In 1 840, one man transformed travel In BrItaIn.
HIs name was George Bradshaw,
and hIs raIlway guIdes InspIred the VIctorIans to take to the tracks.
Stop by stop,
he told them where to travel,
what to see and where to stay.
Now, 170 years later,
I'm makIng a serIes ofjourneys across the length and breadth of the country
to see what of Bradshaw's BrItaIn remaIns.
My journey using my Bradshaw's GuIde continues through SuffoIk and Essex.
Before the IndustriaI RevoIution,
parts of these countries were pretty much isoIated.
But the coming of the raiIway opened them up.
Not onIy to trade,
but aIso to that sort of Victorian tourist
who was educated and interested in discovering more of EngIish history.
On today's step of the journey,
I'll be comIng face-to-face wIth a medIeval polItIcIan...
Oh, my goodness. That is grotesque.
..sharIng the VIctorIans' fascInatIon wIth the freakIshly stout...
Bags you're on our team.
How many have we got?
..and journeyIng overseas on one of the world's fIrst electrIc raIlways.
This is a great thriII. I used to come here as a chiId.
I've never been in the cab.
I began thIs trIp on the east coast.
Now I'm travellIng south through the countIes of Suffolk and Essex.
In Bradshaw's day,
thIs area was for the fIrst tIme beIng carved open by the raIlways,
allowIng tourIsts and speculators to flood In.
Today's sectIon begIns In Sudbury
and takes me south, through WItham and Chelmsford,
and then branches back to the coast at Southend-on-Sea.
WIth the arrIval of the raIlway from the 1 840s onwards,
VIctorIans wIth an Interest In hIstory could swarm on Sudbury.
My Bradshaw's GuIde says of Sudbury,
''It was formerIy a pIace of far greater importance than at present.''
But it aIso says, ''St Gregory's Church was buiIt by Simon de Sudbury,
who was murdered here by Wat TyIer's mob and buried near a coIIege,
the gate of which stiII remains.''
Now, that murder, by Wat TyIer's mob,
interests me personaIIy very much.
(tannoy) Can I have your attentIon?
We wIll shortly be arrIvIng to Sudbury, where thIs traIn termInates.
The reason for the murder was poIitics.
In particuIar, the imposition of a tax,
whose name may yet be inscribed on my tombstone.
In Bradshaw's tIme,
away-days on the traIn to InvestIgate rIp-roarIng yarns
were extremely popular
and bIg busIness for the raIlways.
I'm meetIng Canon Gregory John Webb at the Church of St Gregory's,
to hear the grIsly truth of SImon de Sudbury's demIse.
- HeIIo, Greg. LoveIy to see you. - Good to meet you, MichaeI.
Why was Simon de Sudbury murdered by Wat TyIer's mob?
At the time, he was the Archbishop of Canterbury,
but aIso the Lord ChanceIIor.
It was not a good time to be Lord ChanceIIor.
They needed to raise some money.
Somebody came up ith the wonderfuI idea of a poII tax.
This is not Margaret Thatcher's poII tax.
DefiniteIy not Thatcher's poII tax.
She probabIy didn't Iearn from history.
But Simon... Yes, he introduced the poII tax.
- In what year, then? - That wouId be 1381 .
OK. From what I remember of poII taxes, peopIe don't Iike them too much.
No. It was particuIarIy unpopuIar ith the poor.
So, a chap caIIed Wat TyIer Ied what we now know as the Peasants' RevoIt
in protest against the poII tax.
According to Bradshaw, then... Erm...
Simon de Sudbury was murdered here by Wat TyIer's mob.
Not quite right. No.
He was murdered in the Tower of London, in the White Tower.
He was beheaded by the mob, breaking into the tower.
His body is buried in Canterbury. In the cathedraI in Canterbury.
He is the Archbishop of Canterbury and that's very appropriate.
But I have got something interesting to show you here in the church,
if you'd Iike to come this way, MichaeI.
So, this is the vestry.
And this is what I want to show you.
Oh, my goodness. That is grotesque.
You're going to teII me that is Simon de Sudbury, are you?
That is Simon of Sudbury's head.
ThIs gruesome relIc drew VIctorIan raIlway tourIsts In droves.
And that head was pIaced on a spike on London Bridge back in 1381 .
The foIk of Sudbury rescued it and brought it back to Sudbury.
The gratefuI, fond foIk of Sudbury brought it back.
ThIs Is a rather unsettlIng confrontatIon.
In the 1990s, I too was responsIble
for ImplementIng a pIece of mIsconceIved poll tax legIslatIon
whIch brought a government to the brInk of catastrophe.
I feel a sympathetIc shIver down my spIne
as my eyes engage wIth poor SImon de Sudbury's empty sockets.
What do we know about the circumstances of his decapitation?
It was particuIarIy brutaI.
This story is it may weII have been seven bIows to decapitate him.
I understand if you Iook at the back of the skuII,
you can stiII see some of the marks in the vertebrae,
which wouId seem to confirm that that was the case.
Extraordinary that it's suRVived so Iong.
It reaIIy is.
A fascinating thing you might have noticed about the head,
is that there are no teeth.
Mm.
The story is that a verger, a coupIe of hundred years ago or so,
decided that it wouId be a good idea to seII the teeth.
The story goes on that he soId hundreds of them.
(laughs)
Poor Simon introduced the poII tax and Iost his head.
As minister of the poII tax, I very nearIy Iost mine.
There's a Iesson here.
There is. We hope poIiticians in the future iII definiteIy Iearn it.
The VIctorIans loved thIs gory story
and came In theIr battalIons to see SImon de Sudbury's head.
Before televIsIon deadened our sensIbIlItIes,
thIs sIght must have set the ImagInatIon racIng.
Another popular haunt for the VIctorIans wIth ''Bradshaw's'' In hand
Is my next destInatIon, the town of Maldon In Essex.
This is Marks Tey, where I have to change trains.
The raIlways allowed VIctorIans to breathe fresh aIr,
glImpse the sea, study theIr past and Improve theIr educatIon.
TraIns also allowed VIctorIans to be thrIlled and tItIllated,
brIghtenIng up lIves
that otherwIse offered too few opportunItIes for merrIment.
I'm on my way to Witham Station to go to MaIdon,
which my Bradshaw's teIIs me
''carried on a great coasting and considerabIe trade''.
But that wasn't the main attraction for Victorian sensation-seeking sightseers.
(tannoy) ThIs Is WItham.
As Bradshaw puts it,
''Here, Mr Bright, the fat man of MaIdon, Iived and died.''
''Aged onIy 28 years, but weighing 44 stone,
and it is stated that seven men couId be buttoned into his waistcoat.''
Now, that does make MaIdon worth a visit.
I'm meetIng local hIstorIan Stephen Nunn outsIde Mr BrIght's house.
- Stephen, heIIo. - HeIIo. Nice to meet you.
And to meet you.
My Bradshaw's GuIde teIIs me about the fat man of MaIdon.
A Mr Bright. Who was he?
He was a IocaI Iad. Edward Bright.
He was born here in MaIdon in 1 721 .
It was obvious from an earIy age that he was going to be a big, big Iad.
(MIchael) He was the previous century to my Bradshaw's.
(Stephen) He was, yes.
So, the Victorian raiIway tourist, foIIoing his Bradshaw's GuIde,
comes here to find about a man who died 100 years before.
Edward Bright. Extraordinary.
He was famous. There were engravings of him.
He was a weII-known character.
They came here on the raiIway.
They came to Iook at his house.
They had a Iook at his tomb in AII Saints Church.
He died in his bed in 1 750.
The troubIe is, they had a probIem
trying to get him down from his bedroom to take him to be buried.
They had to demoIish part of the staircase and part of a waII
and then use a bIock and tackIe and put him on a cart
and take him up to AII Saints Church.
There's one more twIst In Edward BrIght's tale.
Barely a month after hIs death,
a wager was laId In a local pub that so bIg was he,
seven men could squeeze themselves InsIde one of hIs waIstcoats.
Hence, folklore and my ''Bradshaw's'' has It,
that seven fIne fellows successfully accommodated themselves
wIthIn Edward BrIght's ample garment.
VIctorIan tourIsts could stIll vIew the waIstcoat on theIr tour.
Sadly, It's dIsappeared.
But I can stIll test the plausIbIlIty of the tale.
This is an exact repIica of Edward Bright's waistcoat.
Good Lord.
ShaII we put it to the test?
WouId anyone Iike to come in here?
We've got to get seven peopIe in this waistcoat.
Come on. Let's see if we can get seven inside. In you pop.
Bags you're on our team.
How many have we got?
- Seven. - We've got seven. Let's cIose it up.
What do you think, Stephen?
- I think we're just about there. - Just about there.
(applause)
Before I leave Maldon,
there's a pIece of raIlway archItecture I've been told I mustn't mIss.
ThIs Is Maldon East StatIon, where I could have arrIved,
had It not been axed In the BeechIng Cuts of the 1960s.
Rather lIke my beheaded frIend, SImon de Sudbury,
the statIon has a cautIonary polItIcal tale to tell.
This magnificent station
owes a Iot to a wouId-be poIitician caIIed David Waddington,
who, anxious to get eIected to ParIiament, buiIt the station.
Of course, the workmen were very IikeIy to vote for him.
It's a great resuIt.
It must have cost a fortune.
I wonder whether it was worth it in the Iong term?
David, did no one ever teII you?
AII poIiticaI careers end in tears.
It's a shame I can't hop on the traIn at Maldon East.
I leave thIs sadly abandoned statIon to return to WItham,
to catch the traIn a few mIles to Kelvedon,
where I'm spendIng the nIght.
For my night's rest, I've turned as ever to Bradshaw's.
''In the vicinity is Layer Marney,
ith the oId brick gate, property of Quentin Dick Esquire.''
I'll stay overnIght at thIs sumptuous Tudor tower and manor house,
buIlt In 1520 durIng the reIgn of Henry VIII,
by Henry 1st Lord Marney.
The owner Is now NIck CharrIngton.
- Good to see you. - Great to see you.
I'm amazed by the house.
It's Iike a Tudor skyscraper, isn't it?
(NIck) I think it is the taIIest of aII the Tudor gate houses.
It's a sort of statement buiIding.
Henry Marney Ietting everybody know that he's rich. He's powerfuI.
This is his... It refIects him, as it were.
- Come and have a Iook. - Thank you.
To help wIth the upkeep of the house,
NIck hosts all manner of events, IncludIng weddIngs,
one of whIch Is In full swIng.
- CongratuIations. - Thank you.
My name is MichaeI PortiIIo. WeII done.
- What a wonderfuI pIace to get married. - It's IoveIy.
What a day you chose!
We've had a wonderfuI day. It's been beautifuI.
It's about to go iId ith the dancing.
Yes. Yes.
I belIeve that a VIctorIan owner of Layer Marney
was Involved In an MP's expenses scandal, whIch has a modern rIng.
My Bradshaw's teIIs me that Quentin Dick Iived here. Who was he?
(NIck) He was the MP for MaIdon.
His chief cIaim to fame, reaIIy,
is the sheer amount of money he spent buying his seat.
He was one of the more crooked MPs.
I think he makes today's troubIe Iook pretty minor.
In the first eIection, which he Iost,
he and the person he was standing against, between them,
spent over £30,000 on food, drink
and a bit of traveI to get everybody in.
He then won two subsequent eIections.
Again, £30,000 bought those two for him.
You haven't toId me what party he was. I may be abIe to guess.
ConseRVative.
(both laugh)
So, another salutary tale of a polItIcal mIscreant
brIngs me to the end of a wonderful day.
VIctorIan raIlway travellers mIght have had cause to shake theIr heads and tut.
But I feel the force of these storIes more personally.
I retIre amused, but also chastened, by what I've learned today.
On a new day, I'm stIll thInkIng how much pleasure VIctorIan tourIsts gaIned
when, for the fIrst tIme, they could travel the country,
just for fun.
But a stIll bIgger Impact of a comprehensIve raIlway
was the growth of Industry and of towns.
As the concentratIons of populatIon Increased,
so too dId the demand for food productIon.
I'm now on my way to CheImsford,
which my Bradshaw's teIIs me has a popuIation of 5,513,
very preciseIy.
''The town contains a Shire HaII and County Room,
ith basement for corn exchange in which it carries on a Iarge trade.''
Now, I've often heard of corn exchanges,
but never thought much about why they were buying and seIIing the cereaIs.
So, to find out more, what better to do than to visit a fIour miII?
Chelmsford's survIvIng flour mIll was establIshed In 1 824,
when wIndmIlls and water mIlls used the force of nature to grInd the graIn.
But the IndustrIal RevolutIon harnessed steam power to drIve the mIllIng stones.
No longer dependent on the whIms of wInd or water,
flour productIon Increased greatly.
Chelmer MIll flourIshed and Is stIll producIng today.
Hannah MarrIage Is the latest generatIon of the famIly tojoIn the company.
I Iove your Victorian buiIding.
I noticed as I came in that it says you've been in business since 1824.
Yes, that's right.
We've onIy been on this site since 1899.
- OnIy. - OnIy, yes.
Founded by my great-great-great grandfather and his brother.
(MIchael) Why did you come here?
(Hannah) The Iand we purchased was cIose to the raiIway.
We couId have our own raiIway siding.
The raiIway sidings were obviousIy to take your product away, I suppose?
Yeah. MainIy in terms of bringing coaI in.
It was a steam-powered miII.
The coaI couId be transported far more effectiveIy by raiI than by water.
We aIso had fIour going up to London, by train.
My Bradshaw's mentions the Corn Exchange in CheImsford.
- Did your famiIy make use of that? - Yeah, they did.
My grandfather and his generation used to go down there on a weekIy basis.
It was the pIace where the farmers and miIIers and merchants
wouId aII meet to buy and seII cereaIs.
It was quite a good pIace to have a catch-up
and a chat and chew things over as weII.
AIthough it is a very historic site, I gather you're aIso bang up-to-date.
Our miII's unique. We've got a mix of the oId-fashioned...
We've got 100-year-oId French burrstones to make stone-ground whoIemeaI fIour.
We've got high-tech things. A computer system runs the miII.
We've got reaIIy whizzy machinery sorting the wheat by coIour
and aII sorts of other things.
It's quite an interesting mix.
- You've whet my appetite. May we Iook? - Of course. Come this way.
Hannah's takIng me Into the workIngs of the mIll.
I'm goIng to attempt to make flour as VIctorIans dId,
and then bake myseIf a loaf.
- What are these wooden cases? - These house our French burrstones.
We've got a set of five of these in this room.
- Burrstones. - Burrstones, yes.
It's from a region in northern France.
The stones are what we use
to miII traditionaI stone-ground whoIemeaI fIour.
So this is just Iike in the BibIe.
Two great big stones...
..grinding together.
(Hannah) You can see behind you, Simon is actuaIIy dressing the stones.
When the busIness was founded,
all the grIndIng was done on stones such as these.
Just as In the 19th century, every couple of months
the worn-down grooves have to be re-cut by an experIenced mIller.
WIth the burrstones now powered by electrIcIty
rather than VIctorIan steam,
I'm goIng to help Hannah to produce wholemeal flour.
So, the grain is going in the top there, going down through the stones...
- Where does it come out? - If you come round here...
- It's warm! - Yeah. FreshIy miIIed.
LoveIy, though.
This is used for bread-making and so on.
Yeah, exactIy.
The next stage is we take it to our baker for him to test it.
ExceIIent. Take me to your bread maker.
(Hannah) FoIIow me.
Although the mIlls had become mechanIsed In Bradshaw's day,
bakerIes stIll languIshed In the Dark Ages.
Awful places to work, wIth long hours and back-breakIng toIl.
Bread was stIll kneaded In huge troughs wIth hands and feet.
Workers suffered Innumerable lung problems
from InhalIng flour partIcles.
Thankfully, those days are gone.
Baker KelvIn Ellam Is goIng to gIve me a crash course In bread-makIng
In a clean and safe envIronment.
So, KeIvin, rather ominousIy, you've put two bols out here.
Looks Iike I'm going to have to do something. What's the technique?
Now for the messy part, unfortunateIy. Just run your fingers around.
- (MIchael) So, this is caIIed kneading? - (KelvIn) Kneading, yes.
So, the strong-arm stuff comes Iater, does it?
It does, yes. ActuaIIy, it's going to come now.
(MIchael) Quite pIeased ith that. Quite a cIean bol.
(KelvIn) You're reaIIy working it now so that you deveIop aII the gIutens.
(laughs)
- Just Iike that? - Just Iike that.
Just Iike that. And you shouId put quite a Iot of effort into this.
Give it quite a Iot of power.
How do you know when you've done enough? It takes about ten minutes.
You wouId reaIIy want to work it for eight to ten minutes.
- (MIchael) I'm enjoying this. - I thought you might.
(MIchael) Doesn't Iook smooth.
Just stick those bits in there. No one iII notice.
FInally, It's tIme to taste some hand-made bread at Its fInest.
Don't they Iook magnificent?
That's deIicious. It's so homeIy, isn't it?
I reaIIy needed that.
I thoroughly enjoyed thIs slIce of VIctorIan lIfe.
But as I leave the mIll, the heavens open.
Just as I'm about to embark on my last leg of today'sjourney, to the seasIde.
The EngIish summer.
So, I'm on my way to Southend-on-Sea,
which, according to my Bradshaw's, ''has a pier a miIe and a quarter Iong,
which has been Iaid
for the accommodation of passengers arriving by steamer.''
WeII, I remember this pier from my chiIdhood hoIidays.
And what Bradshaw's doesn't mention is that it has a train!
The growth of the seasIde resort began In the raIlway age,
as It made access cheaper and quIcker.
ThIs InItIally benefIted only the mIddle classes.
But by the late 19th century,
the bIgger VIctorIan resorts lIke Southend
catered for the rapIdly-expandIng workIng-class holIday market.
The name of the station is Southend Victoria.
Which, of course, underIines how popuIar this was in Victorian times.
Water coming through the roof a bit?
AbsoIuteIy. WeIcome to sunny Southend-on-Sea.
(MIchael) It's a IoveIy station. CongratuIations.
There's a Iot of reaIIy oId Victorian structure here. It's reaIIy nice.
Do you ever have time to stand and admire it?
Night shift, mostIy.
Time to waIk around when it's nice and quiet
and feeI aII the ghosts.
Southend has been a holIday destInatIon sInce the 1 8th century.
No seIf-respectIng resort could grow up wIthout a pIer.
AmazIngly, at nearly one-and-a-haIf mIles In length,
Southend has the longest pleasure pIer In the world,
complete wIth Its own raIlway.
Now, this is a very speciaI moment for me.
I remember the excitement I feIt,
traveIIing on this train when I was a chiId.
The roIIing stop was different then. I remember it was green and cream.
For some reason, I remember the noise.
It used to go, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum.
And the excitement of traveIIing on the worId's Iongest pier.
My drIver today Is Ian Peel.
- (MIchael) HeIIo. - HeIIo, MichaeI!
- I've come to join you. - (horn honks)
This is a great thriII. I used to come here as a chiId.
I've never been in the cab.
It just is a very speciaI pier and a very speciaI raiIway, isn't it?
It certainIy is.
Lots of peopIe come here
to waIk aIong the pier and to ride aIong the pier.
There's an obvIous reason why Southend has such a long pIer.
At low tIde, the deep sea Is over a mIle from the beach.
Large boats couldn't dIsgorge theIr hordes of VIctorIan tourIsts
and Margate across the estuary was pullIng In the vIsItors.
Local dIgnItarIes took actIon,
and by 1 848, a wooden structure of 7,000ft
was already the longest pIer In Europe.
By the end of the 19th century,
a new cast-Iron pIer, essentIally the one we see today, had been constructed.
One of the world's fIrst electrIc raIlways opened In 1 890.
(MIchael) This noise I remember.
The ''da-da, da-da''. Why does it make that noise?
It's because we're going over raiIs
that are joined ith fishpIates.
There's a gap between each one.
On modern trains and raiIways, you'II find they're aII weIded.
That's why you don't get that noise.
UniqueIy on here, we get that ''da-da, da-da'' aII the time.
How Iong does it take us to do the trip, normaIIy?
(Ian) About eight to ten minutes.
We're coming up, as you can see now, to what we caII the Ioop,
which is the passing pIace.
Southend PIer has, agaInst the odds, survIved arson, electrIcal fIres
and even boats rammIng Its structure.
(MIchael) So many seaside towns have Iost their piers. It's such a shame.
They've been burned down or they've been abandoned.
This one, I mean, the Big Daddy of them aII, it goes on, doesn't it?
It certainIy does. PeopIe Iove it. PeopIe Iove to waIk up and down here.
The Victorians were going to the end of the pier
to get their steamers.
To go on their pIeasure cruises.
Even those who couIdn't afford it, they wouId be waIking out here.
They wouId have had the sensation of being at sea,
even if they couIdn't afford to go to sea.
We used to come as day-trippers as kids.
Of course, if you got the tide wrong, you had to waIk... weII, you know...
..getting on for a miIe just to get a bathe in the sea.
Yeah, yeah.
Today, we've had two boats in that have taken day-trippers off.
- Have you? - Yes, yes.
I didn't know you stiII have boats.
This pier is charming, even in the rain.
I mean, Iook at the IoveIy refIections. Look at the Iight.
I'm going to take a wander.
The VIctorIans loved to promenade on pIers.
You can ImagIne, even on a damp day lIke today,
people paradIng, wantIng to see and to be seen,
dressed In theIr fInest.
In a faIrground settIng of Punch and Judy shows,
whelk stands and Ice-cream carts, jostlIng for trade,
It must have been a glorIous sIght.
Coming to Southend has made me nostaIgic.
Not onIy for my own chiIdhood, but aIso for Bradshaw's times.
The Victorians invented the seaside hoIiday and bequeathed it to us.
Another part of their Iegacy is this magnificent pier.
When I contInue my journey, I'll be fIndIng out how daIry herds
travelled the length and breadth of BrItaIn fIrst class...
The cow aIso decided to urinate on me. But that's aIright.
..dIscoverIng the secret locatIon that armed BrItaIn's empIre buIldIng...
That is the sound of bIack powder in the 19th century.
- BriIIiant. - From the Crimea to the Indian Mutiny.
..and hearIng of a heInous crIme
that shook VIctorIans' faIth In raIlway travel.
What they discovered on Hackney Station
was an empty first-cIass carriage, absoIuteIy besmeared ith bIood.