brian, come and join me.
At the beginning of the 19th century,
What was the legislation
regarding lifeboats on ships?
There was none, literally.
Um, the SS Orion in 1850
was What started it all.
She was a packet boat that
Went between Liverpool and Glasgow
and she foundered,
and the Reverend Clark,
who was a friend of the
Reverend Berthon, was on board
and he was one of the very few
to escape with his life.
And he then Went to visit
the Reverend Berthon and said,
"You must, with your inventive mind,
be able to do something about this,"
so he set about inventing
this boat.
Obviously, you could pack
a lot of these onto a ship.
How does it Work?
What are the sides made of?
The sides are made of flax,
a canvas, double skinned.
And he came up with a turpentine,
linseed and soap mixture
to make it Waterproof and, because
the canvas was so well protected,
it was sold as
"for use in all Weather",
whether it was 40 or 50 degrees
outside, or minus 40 or 50.
This ingenious craft was
demonstrated to Queen Victoria
at the Great Exhibition of 1851.
However, before it was used
as a lifeboat,
other applications
presented themselves.
During the Crimean and Boer wars,
the military appreciated a light,
collapsible vessel, which could be
hauled into remote environments.
It took a catastrophe for its value
as a lifeboat to become evident.
Now, one of the most infamous cases,
Where there were
not enough lifeboats,
was the sinking
of the Titanic in 1912.
Were there Berthon boats on board?
No, they did have
a competitor's boats on,
that took about 20-25 people,
but the sad thing was,
they could only cater for
a third of the maximum capacity.
On the first voyage,
there was two thirds capacity,
so they only had enough lifeboats
for half the people,
which is why so many people died.
When the Titania's sister ship,
the Olympic,
came into port a week later,
there was a furore, so 24 boats
immediately were put on board -
Berthon boats - for the hands,
'cos the deckhands wouldn't go to sea
Without sufficient boats.
But shortly afterwards,
another 300 were placed
on board for the passengers.
Essentially, it took 62 years to
achieve its status as a lifeboat.
In the meantime, it had been used
for theatres of war and exploring.
Thousands were made for
lifeboat use up to the 1930s.
As lighter materials were developed,
collapsible lifeboats of Berthon's
ilk were superseded.
Today, the company
that bears the Reverends name
still produces boats to save lives,
but they're on a larger scale.
Evidently, Brian, the business is
still lifeboats today? That's right.
We've built 14 lifeboats for the
Royal National Lifeboat Institute #
in the last 2, 3 years.
Quite a complicated thing,
a lifeboat, these days?
They are. They're 2.5 million
pounds each, for a 45-foot boat.
These ones are designed
very shallow, with jet engines,
so that they can go up beaches
and go very shallow.
"Up beaches"?
They actually come up the beach?
They get deployed off the beach
and, when they come back,
they whizz up the beach at 30 knots,
and the passengers,
or the people being saved,
can get off the boat.
The life-saving work
begun by the Reverend Berthon
is continued in the modern era.
Leaving Lymington behind,
I return to the rails
to continue my journey, rejoining
the main line at Brockenhurst.
My next stop will be Dorchester.
The guidebook says that it's
"The capital of Dorsetshire
in a pretty part of the South Downs,
"at the termination
of the South Western Railway."
Strange to think that the line
didn't yet go on as far as Weymouth.
For Thomas Hardy fans,
Dorsetshire will always be Wessex
and Dorchester
will always be Casterbridge.
The arrival of the railways
in rural areas like Dorset
was met with a mixture
of excitement and concern.
Many believed that rural life
would change forever,
and none more so than Thomas Hardy,
Writer and poet,
who was born in the small Dorset
hamlet of Higher Bockhampton in 1840.
In his novels,
the fictional county of Wessex
was based on people
and places around Dorchester
and his writing heavily featured
the coming of the railways.
A short Walk from the town,
I'm meeting Thomas Hardy expert,
Dr Jane Thomas, at Max Gate.'
Jane?
- Hello, Michael, Welcome to Max Gate.
One of the Victorian era's
most noted authors,
creator of Tess of the d'Urbervilles
and the Mayor of Casterbridge,
Hardy wrote with earthy realism.
The Working-class son
of a servant and a stonemason,
he criticised the Victorian
constraints, which made it hard
for people to rise through the
social ranks, as he aimed to do.
What impelled Hardy to
better himself?
I think it was his mother.
He had a very ambitious mother
and she was very careful
of his education,
and so she was responsible
for getting him
apprenticed to an architect,
so he'd become a professional
middle-class man and not a builder,
like his father and his brother,
and, it's interesting, when he
first Went to London
in the 1860s to seek his fortune,
he tried very hard to lose his
rural bearing and his rural accent.
As an architect in London,
he oversaw the excavation of the
graveyard of St Pancras Old Church
during the construction
of the new railway terminus.
But given that Max Gate
became his house, evidently,
he returned from London
to Dorchester?
Yes, he didn't get on
very well in London.
He found the pace of life there
very stressful
and he found the pollution
very injurious to his health.
And he also felt that he didn't
write very well in London,
that he was really inspired
by the area that he grew up in
and knew well in his childhood
and so, he moved back
to Dorchester fairly soon.
Continuing as an architect in
Dorchester, he wrote on the side.
Far From The Madding Crowd was
so successful that, at the age of 34,
he committed to writing full-time.
This house is obviously
the house of a successful man.
Yes, he designed it himself
and, in 1885, it really represented
the height of middle-class
convenience and comfort.
He received some
very important Writers,
such as JM Barrie, Rudyard Kipling,
George Bernard Shaw, and Edward VIII,
the Prince of Wales then,
also came here.
Hardy took his place
in polite society,
but the impediments
to social mobility
were a continuing theme
of the novels.
Jude the Obscure is the great novel
of social climbing,
Where a young boy,
a young orphaned boy,
decides he wants to go
to university,
and the whole of Jude the Obscure
is really about his attempt to
better himself, but of course,
it doesn't work for him at all.
Hardy published 14 novels,
49 short stories
and nearly 1,000 poems,
much written in this study.
How does he make use of railways
in his novels?
Railways are an opportunity
for dramatic speculation,
because you've got
lots of strangers meeting,
transient populations, people
who may or may never meet again,
lots of brief encounters
we might say.
So they provide him with quite
a lot of material for what-ifs.
I confess I only know
Thomas Hardy as a novelist,
but he was also
a considerable poet, Wasn't he?
Yes, he was. He claimed to have
spent more time writing poems
than writing novels, and being a poet
was his first calling
and, perhaps as ah example of how
he sees the romantic possibilities
in railways, you might want to read
Faintheart in a Railway Station?
Hmm, thank you.
"At nine in the morning,
there passed a church
"At ten, there passed me by the sea,
"At 12, a town of smoke and smirch,
"At two, a forest of oak and birch,
"And then, on a platform, she;
"A radiant stranger, who saw not me.
"I said, 'Get out to her! Do I dare?'
"But I kept my seat
in my search for a plea,
"And the Wheels moved on.
"O, could it but be
That I had alighted there!"
He missed his chance.
- He did indeed.
Thomas Hardy lived at Max Gate
until his death in 1928.
I'm making my Way back into the town
which was Hardy's inspiration
for Casterbridge.
I end my day at a hostelry,
referenced in both Bradshaw's
and Hardy's Mayor or Casterbridge -
The Kings Arms.
It's the morning of my second day.
Leaving Dorchester,
I continue my travels westwards,
rejoining the mainline at Yeovil in
Somerset and continuing into Devon.
My first stop of the new day
will be Axminster,
apparently situated on the River Axe.
"Some of the best and finest
description of carpets are made here."
As I Weave my Way
towards Devon, carpet making looms.
The route to Axminster skims along
the river and past lush pasture.
The landscape suited
farming sheep for wool
and the river drove the mills.
I'm keen to discover how Axminster
became synonymous with carpets.
At the town's new heritage centre,
I'll find out more from local
historian Laurence Hitchcock.
Hello, Laurence.
- Good morning, Michael.
Good morning,
Welcome to Thomas Whitty House.
Laurence, this is an extraordinary
object. Tell me about this carpet.
It is wonderful. It's recently come
back to its home.
It was handmade in this location
and We're very privileged to
actually have it back here
after 246 years.
So handmade by whom?
Well, Thomas Whitty, who invented
the Axminster Weave construction,
had a very large family.
He had six daughters,
three sons, and they all worked
in his manufactory.
They had small fingers,
nimble fingers,
and he was able to produce
the carpets slightly cheaper
than other manufacturers
by having a vertical loom
instead of a horizontal loom,
and so his business grew and grew
and became really quite
worldwide famous.
Apart from using his own family,
did he use child labour
more generally?
Yes. Generally speaking,
it was children and Women
who did the weaving for him.
Shocking today, child labour was the
norm in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Only in 1833 did the Factory Act
ban children from working
in textile factories, but even so,
only if under the age of nine.
When Whitty founded
the factory in the 1750s,
a big workforce was required to meet
the demands of the world of fashion.
The greatest day of his life
was when King George Ill visited
this manufactory with Queen
Charlotte and three princesses,
and it was a huge thing, and
she bought some carpet, the Queen,
and that promoted his business.
Thomas Whitty died in 1792 and,
43 years later, the business closed.
Some of his carpets survive,
such as this one,
which adorned the dining room of
Rockbeare Manor in Exeter from 1769.
I call them works of art.
You go to these lovely old palaces
and houses
and everybody knows about the
Renoirs and the Chippendale, but
these are works of art as well,
and they're remarkable.
When the Whitty factory
closed in 1835,
production of carpets switched
from Axminster to Kidderminster.
At the time of my Bradshaw's Guide,
when the Victorians were
carpeting their homes,
none was made in Axminster.
But the story didn't end there.
Hello, Josh.
- Hello, Michael, pleasure to meet you.
Josh Dutfield is the commercial
director of today's factory.
How was it that your ancestors came
to have the Axminster business?
My family's been holidaying
in Cornwall for some time
and originated in Glasgow
and moved into the carpeting
industry in Kidderminster,
so whilst on holiday, they decided
to stop off at Axminster,
Went to see the local vicar,
just for a tour around the town,
and the local vicar advised them
that, actually, there hadn't been
carpet production in the town
for nearly a century at that time,
so they took the decision - my great
grandfather and my grandfather-
to move their factory
from Kidderminster to the location
we have now,
predominantly because the rail line
actually backs onto
the back of the factory,
so that gave them
a logistical advantage as well.
And did they just kind of pick up
the old Axminster method and design?
What they use is
the basis of the Weave,
but added What's called
in our industry an eight pitch,
which is the finest specification
Axminster Weave you can get.
The luxurious Weave
devised by Whitty endures,
but the scores of Women
and children operating looms
have been replaced by machines.
These durable products carpet
hotels, shops and railway carriages.
The man responsible
for these bespoke pieces is
Gary Bridge, head of design.
So this, I guess, would be the
traditional way of designing
a carpet, would it?
Yeah, this is a good example of how
we used to do carpets originally,
so we used to draw them by hand and
then paint them oh this graph paper,
so this whole process
could take about a month
to mix the colours to paint it.
Now, this design on the floor,
which is a lovely looking thing,
What is that you're up to there?
This is the carpet We're making
for the saloon at Brighton Pavilion.
Originally done in 1830, it was
an original Thomas Whitty carpet.
Because there isn't much of the
carpet left, We've had to base this on
paintings done from the 1840s,
1850s, of the original carpet.
Then, in total, this'll probably
take about 15 months to design,
'cos of the intricacy and the size
of the rug.
Extraordinary!
That looks like a railway carpet.
Yeah, one of the
railway carpets we do.
And that's nicely resistant to
anybody who throws his
tea or coffee over the carpet?
- Yes.
I mean, the beauty of What
we do here is we do anything from
quite a simple design,
for this rail company here,
to some historic works for
beautiful locations to, obviously,
the cream of the job,
which is the Brighton Pavilion.
I think I'll go downstairs
and see how the boys
put your designs into action.
OK, nice.
- Thanks very much, Gary.
Bye-bye.
Operating one of the
computerised looms is Steve Marks.
I've been seeing some of the designs
that Gary's got upstairs.
How are they sent down to you
to Weave them?
Well, from the design department,
Gary will send it down
through the network,
which comes in through the cables
into our Jacquard computer here.
The Jacquard will then turn that
into motion movement,
Where it will lift the carriers
to the required height at the required
time for the required colour.
It picks each thread
as it's needed?
And all of that is seamlessly
done by computer?
Yes.
Can we give it a whirl?
- We certainly can.
This how you Weave.
[MACHINERY GRINDS]
This carpet is a special design.
Steve, that is beautiful!
Great British Railway Journeys
and a lovely picture of a locomotive.
That carpet is
in the best possible taste!
Leaving Axminster behind,
the final leg of my journey arrives
at the coast alongside the River Exe
on a beautiful section of track.
My next stop will be Exmouth.
"Situated on the eastern side
of the Exe,
"two projected sandbanks
form a partial enclosure.
"The river is about
a mile and a half across.
"The landscape has a rich softness."
It makes you Want to
dip your toes in the sea
and your paintbrush in the oils.
Until the 18th century, Exmouth
was a backwater fishing port
compared to its neighbour, Exeter.
But in the Victorian era,
it started to attract
a fashionable summer crowd.
The railway arrived in 1861, helping
Exmouth to become a scenic resort.
My guidebook notes that
it's a popular place for artists.
Bradshaw's says,
"Probably at no place in England
"are the effects
of sunrise and sunset
"more surprising or beautiful
than at Exmouth.
"Here Danby,
the celebrated landscape painter,
"fixed his residence and produced
most of his famous pictures."
Danby? Danby?
Who on earth can that man be?!
Excuse me, sir?
- Yeah?
Have you ever heard of
Francis Danby?
Ladies, have you ever heard
of Francis Danby?
No, afraid not.
- OK.
Francis Danby?
No, I'm not sure...
- I can't say I have.
No, we can't say we have.
Francis Danby?
- No.
Never heard of Francis Danby?
- No.
I can't find anyone
who's heard of him.
Aw.
- Goodness.
That is such a shame, isn't it?
- Such a shame.
Someone will know,
someone will know him.
So how is it that a painter
so Well-known to Bradshaw
is virtually unknown today?
One man keen to revive
Francis Darby's memory
is artist Ray Balkwill.
Ray - who, then, was
Francis Danby,
and What's the connection
with Exmouth?
Well, Francis Danby was
one of the leading painters
of the Romantic period
in the 19th century and,
in his heyday,
he was more popular than Constable.
His connection with Exmouth, he
moved down here in 1846,
really for the quality of light and
the magnificent sunsets we get here.
You've got a couple of examples of
his work here. May I see those?
Yes.
Well, this one was The Deluge,
which was painted in 1839.
As you can see,
it's quite melodramatic
and, to be honest, he was very,
very popular for this type of work.
This was at the height
of his fame, really.
This doesn't really appeal very
much to the modern taste,
except, of course, if you
happen to Want
20 naked Women
in your painting, I suppose.
Absolutely.
And when he came to Exmouth,
his mood changed dramatically
to one of tranquility,
peacefulness and calm
and it was more naturalistic.
These ships and masts remind me a bit
of late 19th-century French painters
and, the sky and the sea,
these colours remind me
rather of JMW Turner.
They are very Turner-esque.
But I think,
if you see the sunsets in Exmouth,
you realise actually
these colours are very, very true.
They look a little bit over the top, but
we get the most fantastic sunsets
down in Exmouth and I think
this is one of the reasons that
drew him here in the first place.
So popular was he that he exhibited
at London's Royal Academy 48 times
and, reputedly,
Queen Victoria bought a work of his
to hang in Osborne House.
Ray, why do you think that Francis
Danby has been largely forgotten?
Well, I think the main reason,
Michael, is that his work
more or less Went out of fashion
as soon as he died,
but some of his best work was lost,
so therefore, you know, I think
he's forgotten for that reason.
Ray is taking me to one
of Danby's favourite locations.
I'm intrigued to see What captivated
him and attracts artists today.
So, Ray, you've got, er, your easel
here and your artist friends.
Nice to meet you, Michael.
- This is Mark and Marcia.
Hello, Marcia.
Very good to see you.
Two very accomplished painters.
Ray, you're an artist yourself.
How are you finding the light today?
Oh, it's fantastic.
The clarity of light is amazing!
This is the Halden Hills across here
and you can almost see every tree.
But I thought you might like to have
a go at putting the sky in?
Hmm..!
Well, I'm no kind of artist at all.
Ray, here I am just
sort of daubing a bit.
But how... how would you describe
What it is to paint a good sky?
Well, I think you've got
to have a love of the subject
first of all, Michael, and, um,
in a Way, skies are so inspiring,
which is why Danby was so good
at them - he loved the subject.
You're doing a grand job, Michael.
I think, um,
Danby would be proud of you.
You old flatterer.
[LAUGHTER]
Tomas Whitty made Wonderful
Axminster carpets,
but his use of child labour
would horrify us today.
Thomas Hardy wrote about the harsh
living and working conditions of
the rural poor, and the injustices and
the tragedies that they might suffer.
Edward Berthon was a religious
man with a highly practical streak,
as he demonstrated when he invented
his collapsible lifeboat.
He set out to improve the value
the Victorians placed on human life.
Next time, I attempt to learn
the difficult art of crimping...
I don't think much of yours, Jason.
- No.
Get to marvel at one
of Brunel's finest feats...
It's lovely to see
a structure that's still here
so long after it was built still
in use for its original purpose.
Discover how
a small bay in Cornwall
effectively controlled
the British Empire...
Cornwall is still
the hub of communication.
They carried messages
all over the World.
And pick up the essentials
of the Cornish language.
Yeghes da!
[END THEME]