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In 1840, one man
transformed travel in Britain.

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His name was George Bradshaw
and his railway guides inspired the
Victorians to take to the tracks.

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Stop by stop,
he told them where to travel.

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What to see and where to stay.

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Now, 170 years later, I am making
four long journeys across the length

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and breadth of the country to see
what remains of Bradshaw's Britain.

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In the days of Sherlock Holmes,
you wouldn't have set out

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across Britain's private railways

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without
first consulting the timetables
compiled by George Bradshaw.

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I've embarked on four intriguing
excursions up-and-down the country

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using one of his guide books,
150 years old.

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Halfway through this journey, it's
lit up for me the Victorian world
and set me to discover

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what happened to its industries
and artisans and how the railways
made the British people what we are.

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Today,
I'll be travelling back in time
in a Victorian railway carriage.

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In the age before Health and
Safety, it doesn't say,
"Do not lean out of the windows."

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So, may I have a lean out of
the window, please?
Yes. Thank you.

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WHISTLE BLOWS

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I'll be finding out about the
latest Roman discoveries in York.

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Well, this is part of the city wall
that was only exposed about
30 years ago.

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And I'll be taking to the air
in the Network Rail helicopter.

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The Victorians
built it right along the cliff edge,

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it's one of the most spectacular
bits of track I've seen.

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We're looking for anything,
any damage or any debris

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or anything that's out of the
ordinary that should not be there.

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I'm almost halfway through
this week's journey,

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travelling from
Liverpool, across the country.

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Having passed through Bradshaw's
home town of Manchester, I'm headed
east into Yorkshire.

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Before continuing along the Humber
estuary, past Hull,

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towards my final destination,
Scarborough.

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Today, I'm leaving Bury and
travelling to Todmorden and Skipton,

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ending up
at the historic city of York.

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And this is my first stop.

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Once a cotton milling town,
today the people of Todmorden
are on a mission.

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They're going back to a way of life
rather similar to Bradshaw's day.

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Todmorden.

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I'm meeting a lady called Pam.

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I've no idea what she looks like.

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So, I hope she's come to the station
and not been put off
by the wet weather.

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Thank you.
Enjoy your day. Thank you.

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Hello. Are you Pam? I'm Pam.

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Have you got room
under that umbrella?

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Nice to see you.
Welcome to Todmorden. What weather!

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Local cafe owner Pam Warhurst
is encouraging her neighbours

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to grow vegetables
and produce their own food.

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Before the railways, growing
your own food wasn't unusual.

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These days, we're more accustomed
to going to the supermarket.

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Pam wants to make
Todmorden more self sufficient

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so she's even persuading people to
keep chickens in their gardens.

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Wow. Hi, guys.

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Lynne has a dozen hens and sells
eggs directly to her neighbours.

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Hello. Hi. I'm Michael.

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Hi, Michael. Nice to meet you.

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What are the chickens?
They're bantams.

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They're are a mixture of White Rock,
Black Rock, Rhode Island Red and one
Wyandotte. Are they good layers?

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Yes, although the eggs are smaller
than your average chicken egg.

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And how many do you normally get?

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We get three or four eggs a day.
Five of those are just chicks at
the moment so they're not laying.

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Any eggs I could see? Yes.
They haven't laid
very many that I found

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but there are some around
the garden. We can have a hunt.

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We have to go and look for them?
That's what WE do. I suppose you
do, yes!

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I found one.

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Well done.

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A nice mucky one. We started
a campaign, Every Egg Matters,
and we've now got an egg map.

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We started off with four people
keeping chickens in their gardens and
we've got 30 now.

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And the egg map is on our website
and people that live in any vicinity

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can look and see who's the nearest
local person keeping chickens.

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Phone them up and say,
"Can I have half-a-dozen eggs?" And
they say, "Yeah, OK".

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Chickens aren't the only
thing in Lynn's garden. She
also has a large vegetable patch.

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And her friends are digging up and
planting the rest of Todmorden too.

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Anyone can help themselves to the
carrots growing in the car parks

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and the herbs sprouting
on the railway platform.

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In Bradshaw's time,
the railways changed what we ate.

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Suddenly, fresh food could move
swiftly up and down the country.

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The railways carried milk to the
cities, strawberries from Somerset,
fish from the coast.

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Food was no longer
locally grown and locally eaten.

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Now Todmorden is trying to cut down
on how far food travels.

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Michael, let me
introduce you to Jean.

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Good morning, Jean. Good morning.

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Lovely to see you. Pleased to meet
you. Are you telling me everything
on that blackboard is local?

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Everything on that
blackboard is within
a 30-mile radius of Todmorden.

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Lovely.
And we've even got our local cheese.

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The first Todmorden organic cheese.
Launched a couple of weeks ago.

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Wonderful, and I've sold out.
Really? Yes. That's a good sign.

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As fast as it comes, it goes.

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Yes, it is a good sign. It's a
wonderful cheese. And it's just from
down the valley.

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What is the nearest
cheese that you've got to Todmorden?

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The nearest I have are
the Lancashire ones.

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Can I taste a bit of
crumbly Lancashire?

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It is my favourite. It's wonderful.

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Let me share this with you, Pam.
Thank you. There we go.

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It's my favourite as well.
You know this well?

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This is divine. We serve it
in our cafe with local chutney.

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Fantastic. Really popular.

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Fabulous cheese. It's heaven.

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Jean, that was delicious.

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Thank you. Thank you.
See you, Jean. Bye-bye.

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I love it that now ever more people
care passionately

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about the quality of what they eat
and where it comes from.

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150 years ago, it was a breakthrough
that fresh food could be brought
from the countryside to cities

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and I suppose it's not surprising
that soon, urban folk didn't know
that eggs came from chickens.

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But we've reached the
situation where even people

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living in towns and villages didn't
know that milk came from cows.

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And there at Todmorden, they were
doing something to put that right.

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The next leg of my journey
takes me to Skipton, on the edge

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of the Yorkshire Dales where
I'll be taking a step back in time.

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I'm old enough to remember
travelling by steam train.

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By comparison with nowadays,
it was relatively uncomfortable
and, certainly, much smellier.

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But now I'd like to discover
what railway travel was like at the
time of Bradshaw, 150 years ago.

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At the Embsay and Bolton Steam
railway, they have trains dating
back to the Victoria era.

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Hello, Stephen. Hello, Michael.

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A lovely station!
Absolutely fantastic.

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Thank you. We're trying to recreate
the past here. I gather you've
come to see some of my carriages?

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Yes, please. 'Stephen Middleton's
passion is restoring these
old railway carriages.'

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Which one will we be travelling in?

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We'll be travelling in this great
North of Scotland coach.

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It's a first third and I think
it's everyone's favourite.

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It's absolutely beautiful.

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Do have a look in.

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It had wood like this originally,
did it? Quite likely, yes.

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We've copied some of
the gold detailing there.

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The lamps are rather splendid
although they came from
British Home Stores.

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HE LAUGHS
But they would have been
similar in design.

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Very similar, yes.

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Few people can recall
how to operate these.

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Oh no, I recall.

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You position that
there and then it stops it.

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You pull the strap and up it goes.

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Oh, you pull the strap and up
it goes. I wasn't remembering
perfectly then.

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That's it.
You can control your ventilation.

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The only problem was these used
to get stolen, these straps.

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I gather the old fashioned cut-throat
razors could be sharpened on these.

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Well, thank you very much. Lovely.

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Fantastic sound,
when you set off on a steam train.

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It is. It's not quite the same
with an electric train, is it?

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No, it is not.

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This carriage is
typical of the 1890s

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and has a luxuriously upholstered
interior for first class passengers.

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But it wasn't always like this.

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Take me back to 1850's
when Bradshaw's guide was written,
the one I am following.

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I think the 1850's, the passengers
then may have been grateful to
have a shelter over their heads.

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Because a lot of them
would have experienced the 1840's
riding in open wagons.

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Open wagons.

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Clearly, the railways thought, "We
get more money transporting coal.

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"We get more money
transporting cattle."

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So, they put as many
third-class passengers into
an open wagon as possible.

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Parliament stepped in and decreed
that they really ought to have
better travelling conditions.

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In the age before Health and
Safety, it doesn't say,
'Do not to lean out of the window'.

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So, may I have a lean out
of the window, please?

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Yes, of course. Thank you.

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It's a great feeling,
the smoke pouring down the line.

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TRAIN WHISTLES

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Magic.

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My next stop is Bolton Abbey.

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The station was built here in 1880
to accommodate day-trippers who
flocked here to visit the ruin,

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which commands a vista
unspoilt by time.

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My Bradshaw says it is "most
charmingly situated on the banks
of the River Wharfe.

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"Indeed the picturesque character of
this and surrounding districts is
peculiarly striking and impressive."

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The 30,000 acre estate has been
owned by the Dukes of Devonshire
since 1755.

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The Devonshire Arms, a 17th century
coaching inn on the estate, has been
turned into a rather smart hotel.

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I think Bradshaw
would have approved.

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Fit for a Duke.

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And warm and dry.

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A new day
and a new part of my adventure.

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But though I'm following the
route from my trusty guide,

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I'm about to see it in a way George
Bradshaw could barely have imagined.

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George Bradshaw loved progress.

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He couldn't see a viaduct or a
railway tunnel without praising
the engineering skill involved.

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Nowadays, an important part
of the maintenance of

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the railway infrastructure
is carried out from the air.

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I'm sorry George Bradshaw isn't here
to share the experience

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but at least with me today one
of his guide books will go aloft.

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Most of us travel by train
without a second's thought for
how the line's kept safe.

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Can I get aboard? You certainly can,
sir. Thank you.

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But ever since the railways were
built, someone's had to look after
almost 20,000 miles of track.

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A few moments ago, we took off
from Leeds-Bradford airport,

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now we're flying at fairly
high level towards York.

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When we get there, we'll pick up
the East Coast mainline heading up
towards Edinburgh

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and we're going to start to survey
that bit of track.

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In Bradshaw's Victorian Britain,
the linesmen would walk the tracks
at night checking for problems.

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This helicopter helps do the job
today, stuffed full of gadgets

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and gizmos in which Bradshaw
would surely have taken delight.

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The camera on the bottom
of the aircraft is following

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the track northwards and I can
see it with the naked eye

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but also following here on
the screen inside the aircraft

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and as I'm watching,

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Howard is zooming in for me
taking me into remarkable
degrees of detail.

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One of the most important devices
is an infrared camera
used to inspect the points.

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The infrared camera checks whether
the heating system on every set of
points is working properly.

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A breakdown here could cause chaos.

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Bradshaw's having a great day out.

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It's going to come down to the right.

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So, a 12 minute flight has
brought us all the way
to the east coast

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and we're looking at
a little bit of track here that runs
between Redcar and Whitby.

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And the Victorians
built it right along the cliff edge.

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It's one of the most spectacular
bits of track I've ever seen.

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Nowadays, you just need to keep
an eye on it to make sure that

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with the coastal erosion,
it's not in any danger.

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And the helicopter is making a
video of this spot so that it can be

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examined by the engineers who need
to know that everything is safe.

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It's an absolutely
spectacular bit of track.

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I'd love to ride the train
along there and see the view.

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That's given me an idea for a
future railway journey.

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Whether you come to York
by air, road or rail you
discover a beautiful city.

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The station itself
is well worth a look.

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Built in 1877, and designed
by architects Thomas Prosser
and William Peachey,

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it was the largest station
in the world.

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And with almost 400 trains
passing through it everyday,
it's now one of the busiest.

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Not surprisingly, York attracts
about four million visitors a year.

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Some come to search out
its Roman roots.

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Some come to marvel at its
medieval buildings.

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And others...

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Well, others come for the trains.

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00:18:10,600 --> 00:18:16,720
Experience tells me that
you'll always find trainspotters
at the ends of platforms

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00:18:16,720 --> 00:18:23,800
where they can jot down
the numbers of locomotives or
photograph them, or whatever.

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Good evening. Good evening.
Pleased to meet you.

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Very nice to see you. Would you
by any chance be a trainspotter?

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No, railway photographer, please.

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You've got a camera.

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I don't know how to put this to you,
but trainspotters do have
a certain reputation.

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Which reputation are you thinking of?

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00:18:50,200 --> 00:18:53,280
Well...
maybe for being a little bit dull?

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I think you become involved
to an extent that you ignore
the real world outside.

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You come into your own little world
and you have many people
who join you in that,

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whether they're interested in
mechanics,

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interested in the actual
observations, interested in the
operations.

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They all have their own little
interest.

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But it means that
we're committed to what we enjoy.

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A little obsessive, then?
You will admit to a little
obsessive, would you?

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I think obsessive, possibly, yes.

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But certainly not dull.

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00:19:26,400 --> 00:19:31,120
I wouldn't consider myself
an obsessive about trains,
but I do like them.

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00:19:31,120 --> 00:19:35,520
I wonder whether there isn't
a little bit of trainspotter
in all of us?

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00:19:39,040 --> 00:19:43,720
What do you think of train spotters?
Well, I think it's a good pastime.

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00:19:43,720 --> 00:19:46,160
Yeah? Have you ever been a
train spotter yourself?

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00:19:46,160 --> 00:19:50,440
When I was a little lad
but I'm 74 years of age now.

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There we are. There's an
advertisement for trainspotting.

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00:19:53,240 --> 00:19:54,920
Keeps you young. That's right.

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00:19:54,920 --> 00:19:59,040
In my day,
it was very much the thing to do.

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My mum used to say to me,
don't you dare go trainspotting.

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But you know what lads are.
It was wonderful.

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A wonderful era to see all
the steam coming out, you know.

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And the engine drivers were
all black with the coal and...

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What an era!

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00:20:15,400 --> 00:20:17,520
It's all gone now, hasn't it?

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You are a poet of your age.

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00:20:19,560 --> 00:20:23,640
Am I? Yes. Well, that's very kind of
you to say. Beautifully said.

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00:20:29,040 --> 00:20:31,400
Do you have any views
on trainspotters?

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00:20:31,400 --> 00:20:34,040
Yes, leave them to it.

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00:20:34,040 --> 00:20:37,680
I think they're interesting
and fastidious, probably.

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00:20:37,680 --> 00:20:40,720
And, yeah, good on them.

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00:20:40,720 --> 00:20:43,200
Have you ever been one yourself?

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00:20:43,200 --> 00:20:47,040
I've never had a camera
but I like to see a freight train.

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00:20:47,040 --> 00:20:50,840
You like to see a freight train?
Yeah, I'm fascinated by freight
trains.

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00:20:50,840 --> 00:20:54,000
Really? Interesting trains, yeah...

255
00:20:54,000 --> 00:20:57,800
I don't get it immediately. What's
the fascination with freight trains?

256
00:20:57,800 --> 00:21:01,520
Well, actually, I'll tell you
what it is. When I was younger I
was in America for a long time.

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The trains there are enormous.

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They're half a mile long.
So I think that's what it is.

259
00:21:07,320 --> 00:21:09,720
Wow, I've struck gold. Yeah.

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I mean in meeting you. Thank you!

261
00:21:13,320 --> 00:21:17,880
I never expected to find a man
in love with freight trains. Great.

262
00:21:21,440 --> 00:21:26,200
York is a largely medieval city
built around the Minster.

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It started out in AD71 as
a settlement besides a huge
Roman fortress.

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00:21:36,280 --> 00:21:41,880
And it was those Roman beginnings
that impressed Bradshaw the most.

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Bradshaw really knew his
Roman history of York.

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"Having been an imperial city all
the time the Romans kept possession

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00:21:48,880 --> 00:21:55,200
"of Britain, there are of course
many vestiges of antiquities.
Here died Constantius Chlorus,

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"the father of Constantine
the first Roman Christian Emperor."

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00:22:01,640 --> 00:22:07,240
But I wonder whether Bradshaw
is still a good guide
to Roman archaeology in York?

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Fortunately,
I'm meeting a man who knows.

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00:22:14,560 --> 00:22:18,680
Andrew Jones, from the
York Archaeological Trust.

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Andrew. Hello and welcome to York.

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00:22:21,640 --> 00:22:23,960
Lovely to see.
Thank you so much for your time.

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00:22:23,960 --> 00:22:27,040
You're going to tell me something
about Bradshaw's Roman history?

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00:22:27,040 --> 00:22:31,360
Yes. Bradshaw did a lot to promote
Roman York but it was actually known

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as an important place for at least
200 years before he wrote his book.

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00:22:38,520 --> 00:22:42,920
First on the tour is what's left of
the original Roman settlement.

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This is part of the Roman
fortress wall, and if you

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look carefully at the wall, you
can see how eroded the stones are.

280
00:22:53,280 --> 00:22:58,400
They're quite rounded and that's
because of 1,700 years of rain
and pollution and so forth.

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00:22:58,400 --> 00:23:02,280
One of the things I'd like you to do
is to squint along the wall

282
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and just appreciate how straight
and how vertical this is.

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00:23:05,960 --> 00:23:10,120
Remember, this was built by
Yorkshire lads 1,700 years ago.

284
00:23:10,120 --> 00:23:12,600
It's absolutely true, isn't it?

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00:23:12,600 --> 00:23:15,280
It's a fantastic piece of masonry.

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00:23:18,640 --> 00:23:26,560
York was an important military base
for the Romans with 6,000 soldiers
based at the fort.

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00:23:26,560 --> 00:23:33,960
For a short time, the whole Roman
Empire was ruled from York when the
Emperor Severus lived here in 209.

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00:23:35,560 --> 00:23:37,880
The red line here that interrupts
the wall, what's that?

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00:23:37,880 --> 00:23:39,640
These are tiles.

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00:23:39,640 --> 00:23:43,360
This is a characteristic
of Roman military architecture.

291
00:23:43,360 --> 00:23:47,560
A lot of forts have these tile
courses deliberately built into them.

292
00:23:47,560 --> 00:23:49,280
They're there for two reasons.

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00:23:49,280 --> 00:23:53,440
One is they're a signature saying
this piece of masonry is Roman.

294
00:23:53,440 --> 00:23:57,760
We are here claiming the landscape,
beware all you native people.

295
00:23:57,760 --> 00:24:02,240
And it's also there as a practical
thing to allow people to

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00:24:02,240 --> 00:24:05,880
get a level surface
and start building again straight up.

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00:24:05,880 --> 00:24:09,480
You've told me that this has been
weathered for 1,700 years so,

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00:24:09,480 --> 00:24:11,680
clearly, Bradshaw must
have known all about this?

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00:24:11,680 --> 00:24:15,720
He did but what he didn't know
is about the things we've
discovered inside since his time.

300
00:24:15,720 --> 00:24:17,440
So let's go and see that next.

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00:24:26,680 --> 00:24:30,440
This is the place here that I'd
like to show you now, Michael.

302
00:24:30,440 --> 00:24:33,000
And this demonstrates what, then?

303
00:24:33,000 --> 00:24:38,120
This is a part of the city wall that
was only exposed about 30 years ago.

304
00:24:38,120 --> 00:24:43,880
This? Yes. This was formerly covered
completely in a mound of earth,

305
00:24:43,880 --> 00:24:49,600
so this has not been exposed
to 1,700 years of weathering
and you can see the stones are

306
00:24:49,600 --> 00:24:53,640
beautifully cut and you can
even see the little bits
of tooling marks on them.

307
00:24:53,640 --> 00:24:58,440
Looking further along, you
can see the tile courses
are actually projecting.

308
00:24:58,440 --> 00:25:01,640
So these were not just a practical
thing, they were there

309
00:25:01,640 --> 00:25:06,120
to cast a shadow, to make a line,
to be an architectural feature.

310
00:25:06,120 --> 00:25:09,200
A bit like a string course
in today's buildings.

311
00:25:09,200 --> 00:25:15,800
It's a small detail
but to me it brings the Roman
achievement to another level.

312
00:25:15,800 --> 00:25:21,600
Given, then, that this was
covered up during Bradshaw's time,
it turns out, in your view, that

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the Romans were even more brilliant
engineers than archaeologists
of Bradshaw's era would have known.

314
00:25:26,840 --> 00:25:28,520
That's absolutely right.

315
00:25:28,520 --> 00:25:34,320
What's more, when the new railway
station was built in the 1870s,

316
00:25:34,320 --> 00:25:40,160
even more fascinating Roman
discoveries were made and I'd like to
show you those as a final bit.

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00:25:40,160 --> 00:25:42,680
Lead on.

318
00:25:51,480 --> 00:25:54,920
These are some of the stone
sarcophagi that were found

319
00:25:54,920 --> 00:25:58,960
when they rebuilt the
railway station in the 1870s.

320
00:25:58,960 --> 00:26:00,680
In the old railway station, then?

321
00:26:00,680 --> 00:26:06,520
No, the first railway station
was inside the city walls
but the railways grew and expanded

322
00:26:06,520 --> 00:26:13,840
and the present day railway station,
built in the 1870s, was built
on the site of a Roman cemetery.

323
00:26:13,840 --> 00:26:17,480
And these are some of the
sarcophagi discovered there and
brought here for safe keeping.

324
00:26:17,480 --> 00:26:19,920
Very substantial bits of stone.

325
00:26:19,920 --> 00:26:24,320
Massive pieces of stone.
Weighing five or six tons, at least.

326
00:26:24,320 --> 00:26:30,680
And brought a long way,
carved out for, obviously, people
who were very highly regarded.

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00:26:30,680 --> 00:26:34,480
And very substantial members
of the community.

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00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:36,800
I think Bradshaw would
have been doubly pleased.

329
00:26:36,800 --> 00:26:41,680
York was getting a new and bigger
railway station and new Roman
discoveries came about as well.

330
00:26:41,680 --> 00:26:45,080
That's absolutely right. And we keep
making new discoveries to this day.

331
00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:57,080
Seeing Roman York through the eyes
of the Victorian Bradshaw makes me
aware of some striking parallels.

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00:27:00,360 --> 00:27:02,480
When the Romans invaded Britain,

333
00:27:02,480 --> 00:27:08,480
bringing with them fine architecture
and fast roads, they made us part of

334
00:27:08,480 --> 00:27:13,240
the most advanced civilisation
that the world had ever seen.

335
00:27:13,240 --> 00:27:18,680
The Victorians with their
factories and steam engines
were the new Romans.

336
00:27:18,680 --> 00:27:21,600
It's symbolic that when
the railways reached York,

337
00:27:21,600 --> 00:27:28,840
the tracks punched their way
through the ancient walls to reach
the historic centre of the city.

338
00:27:28,840 --> 00:27:34,040
With our love today of steam engines
and the obsession of trainspotters,

339
00:27:34,040 --> 00:27:38,960
it's clear that the railways
still have us in a powerful grip.

340
00:27:49,920 --> 00:27:53,520
On tomorrow's journey,
I'll be discovering how the railways

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00:27:53,520 --> 00:27:56,640
made Hull one of the biggest
white fish ports in the world.

342
00:27:56,640 --> 00:28:00,400
The railways make fish an article
of cheap mass consumption.

343
00:28:00,400 --> 00:28:03,960
They create the trawling industry
and it grows phenomenally.

344
00:28:03,960 --> 00:28:07,880
'I'll be searching for liquorice
in Pontefract.' I'm guessing
that is a liquorice plant.

345
00:28:07,880 --> 00:28:10,000
This is a liquorice plant.

346
00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:11,840
It's a Mediterranean plant.

347
00:28:11,840 --> 00:28:13,560
It cam from Spain, originally.

348
00:28:13,560 --> 00:28:17,200
That's why in Pontefract we gave it
the nickname, "a stick of Spanish".

349
00:28:17,200 --> 00:28:21,720
And I'll be finding out why cod
might soon be off the menu.

350
00:28:21,720 --> 00:28:26,440
We're starting to see a lot more
warm-water species that we normally
associate with the Mediterranean.

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