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, 1 70 years later,
I'm makIng a serIes ofjourneys across the length and breadth of the country
to see what of Bradshaw's BrItaIn remaIns.
I'm now compIeting my journey from North NorfoIk to the heart of London.
My Bradshaw's enthuses that ''the sight of our gigantic metropoIis
is the very best that couId have been seIected for commerciaI purposes,
as it enabIed us by means of the Thames
to carry on a water communication ith every part of the gIobe.''
''And not even the deveIopment of the raiIway system in EngIand
has Iessened this advantage.''
It might have added that we aIso created
the greatest financiaI centre that the worId had ever seen.
On my fInal leg of thIs journey,
I'll be takIng a rIde on a secret mInIature raIlway...
Wow. I'II never compIain about the Tube again.
This is quite smaII.
..tollIng alongsIde the good burghers of Bow...
(bell tolls)
Try not to Iook up, you'II get dust in your eyes.
..and confusIng hapless commuters at Fenchurch Street.
WestcIiff,
Thorpe Bay and Shoeburyness.
Oh, I Ieft out the time at the beginning. I Ieft out the time.
StartIng on the east coast, thIsjourney has taken me
through Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex on the Great Eastern RaIlway,
whIch In Bradshaw's day opened up dIffIcult terraIn
and allowed trade to flourIsh.
Now I'm headed to the very centre of money ItseIf, the CIty of London.
My last stretch begIns In the east of the cIty at Fenchurch Street
and takes me along the north bank of the Thames, endIng on the Embankment.
The deveIopment of our raiIway system required not onIy engineers,
but aIso entrepreneurs,
men iIIing to invest their own money
and, more importantIy, to persuade others aIso to risk their shirts.
I'm arrIvIng at Fenchurch Street,
the smallest of the great London cIty termInals.
InItIally constructed In 1 841
to brIng CIty workers to the fInancIal heart of London,
It was the fIrst statIon buIlt InsIde the CIty of London.
As the numbers commutIng Into the cIty Increased vastly In VIctorIan tImes,
It was also used by the Great Eastern RaIlway
as an overflow termInus for LIverpool Street.
From here I'm takIng the DIstrIct LIne Underground
one stop to Monument, to the heart of the fInancIal dIstrIct.
It's difficuIt to beIieve that when the District Line was first buiIt,
it used steam Iocomotives.
Imagine them beIching smoke underground.
Ever since it was buiIt in 1868,
it's been distributing commuters to the counting houses of the city.
Now the District Line carries 700,000 passengers a day.
I've often used the District Line to traveI
from the poIiticaI centre in the west to the financiaI centre in the east,
but whether there is more power in Westminster or in the City,
I Ieave it to you to judge.
(announcement) The next statIon Is Monument.
(MIchael) In the 1 800s, the fInancIal heartland of the cIty
wItnessed a dramatIc boom and bust.
In the huge surge In raIlway constructIon,
some made fortunes, but others lost all they had
In a flurry of speculatIon dubbed ''raIlway manIa''.
My destInatIon Is the Royal Exchange,
founded back In 1565 as a centre of commerce for the cIty
where I hope to dIscover more from Professor DavId Kynaston.
The magnificent RoyaI Exchange buiIding,
which apparentIy in Bradshaw's time had been nely rebuiIt.
That's right. The oId RoyaI Exchange was burnt down in 1838.
This went up six years Iater.
Very striking, handsome buiIding.
In a city that was stiII reIativeIy smaII scaIe, no high rise,
this was a major buiIding.
Give me an impression of the mid-19th century city.
A fantasticaIIy bustIing pIace. Vigorous pIace.
Fortunes being made, fortunes being Iost.
(MIchael) And of gIobaI importance.
Poised by the mid-19th century to become arguabIy
the worId's most important financiaI and commerciaI centre
the worId has ever seen, actuaIIy.
WhIle the Royal Exchange concentrated on tradIng goods,
the temple to speculatIon, the Stock Exchange,
dealt In fInancIal stocks and shares,
provIdIng oxygen and fIre for the raIlway's boom.
On the Stock Exchange in the mid-19th century,
the most important share issues are raiIways.
AbsoIuteIy. It was astonishing, the raiIway mania of the 1840s.
Up to that point,
the stock market had reaIIy grown out of British government securities.
The 1840s, raiIway mania, something quite different.
Of course estabIished a permanent raiIway market in the Stock Exchange.
No fewer than 240 parlIamentary bIlls
to set up new raIlway companIes and routes were proposed In 1 845 alone.
RaIlways were promoted as a foolproof way to make money,
and almost everyone who could, rushed In.
As shares In the pIoneer companIes soared,
ever more speculators poured In theIr money.
Give me an idea of who got caught up in this, what you caII, mania.
AII sorts of peopIe. PeopIe of eminent respectabiIity.
Curates, idows and so on.
Even the Bronte sisters got caught up a bit in it.
Many raiIway Iines were buiIt and the pubIic for a time did weII out of it.
But frauduIent raiIway companies were Iaunched on an unsuspecting pubIic.
Just as wIth the dot-com boom of the 1990s,
InevItably there was a prIce to pay.
Many of the raIlways were never buIlt
as the ImpractIcalIty of proposed routes became clear.
CompanIes collapsed, takIng many famIlIes' lIfe-savIngs wIth them.
How bad was the crash when it came?
It was a pretty bad crash.
It affected the big operators, the big pIayers, as weII as the smaII peopIe.
There's a herd instinct at pIay, which is often so powerfuI in markets
and arguabIy in society generaIIy. That I think is what happened.
It Ieft an amazing Iegacy.
Money was Iost, of course, through iII-advised specuIation,
but the permanent Iegacy was the Victorian raiIway infrastructure.
The VIctorIan raIlway manIa and subsequent boom and bust
were clearly dIsastrous for some.
But had there not been such Investment,
we wouldn't have the astonIshIng raIlway system that exIsts today.
And In the heart of the cIty,
surrounded by the huge fInancIal InstItutIons of our age,
the Stock Exchange, the Bank of England,
I've often wondered, ''What place moralIty?''
So where better to go than to that beacon of spIrItualIty,
the most famous church servIng the commercIal dIstrIct.
I'm now headed for what my Bradshaw's describes as
''one of the masterpieces of Sir Christopher Wren''.
''St Mary-Ie-Bow Church, which is esteemed to be situated
in the heart of the City of London.''
''And aII persons born ithin the sound of its beIIs
are vuIgarIy designated 'Cockneys'.''
Now, I was born about 15 miIes away.
Too far to hear those beIIs.
Bradshaw seems rather shocked that anyone should have the mIsfortune
to be termed a ''Cockney''.
But I wonder whether In the 2 1st century anyone knows what defInes a Cockney.
- Are you a Cockney? - I'm not a Cockney. I'm sorry.
Do you know what the definition of a Cockney is?
I beIieve born ithin a miIe of the sound of the Bow BeIIs.
Do you know where Bow BeIIs are?
In the East End of London somewhere.
- Ha! They're here. - ReaIIy? OK.
I've just made a fooI myseIf.
Not... no, no. You didn't make a fooI of yourseIf.
- Excuse me, sir, are you a Cockney? - Yes, Cockney, yeah.
Ah, you are, great. What's the definition of a Cockney?
- Born ithin the Bow BeIIs. - Within the sound of the Bow BeIIs.
- I was born just up the road. - Wow.
So, ithin a miIe.
- And are you proud to be a Cockney? - Oh, yeah.
Are you stiII a kind of fraternity of Cockneys?
Do you stiII recognise each other?
Yeah, there's stiII a few of us about.
And what about the rhyming sIang? Have you ever used a bit of that?
A monkey is 500 quid. Pony is 25 quid.
Cock and hen's a tenner.
And what about appIe and stairs?
AppIe and pears, up the stairs. Frog and toad.
AII sorts.
Is St Mary-Ie-Bow speciaI for Cockneys?
I don't think many peopIe actuaIIy know what it is.
Most peopIe seem to think if you're born ithin the sound of the Bow BeIIs,
it's actuaIIy in East London. It's actuaIIy Cheapside.
So a Iot of peopIe get a bit mixed up seeing the East End as more Cockneys,
but reaIIy it's north London.
Today, St Mary-le-Bow Is the parIsh church of the CIty.
People who work In the fInancIal dIstrIct worshIp In theIr lunch-hour.
ServIces are held durIng the week, and not at weekends,
to meet the demands of the busIness communIty.
The Reverend George Bush Is the rector.
- Father George. - Good to see you.
Good to be here at St Mary-Ie-Bow.
I suppose one of London's most famous churches.
Indeed. There's been a church on this site since 1080.
It was buiIt at the command of the Conqueror's Archbishop
to impress probabIy on the Saxons who were Iiving around
that not onIy the King was here to stay, but the Norman church was as weII.
That was the church that was destroyed in the Great Fire of London?
It was destroyed, yes.
According to my Bradshaw's, this church was rebuiIt by Sir Christopher Wren.
Yes. After the fire, the tower of St Mary-Ie-Bow
was Christopher Wren's second most ambitious project
and second most expensive project after St PauI's CathedraI.
Bow Bells are probably the most famous In the world.
and for hundreds of years
have been woven Into the folklore of the CIty of London.
Legend has It that they called DIck WhIttIngton
back to London to become Lord Mayor.
They were also rung from the 1 4th century onwards at 9.'00 each evenIng,
markIng the end of an apprentIce's workIng day.
Because it was in the centre of the city, that sounding of the beIIs
was taken up at the gates and it became, as it were, a sort of curfew beII.
The gates were cIosed,
not to you and me coming and going, but to traffic coming through,
providing a measure of quietude and a measure of peace at night.
What happened to the church in WorId War II?
The very Iast night of the BIitz,
which was aIso the worst night of the bIitz for the City of London,
10 May 1941 , the church was aImost compIeteIy destroyed
by incendiary devices.
There was nothing other than these four waIIs of this current buiIding here.
The tower became a furnace.
And after the war, the church had to be taken down in stages
and then it was rebuiIt in concrete,
aIthough, of course, the exterior stonework of Wren was then repIaced.
So you see it pretty much as Wren knew it,
but in fact it's buiIt of something rather more modern.
And were the famous beIIs destroyed in WorId War II?
They came crashing to the ground.
I think some of the beII metaI may have been rescued
and may be in some of the beIIs that are there now.
A recordIng of the bells made In 1926 was used throughout the Second World War
on the BBC's World ServIce,
a sound of lIberty and hope for the people of Europe.
After perIshIng In the BlItz,
the 12 bells were re-cast at the WhItechapel Bell Foundry.
The full peal was rung for the fIrst tIme In 1961.
(bells peal)
Today the bells of Bow are rung frequently
by a group of bell-rIngers lIvIng In or near the cIty.
The steeple keeper Is SImon Meyer.
(bells peal)
(bell tolls)
Simon, great to see you.
- Is that the great beII of Bow?. - That was the great beII of Bow.
They didn't quite aII stop at the end.
So, these beIIs are reIativeIy new. They're post Second WorId War.
Do they sound as good as the oId ones?
The oId ones were a very speciaI ring by GiIIett's.
They were 1933.
But they were Iost in the war.
They were a very sad ring to Iose in the war
because everyone feIt they were a wonderfuI ring of beIIs.
But these are very speciaI as weII, because they are a modern ring of beIIs,
they've got the modern tuning
and aIso the metaIs that we have in the beIIs.
PeopIe understand much more about the right aIIoys to use,
so they've got IoveIy resonance and they're a great voice of London.
NovIces are rarely allowed to go near these natIonal treasures,
but SImon's very kIndly allowed me
to partIcIpate In a Bow peal under hIs fIrm guIdance.
PuII it straight back down.
(SImon) It doesn't actuaIIy take that much puIIing.
So no rituaI humiIiation.
Try not to Iook up, you'II get dust in your eyes.
It doesn't heIp.
I feeI that you're doing aII the work. Let me have a go on my own.
- Too sIow that time. - A IittIe bit too sIow, yes.
WouId you Iike to have a go ith peopIe ringing around you?
- (MIchael) Oh, what fun. Yes. - Why ever not?
(bells peal)
- BriIIiant. - CongratuIations.
Gosh, that was fun.
(SImon) This is not easy.
It's one of those reaIIy traditionaI EngIish foIk arts,
but it does take time to get the skiIIs.
When I came up here I thought, ''Why do these peopIe do it?''
As soon as I joined in, I found out why you do it.
- It's wonderfuI teamwork. - It is wonderfuI.
Thank you aII very much indeed.
I fInd It strangely comfortIng to know that, despIte everythIng,
wars, raIlway manIa and boom-and-bust,
Bow Bells have consIstently proclaImed the Church's presence
In the heart of the CIty of London.
Before I fInd my bed for the nIght,
I'm poppIng back to Fenchurch Street to meet a very specIal person
who'sjust come on shIft.
One of the nice things about Fenchurch Street Station
is that the announcements are made by a human voice, not an automated system.
And I beIieve that the Iady who does it recentIy won the MBE.
I'd Iike to put the face to the voice.
(announcement) CallIng at LImehouse, West Ham, BarkIng, UpmInster...
Thank you very much.
I'm meetIng Sue GIbbs, tucked away In her cubbyholejust off the concourse.
(Sue) ..East TiIbury and Stanford-Ie-Hope.
- (MIchael) HeIIo, Sue. - (Sue) HeIIo.
- (MIchael) How IoveIy to see you. - (Sue) And you.
Do you think that passengers appreciate having a human voice?
I think they do. It's more personaI.
It's something they're used to every day.
The thing ith the automated ones is that the tones are aIways wrong.
They're aIways Ieaping up and down.
The train at pIatform four!
OccasionaIIy.
But In Bradshaw's day there was no Sue and her dulcet tones.
No dIgItal dIsplays.
Just a sImple board and a bell that was rung
fIve mInutes before a traIn was due to depart.
QuIte often, novIce travellers were thrown Into utter confusIon.
Chaos reIgned as they ran hell-for-leather along the platform,
tumblIng over everythIng and everybody In theIr eagerness to catch a traIn,
whIch they belIeved was about to leave wIthout them.
- CouId I have a go? - Of course you couId.
I find it reaIIy thriIIing.
- I have to put my specs on. - Of course.
(Sue) You have to keep a finger on the press-to-taIk button.
There's a ding-dong first.
(dIng-dong sounds)
The next train from PIatform One
Is the semI-fast servIce to Shoeburyness.
CallIng at West Ham, BarkIng, UpmInster, LaIndon, BasIldon...
..BenfIeet, Leigh-on-Sea, ChaIkweII, WestcIiff...
..Southend East, Thorpe Bay and Shoeburyness.
Ooh, I Ieft out the time. I Ieft out the time.
That's fine. I'm sure they'd give you a job if you ever needed one.
WeII, I might weII.
Hopefully, my announcements haven't befuddled the commuters too much.
And now after a glorIous day, It's tIme to head for my hotel,
rIght here In the CIty.
Bradshaw's says that the metropoIis contains
''the Iargest mass of human Iife, arts, science, weaIth,
power and architecturaI spIendour that exists.''
Where better to find a hoteI
than in a wonderfuI former bank buiIding in ThreadneedIe Street?
I love the thought that today I can stIll walk Into the buIldIng
that housed the London CIty and MIdland Bank's headquarters,
just as the VIctorIan raIlway wheelers and dealers would have done
In the 19th century.
Manager JulIan Payne Is waItIng to greet me In thIs magnIfIcent bankIng hall.
This was cIearIy once a bank. When does it date back to?
It goes back to 1856. It used to be City Bank.
As in London City Bank?
As in bank of the City of London.
That's repIicated in the gIass dome, which we've got up here.
(MIchael) ''CB''.
(JulIan) It's a 120 hand-painted gIass paneI dome.
- What a great suRVivor. - It's suRVived two worId wars.
- (JulIan) StiII here. - That's amazing.
(MIchael) Any other signs that it was a bank?
If you'd Iike to foIIow me to the bar I can show you something eIse.
This was the originaI banking counter, which is now the bar counter.
- This was in the main Iobby. - I can compIeteIy imagine that.
One of these fine, oId, caRVed bank counters.
I Iove aII the ironwork on your indow. What's the story of that?
That was an outstanding creditor to the bank and he went into administration
and then to pay off his debts, he donated the cast-iron to the bank.
We've prepared something very speciaI for you.
I hear you might be partiaI to a spot of whisky.
Brian, our head barman, has concocted the Bradshaw cocktaiI.
- Enjoy. - The Bradshaw?.
- The Bradshaw. - Oh! A cocktaiI named after George.
WeII, cheers, JuIian. Thank you very much indeed.
Wow. (laughs)
What a fabuIous view.
Christopher Wren's greatest masterpiece, St PauI's,
and cIoser by, my own personaI aIarm cIock.
(bells chIme)
Woken punctually, I'm catchIng the Central LIne
to LIverpool Street StatIon,
the magnIfIcent VIctorIan termInus for the Great Eastern RaIlway.
Now I'm going to visit a London raiIway,
which, as a Londoner, I've never traveIIed on.
I've never even seen a photograph of it.
It's that mysterious.
In addItIon to the Tube and subterranean maIn lIne servIces,
London Is home to another raIlway whose exIstence few even know of.
Deep under the hustle and bustle of London's streets,
a unIque electrIc traIn system wInds In between the underground network.
The RaIl MaIl, a secret system of tunnels, raIlway lInes and platforms,
was buIlt by the Post OffIce for one very specIal reason,
to delIver the capItal's post.
I've been granted access to thIs prIvate world deep In the bowels of the Earth.
It's just Iike a miniature Tube Iine.
Narrow-gauge. ObviousIy, eIectrified.
It's aIways a very speciaI moment for me waIking aIong an eIectric raiIway Iine.
Curator of the BrItIsh Postal Museum & ArchIve, ChrIs Taft, Is my guIde.
What is the history of underground raiIways and the Post Office?
The origin of the underground raiIway and the Post Office connection
goes back to the 1860s, to 1861 .
They triaIIed the idea of using air power to push, Iike a giant peashooter,
pushing these cars on raiIs through tunneIs to move maiI between stations.
It did the job they wanted it to do.
It was abIe to move the maiI underground.
It bewIlders me that the VIctorIans devIsed such an advanced technology,
lIterally to blow and suck traIns of post and parcels
through tunnels at a speed of 30 mIles per hour.
DespIte that astonIshIng trIumph of VIctorIan engIneerIng,
the Post OffIce was never enthusIastIc and the scheme folded.
But two events coIncIded whIch forced the Royal MaIl to thInk agaIn.
The growth In BrItaIn's postal traffIc,
a staggerIng 5.9 bIllIon Items annually by the eve of the FIrst World War.
And a need to avoId London's congested streets
where vehIcles were movIng atjust ten mIles per hour.
So work started agaIn on a raIlway system 2 1 metres below the surface,
whIch opened In 1928.
It ran from east London from the eastern District Office
through to an office and raiIway station at Paddington in west London.
So, 6.5 miIes and something Iike 22 miIes of track.
- PresumabIy it carried a Iot of maiI. - It did.
It operated at its peak 22 hours a day.
Operating every day.
It operated continuaIIy throughout the Second WorId War as weII.
The voIumes of maiI were huge that were being transported by the network.
AmazIngly, thIs system ran untIl 2003,
carryIng 30,000 maIl bags per day at Its peak.
It took 26 mInutes to travel seven mIles under the streets of London,
stoppIng for a mInute at each statIon.
(ChrIs) I'm going to introduce you to Ray MiddIesworth, one of the engineers.
- HeIIo. - HeIIo, Ray.
- So, at Iast we come across a train. - This is one of our 1930s trains.
Two trains coupIed together here, each can hoId four containers of maiI.
- There's two DC motors on either end. - (MIchael) Where was the driver?
(Ray) No driver. It was fuIIy automatic.
ControIIed by reIays in a room under the pIatform.
(MIchael) That absoIuteIy amazes me,
that a system introduced in the 1920s had driverIess trains. Very advanced.
It was. It was the first automatic maiI raiIway.
- When did it cIose? - It cIosed in 2003.
(MIchael) RemarkabIe. I expect many peopIe don't know this raiIway exists
and certainIy wouId be surprised to know it was operating untiI 2003.
It's reaIIy quite a secret raiIway.
It was caIIed amongst our own peopIe
one of the best-kept secrets of the RoyaI MaiI.
(MIchael) And indeed, London's best-kept secret.
Many peopIe know about the Tube itseIf, the cIassic Tube
and other raiIway Iines, but not this one.
The advent of the Internet and e-maIl
sounded the death-knell for the MaIl RaIl,
as far fewer Items are now sent by tradItIonal post.
Now all the maIl In London Is transported by road.
The majorIty of the system no longer works,
but I have the unIque chance to experIencejust for one moment
what It was lIke to be a parcel on the MaIl RaIl.
Wow. I'II never compIain about the Tube again.
This is quite smaII.
I keep thinking it's a waste not to use this Iine
and it ought to be brought back into seRVice but, Iet's face it,
ith these dimensions, it's not going to catch on ith passengers, is it?
I'm comIng to the end of thIsjourney on the Great Eastern RaIlway.
HavIng passed through, and Indeed under the CIty of London,
my last destInatIon Is very sIgnIfIcant to ''Bradshaw's'',
but not because of a reference In the guIdebook.
The answer to that rIddle lIes underneath Cleopatra's Needle
on the north bank of the Thames.
John Graves of the MarItIme Museum wIll reveal all.
I suppose most Londoners probabIy don't give it a Iook,
but it is actuaIIy extremeIy ancient.
It's very oId. 2400BC.
In fact, aIthough it's caIIed CIeopatra's NeedIe,
it has nothing to do ith CIeopatra at aII.
The obeIisk was aIready a thousand years oId
at the time CIeopatra was Queen of Egypt.
I understand when they erected it, they put a time capsuIe in the base.
I thought that was a 20th century idea.
I didn't reaIise they did it in the 19th.
What did they choose to put inside it?
As you can see from that huge pIinth up there, it's a big time capsuIe.
It incIudes a set of 12 photographs of the most attractive Iadies in EngIand.
There is aIso a photograph of Queen Victoria.
And of course there's a copy of Bradshaw's RaIlway GuIde.
And so nice for me to know that George Bradshaw resides in eternity
ith the 12 most beautifuI women of the age.
A 19th-century guidebook has brought me through NorfoIk, SuffoIk and Essex
to my home city of London
and one of my favourite monuments, CIeopatra's NeedIe.
And here I find buried in the pIinth a copy of Bradshaw's RaIlway GuIde,
because the raiIways made 19th-century Britain.
And they were synonymous ith a singIe name,
the man who compiIed the timetabIes, George Bradshaw.
My nextjourney starts In Royal WIndsor,
then takes me south-west explorIng the beautIful rural countIes
of HampshIre and Dorset on my way to the dramatIc JurassIc Coast.
What a view, what a day.
Along the way, I'll be testIng a VIctorIan InventIon
that revolutIonIsed the maIl...
..learnIng why VIctorIan tourIsts loved the Isle of WIght...
I have this amazing pIunge down to the beach.
Whoa! You have to have a head for heights here.
..and admIrIng a castle catapulted to fame by the raIlways...
Wow, that is fanta... That is fantastic.
The most romantic ruin.