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The secrets of the past are all
around us,

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hidden in our streets, buried under
our feet,

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and, in this series,
I'll be uncovering those secrets

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as I explore Britain's most historic
towns.

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I'll decipher physical clues...

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Look at that. It's covered with
lizard-like scales.

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...and get to know some
extraordinary characters

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who are often overlooked.

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He operated like a spy master.

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They lied, they deceived,
they cheated.

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With the help of Ben Robinson's eye
in the sky,

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I'll discover which towns across the
UK

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reveal the most about each period
in British history

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and find out how those stories still
resonate today.

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3,880.

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More and more individuals are still
dying from the plague.

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SHE GROANS

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Oh, my goodness.

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From the adventurous Elizabethans,

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to the elegant Georgians,

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from medieval knights through to the
height of empire,

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I'll tell the story of an era
through the story of a single town.

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Today, I'm in a town that was the
white-hot centre

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of Britain's
steam-driven industrial revolution.

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Whoa!

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A town whose boom was fuelled by the
transatlantic slave trade

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and its workforce by the commodities
of empire.

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Tea and sugar gave them the energy
to keep forging forward,

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that's what really kept the
industrial revolution going.

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A place where colossal public works
alleviated the misery

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of a new and desperate class of
urban poor.

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92% of those who lived in one-room
houses had to share a privy.

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Not a flushing toilet,
just a bucket.

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And where revolutionary leaps in
engineering

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brought magnificent architecture,

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vast wealth and the confidence to
take on the world.

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On the eve of the First World War,

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18% of all ships launched in the
world

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that year were launched on the
Clyde.

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That is astonishing.

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If you really want to understand how
the explosion

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of steam power
transformed Britain forever,

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Glasgow is the place to come.

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Glasgow has always struck me as
European,

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a place with a vision that goes far
beyond the British Isles.

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It's Scotland's largest and most
ethnically diverse city,

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home to two of the world's top
universities.

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There's lavish architecture here,
alongside dense urban sprawl.

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Music and enterprise, the fine arts
and media thrive in this city

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beside the River Clyde.

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But you don't have to look far for
clues of a time

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when Glasgow was
one of the most powerful

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industrial centres on Earth.

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It was a manufacturing heyday that
lasted long into the 20th century.

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I'm concentrating on a period of
revolutionary

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innovation and vast expansion

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that began around 1850 and lasted
until the 1930s.

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This was Glasgow's age of steam,

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when it became world-famous for its
ships and trains,

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earning the titles "the second city"

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and "the workshop of the British
Empire."

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The first steam-powered industrial
revolution

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lasts from around 1760 through to
1840,

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with a subsequent wave of
development,

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with steel production, chemical
production and ship building

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transforming many of Britain's
cities.

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There's a shift from a largely
agricultural economy

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to an industrial one,
based in cities,

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with a huge growth of urban
population.

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Nowhere was the pace of change felt
more keenly than in this city.

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But, of course, it's not the start of
Glasgow's story.

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Evidence shows the present site of
Glasgow on a natural,

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shallow crossing point on the River
Clyde

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has been settled since pre-historic
times.

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The Romans made camp here

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and the deep physical roots of the
city we know today

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can be traced back to the 6th
century.

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Over the centuries, Glasgow grew in
size and importance

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and, by the mid-1700s,
business was booming.

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The economy was dominated by
products

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pouring in from Britain's
expanding empire -

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tea, tobacco, sugar -

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and this means that Glasgow's
success

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is inextricably linked to the slave
trade

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because that provided the workforce.

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Enslaved Africans on plantations in
the Caribbean and the Americas.

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Glasgow, like many other British
cities of empire,

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like London, Liverpool and Bristol,

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is now facing up to this difficult
period in its past,

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this shameful period.

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When it came to exploiting the
spoils of empire,

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Glasgow found itself at a distinct
disadvantage.

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To find out why, aerial
archaeologist Ben Robinson

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is taking his drone 20 miles from
Glasgow,

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to the point where the River Clyde
begins to open out into the sea.

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It's a gorgeous day and I've got
spectacular view

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right down the River Clyde.

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I'm looking out towards the Firth of
Clyde,

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it's just round that corner there,

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and, if you sail out there,
past the Isle of Arran,

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around Ireland, suddenly, you're
trading with the new world,

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you're out into the Atlantic.

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Tobacco, all sorts of stuff was
coming in

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from the new world and landing here,

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at Port Glasgow, because this was
the premier port on the Clyde.

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Right back into the 17th century,

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this was where all the action was
happening,

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not further down the river at
Glasgow at all.

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I can just see now, yeah.
If you pan... Now, yeah, yeah.

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I'm looking inland and this
settlement

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was laid out on a grid
plan in the 17th century.

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There's still a bit of ship building
and ship fitting out

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going on here as well,
but, as we look round,

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there was a problem.

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Large ships couldn't get down the
Clyde as far as Glasgow.

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The Clyde looks wide and mighty,
but it's full of shallows,

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sandbanks, and that meant that the
cargoes had to be taken off here

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and hauled over land with carts.

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If Glasgow was to grow and prosper,

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something had to be done to the
Clyde.

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And something was most certainly
done, and done on an enormous scale.

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I've come to what's now a beautiful
salt marsh nature reserve,

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just 15 miles from the centre of
Glasgow.

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Today, it's a second home to
migratory birds

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who've crossed the Atlantic for the
muddy banks of the Clyde.

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Locally, it retains an unusual name

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that links it right back to the
heroic foundation of Glasgow's

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rise to wealth and worldwide
recognition.

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It's called Newshot Island
graveyard.

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I've come here to meet coastal
archaeologist Ellie Graham.

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There are lots of remains of boats
around here.

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We've just walked over a couple of
old carcasses of boats back there.

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What are we actually looking at?

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It's where there's the last known
survivors of the dredging fleet

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that in the 19th and 20th centuries
worked to deepen the Clyde.

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So, the Clyde really needed to be
dredged to get ships into Glasgow,

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but who was funding that?

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There was a huge amount of impetus
from the wealthy merchants

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who were trading with the colonies
in the 18th century,

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who were bringing in tobacco and
sugan

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so slavery products, essentially,
but money was the driver to improve

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the navigability of the river so
they could get their ships up here,

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really allowed trade to flow.

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How shallow was it?

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It was incredibly shallow in its
natural state.

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The engineer James Watt actually did
a survey

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before any deepening work was
carried out

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and his work recorded depths of as
little as

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15 to 18 inches at low water.

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So, James Watt did this survey,

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but presumably also
his invention of steam engines,

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that would have helped things along.

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I mean, his invention of the
condensation cylinder

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obviously massively improved steam
engines.

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Is this a steamboat?
It's got a stack there.

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Um, this is not one of the steam
dredgers.

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This is the remains of a diving bell
barge.

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So, essentially, a diving bell is
just an open-bottomed box,

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and it had a pumped air supply,

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and, essentially, just through
displacement,

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it created a bubble of air and a
workable environment underwater.

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So, we're standing here in the
chamber

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that the diving bell would
have sat in

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and then descended down to the
riverbed?

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Absolutely, so there would have been
two workers in here,

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initially, with picks and shovels to
hack away

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at the hard, rocky areas
of the riverbed,

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and it was all operated from this
support vessel.

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It was constructed in 1851 and,
as far as we know,

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it's a completely unique survivor -

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the oldest dive support vessel that
we know of anywhere.

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Part of that story is this work that
was done by hand,

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it sounds like a brutaljob to have
done,

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to have gone down in these diving
bells, to hack away at the riverbed.

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So, we do have records of some
really quite...

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...quite nasty accidents.

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We talk almost in heroic terms of
Victorian ingenuity

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and moulding nature to human will

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and that kind of underpinning the
success of Glasgow as a city,