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've embarked on a new journey across northern EngIand.
My Bradshaw's GuIde has brought me to the border Iands
where, for hundreds of years, confIict between the EngIish and the Scots
shaped the identities of both peopIes.
In the 19th century, raiIway engineers pIayed their part in bridging the guIf.
On the fIrst part of my newjourney,
I'll be seeIng how the raIlway joIned those two restless kIngdoms...
This reaIIy is the most beautifuI bridge.
..dIscoverIng an exceptIonal art class that Illustrates a bygone way of lIfe...
It's something which nobody wouId have thought of recording,
nobody has ever recorded or iII record now because it's aII vanished.
..and hearIng just how perIlous work was
on the IndustrIal raIlways of the north east.
So if it's your job to get that rope off and you happen to trip,
- what's the consequence? - You're dead.
StartIng In the border lands, thIsjourney takes me south
through some of northern England's most dramatIc scenery
to cross the PennInes and fInIsh up on the beautIful and unIque Isle of Man.
Today's stretch begIns In BerwIck-upon-Tweed.
Then I'll travel through the NorthumbrIan countrysIde to Morpeth
and the VIctorIan heartlands of the IndustrIal north east.
My first stop iII be Berwck-upon-Tweed.
My Bradshaw's GuIde says,
''Before the Act of Union, it was an important frontier town.''
''It is stiII a garrison town having a miIitary governor,
barracks and fortified waIIs.''
Berwck is a stronghoId that straddIed the fauIt Iine between warring peopIes.
Just two-and-a-haIf mIles south of the ScottIsh border,
BerwIck-upon-Tweed Is the northernmost town In England.
AstonIshIngly, It's changed hands between the EnglIsh and the Scots
at least 13 tImes In Its hIstory.
But the comIng of the raIlway In the 19th century
helped to smooth across the fault lIne of a fractIous dIvIde
to lInk two often antagonIstIc peoples.
It seems quite peacefuI. No sign of war today.
I'm headIng off to BerwIck's Tudor ramparts
buIlt In the 16th century by Queen ElIzabeth I.
WIth many CatholIc enemIes In northern England
who wanted to see her replaced by Mary Queen of Scots,
the Queen needed to control BerwIck and to contaIn Scotland.
Hence these colossal defences.
Local hIstorIan Derek Sharman
Is my guIde to one of the most complete fortIfIed towns In Europe.
Derek.
- Good morning. WeIcome to Berwck. - HeIIo.
It's been the scene of confIict
between the EngIish and the Scots for an awfuIIy Iong time, hasn't it?
My Bradshaw's says that Edward I
barbarousIy exposed the Iimbs of WiIIiam WaIIace here.
- It's been going on a Iong time. - It has indeed.
In the 13th century, Berwck was the biggest, most rich seaport in ScotIand.
So when Edward I captured the pIace, WaIIace wanted it back.
Next year he recaptured Berwck
and began 300 years of warfare between the two countries.
This confIict continued for centuries. Berwck was the key to ScotIand.
Its food suppIy, its popuIation, aII its economy.
So hoIding Berwck was hoIding the keys to ScotIand.
One of the things that reaIIy surprised me
was that Bradshaw's GuIde, taIking about the 1860s,
says that it's stiII a garrison town. Can that possibIy be true?
Oh, yes. Berwck has the first infantry barracks in the country,
buiIt at the beginning of the 18th century,
and right through untiI 1964 this was stiII a garrison town.
As an Important mIlItary town,
soldIers had been statIoned In BerwIck for centurIes,
bIlleted In people's homes.
But the burden of thIs standIng army weIghed heavIly on the town,
and as a result of complaInts, the government buIlt the barracks In 1 7 19.
It was the model for subsequent barracks across BrItaIn and Indeed the EmpIre.
And my ''Bradshaw's'' of the 1 860s
records that the town stIll had Its own mIlItary governor.
What part did the raiIways pIay?
It finaIIy cemented the two countries together.
It aIso made a great improvement to the town's economy.
By then, we'd settIed into a normaI, everyday sort of market town.
The raiIway brought great weaIth to the town again.
(MIchael) So you think the raiIway has a symboIic or cuIturaI effect?
It certainIy does. The town itseIf had been a ping-pong baII for centuries
and now it's just the centre of two great nations.
A raIlway lIne from EdInburgh to BerwIck was buIlt by ScottIsh engIneers In 1 846.
The lIne from London reached Tweedmouth on the opposIte bank of the RIver Tweed
a year later.
But fInally to unIte England and Scotland
requIred a monumental pIece of VIctorIan engIneerIng by Robert Stephenson.
The Royal Border BrIdge.
Derek, this reaIIy is the most beautifuI bridge.
My Bradshaw's says it's
''Stephenson's RoyaI Border Bridge or viaduct for the raiIway.''
''216ft Iong on 28 brick arches.''
It is a wonderfuI thing, isn't it?
What was the history of the buiIding of this bridge?
(Derek) It's the Iast Iink in what is now the East Coast Main Line.
It was finished in 1850, opened officiaIIy by Queen Victoria.
She onIy spent 12 minutes here.
She opened the centraI station in NewcastIe the same day.
The festivities there were so great that she onIy had 12 minutes Ieft.
But nonetheIess, she opened the bridge
and from this time you couId say genuineIy it was a United Kingdom.
The buIldIng of thIs majestIc structure, 38 metres above the RIver Tweed,
was the catalyst for stronger polItIcal and cultural tIes
wIth a lIne dIrectly lInkIng London to EdInburgh for the fIrst tIme.
EscapIng from the past was evIdently a conscIous feature of the project.
Derek, what's amazing to me here
is I can see the castIe waII on either side of the raiIway.
CIearIy, the raiIway was just punched straight through the oId waIIs.
(Derek) Yes. The Victorians wanted progress, not historic buiIdings.
They had pIenty of castIes and this was just one more, so it went.
We're Iooking at a waII that runs down to the river side caIIed the White WaII.
That was buiIt by Edward I in 1296 when the EngIish captured the pIace
and began these centuries of warfare.
The castle had featured In war between the EnglIsh and Scots over centurIes.
Its fortIfIcatIons had been repaIred and Improved after each devastatIng battle.
But the advent of the raIlway fInally demolIshed It,
symbolIcally sweepIng away centurIes of conflIct.
Very typicaI of the Victorians. You find it aII the time in Bradshaw's.
This absoIute confidence in progress.
And therefore, perhaps, a IittIe bit of disrespect for history.
BerwIck's very sIngular hIstory has left Its mark notjust on the landscape
but also on Its InhabItants.
So often under sIege In theIr hIstory,
BerwIckers have developed a strong and dIstInctIve IdentIty.
- HeIIo. Are you from Berwck? - I am.
I'm very interested to know.
WouId you regard yourseIf as EngIish, Scottish or Berwcker?
Berwcker.
TeII me, do you regard yourseIf as EngIish, Scottish or Berwckers?
- Berwckers. - Berwckers? Now, why wouId that be?
Because we're neither one nor the other.
- HeIIo, are you from Berwck? - Hi.
Yeah. I've Iived here aII my Iife.
Do you regard yourseIf as EngIish, Scottish or Berwcker?
Erm... EngIish, but I wouId caII myseIf Berwcker if peopIe ask.
(MIchael) Do you think peopIe who Iive here have to be pretty tough?
You do take quite a bit of beating
because you go up to ScotIand you get caIIed a Geordie,
you go further down south in EngIand, you get caIIed a Scot, but you're not.
You're on the EngIish border.
That's the way it is and the way it's aIways been.
BerwIck Is clearly shaped by Its tumultuous past.
As I leave on the raIlway that tIed together these old warrIng foes,
Scotland and England, there's one more exhIlaratIng sIght.
I'm reaIIy Iooking forward to this
because as soon as the train Ieaves Berwck-upon-Tweed station,
it's going to pass over Stephenson's magnificent RoyaI Border Bridge.
What a sensationaI view.
Just beautifuI.
I'm now headIng due south on Stephenson's East Coast MaIn LIne
through the stunnIng NorthumbrIan countrysIde.
My next stop is AInmouth.
I'm disembarking there for AInick, another garrison town.
Another wonderfuI castIe, as recommended by my Bradshaw's GuIde.
AlnwIck Castle Is the second largest In England,
and In Bradshaw's day,
the Dowager Duchess was dIstInguIshed by beIng Queen VIctorIa's former governess.
The town was nIcknamed the WIndsor of the North
because of the sheer deluge of royalty arrIvIng by traIn.
The Duke of Northumberland was buIlt
a suItably grand twIn barrelled 32,000 square foot raIlway statIon.
Sadly, AlnwIck was closed In the late 1960s.
But wonderfully for me,
a second-hand bookshop saved some of the rooms of the old statIon.
And so, to my delIght, I can step back In tIme wIth co-owner Mary Manley.
MichaeI, pIease come in.
- Thank you very much. It's IoveIy. - Thank you.
I Iove the open fire here.
(Mary) That is one of the most popuIar parts of the shop.
It's reaI and it's coaI.
It was remarked In the paper at the tIme that the statIon was
''a model of completeness and none superIor In regard to constructIon
or furnIshIng Is to be met wIth on the north-eastern sectIon''.
The fIne features of thIs VIctorIan raIlway statIon
have been affectIonately restored
to thejoy of both book lovers and raIlway enthusIasts.
I can't heIp noticing that you've got a very beautifuI train, as weII.
What's the story of that?
When we put up these book coIumns, I had to have some way of connecting them,
otherwse they Iooked Iike they were free-standing and rather IoneIy.
So I thought having a modeI train circIe around them might be an effective idea.
I have to say, peopIe Iove it. Not just chiIdren, but grown-ups.
No, I'm a grown-up and I Iove it, too.
It's just so compIeteIy in character ith what the buiIding used to be.
As well as brIngIng love and lIght back to AlnwIck StatIon,
Mary's added her own touches to honour the raIlway staff.
AII these names on the waII, what does that represent?
(Mary) They're aII the names of peopIe who we couId find
who worked in AInick Station from 1858 tiII its cIosure in 1968.
It's a famiIy. It's Iike coaIminers, reaIIy, the raiIway men.
We were very aware of the voices that go unheard in the station.
It's their voices.
(MIchael) So even though you've estabIished a bookshop,
you're very aware that it's in a station.
We're very aware of the station
and wanted to restore everything we couId to keep it aIive as that.
In fact, our bookshop has the same resonance, I think,
as a raiIway station.
AII cIasses, aII ages, stories, heIIos and goodbyes.
In the raIlway books sectIon,
whIch has become a magnet for raIl enthusIasts from all over the world,
Mary's husband Stuart has somethIng of Interest.
- HeIIo, Stuart. - HeIIo.
What are you reading there?
We have here a very earIy raiI book
of the NewcastIe to CarIisIe Iine buiIt in 1836,
and it has these wonderfuI pictures in it of the Iine just after it was buiIt.
- (MIchael) These are stunning. - (Stuart) The quaIity is terrific.
- Is the book dated? - The book is dated 1836.
(MIchael) So immediateIy the Iine has been buiIt
they bring out this beautifuI book shoing that from the earIiest days
they understood that the raiIways were a thing of beauty to be ceIebrated.
(Stuart) That's seIf-evident.
It's not just the raiIway viaducts, which are beautifuI,
but they put the scenery around them
to reaIIy show this is part of the countryside now and isn't it great?
(MIchael) From one raiIway book to another,
do you have many Bradshaw's Handbooks?
CuriousIy enough, you're entireIy to bIame for this.
There's hardIy a Bradshaw's Handbook to be had anywhere in the country.
Not onIy have we soId out, but so has virtuaIIy everyone eIse.
It's amazing.
I thInk George Bradshaw would have been humbled and rather amused to know
that over 1 70 years sInce Its fIrst publIcatIon
hIs raIlway guIdes are flyIng off the sheIf once more.
After a glorIous day, I'm headIng off to fInd my bed for the nIght
courtesy, of course, of good old George.
For my hoteI tonight, Bradshaw's mentions the White Swan.
After aII these decades, it's stiII here.
Wealthy VIctorIan and early 20th-century travellers
demanded luxury and opulence on a grand scale.
And notjust on the raIlways.
One of the most ostentatIous examples of thIs
was the TItanIc's sIster shIp, the OlympIc.
It was unsurpassed In grandeur,
havIng the fIrst swImmIng pool on a transatlantIc lIner
and a staIrcase that was saId to be somethIng beyond beautIful.
Unusually, after she was wIthdrawn from servIce In 1935,
her fIttIngs and fIxtures weren't scrapped but sold at auctIon.
The fIrst class lounge was bought for the WhIte Swan Hotel
for Its patrons'Indulgence.
What a wonderfuIIy eIegant dining room.
Tonight I can swap the pIeasures of raiIway traveI standard cIass
for the Iuxury of transatIantic cruising first cIass.
A new day, and I'm up early,
leavIng behInd the dIsputed terrItorIes of the border
of travel south to the IndustrIal heartlands of north-eastern England.
The progress of the IndustrIal RevolutIon
from the end of the 1 8th century
saw large-scale use of coal as steam engInes supplanted water wheels.
In the VIctorIan era,
steam-powered shIps and raIlways spread across the world,
and the demand for coal was at Its zenIth.
My Bradshaw's says, ''ithin a circIe of eight or ten miIes,
more than 50 important coIIieries are open,
empIoying between 10,000 to 15,000 hands.''
''The great northern fieId covers about 500 square miIes of NorthumberIand
and Durham and may be 1 ,800ft deep.''
The raiIways heIped to convert hamIets into viIIages, pit viIIages.
ThIs economIc growth based on coal
converted parts of Northumberland from agrIculture
to create one of the fIrst 19th-century IndustrIal landscapes.
(announcement) LadIes and gentlemen, servIce now arrIvIng at Morpeth.
I've left the traIn at Morpeth
to make an excursIon to the centre of the Northumberland collIerIes,
the town of AshIngton.
By the late 1 840s, as a result of the coal-mInIng Industry,
AshIngton had developed from a rural backwater
to a populatIon of over 25,000.
The raIlways also grew exponentIally,
carryIng the coal to the expandIng docks of Newcastle, Sunderland and Jarrow
on the Northumberland and Durham coasts.
In these former pit viIIages, you can taste the history of the coaI industry.
These were very tightIy-knit communities.
Miners and their famiIies
Iiving cheek-by-jol ith other miners and their famiIies.
I'm Interested to dIscover what these pItmen dId In theIr spare tIme
to escape theIr often dangerous and grImy workIng lIves at the coaIface.
I've come to the Woodhorn CollIery Museum to meet author WIllIam Feaver.
- BiII, heIIo. - HeIIo, MichaeI.
So here we are at Woodhorn CoIIiery, which is now a museum.
But describe it to me in its heyday of production.
WeII, trains of convoys of coaI wagons
going up and down, backwards and forwards.
It was Iike a great traffic junction. This was the middIe of the coaI yard.
Pithead above us where everything went down, everything came up.
Remember, coaI ran the country.
Without coaI, there wouIdn't have been any trains and nothing eIse.
No power, in effect. So this was an industriaI hub.
How wouId you describe the Iife of the miners in those days?
The Iife of a pitman was very hard at the best of times.
Apart from anything eIse, you spent most of your working Iife in the dark.
Dangerous Iife. Death was a possibiIity.
One per cent fataIities per year was considered rather a good statistic.
Think of that ith that number of peopIe working.
It was not just a hard Iife but it was a Iife in which there was no aIternative.
Ashington was a one industry pIace.
Because of that, both a great pride in the industry,
as it was a great skiIIed industry,
and a sense of, I think, being captive, Iimited by this hard drudgery.
(MIchael) The miners came together ith this sense of camaraderie,
this idea that they had to put their Ieisure time to good use.
And an idea that they wanted to make something better of their Iives.
There was a huge appetite for seIf-improvement.
This is from the Iate-19th century onwards.
The Workers' EducationaI Association,
which was a further education system, set up cIasses wherever needed.
And here the cIasses were particuIarIy active.
There's one particuIar cIass which, reaIIy, has now gone down in history.
The AshIngton Group, or PItmen PaInters as they're affectIonately known,
are specIal because they offer us a unIque vIew of mIners' lIves.
The PItmen fIrst came together In 1934 to study somethIng dIfferent.
Art apprecIatIon.
Robert Lyon, a lecturer from Durham UnIversIty, became theIr tutor.
The results of those classes now hang In the Woodhorn Museum.
Gosh.
How powerfuI, how... how extraordinary.
How very, very moving, very, very sensitive, aren't they?
So... so reaI. And these were done by pitmen.
(BIll) These were done by pitmen
and they were done starting in 1934 and going right through untiI the 1980s.
InItIally, the men paInted subjects whIch reflected theIr pastImes.
GrowIng food on theIr allotments, racIng whIppets and pIgeons.
But It soon became clear that
the greatest art would sprIng from theIr daIly workIng lIves
and IncreasIngly they paInted how It was to work In the mInes.
In those days, you hardIy took photographs underground.
If you did, they were big pIate camera type jobs and they were bIack and white.
This is underground in coIour.
It wasn't bIack and white down there.
It was brown and russet and shadowy and subtIe.
Because they worked there aII their daiIy Iives,
they couId do images which were compIeteIy unknown to peopIe outside.
This is what it was Iike in the '30s
when the second stage of jobs for someone going down the pit at age 13
wouId be to Iook after pit ponies.
Jimmy FIoyd shows a rather iIIicit thing going on,
which is feeding the pony in his break.
It's something which nobody eIse wouId have thought of recording,
nobody has ever recorded or iII record now because it's aII vanished.
The paIntIngs that survIved were collected together by the mIners
and stored In a small hut for over 30 years.
(BIll) The pictures hung together are exactIy as I think the group is.
Not individuaIs.
It's a group that echoes and re-echoes,
taIks among itseIves, back chats, Iaughs, shares the memories.
The amazing thing is that nowhere in the worId is there anything Iike this.
There's never been a working men's movement that's kept its best pictures,
kept them together and had such an extraordinary, touching,
and now historic subject.
The coaI industry is virtuaIIy gone. These pictures are here.
Sadly, the AshIngton PItmen PaInters are all dead now.
I'm moved by these paIntIngs. An unsentImental depIctIon of theIr lIves
hewIng the stubborn coal from the earth.
The very coal that powered the mIlls and the locomotIves.
To reach the last stop on thIs leg,
I must return to the maIn lIne that runs south from EdInburgh.
To leave behInd Northumberland and enter Tyne and Wear.
A quIck change at Newcastle affords me a real treat.
Now, this is one of my favourite views from a train in Britain.
Down the River Tyne between NewcastIe and Gateshead.
Isn't that fabuIous?
I often mention how the raiIways spurred the deveIopment of coaI.
But, of course, the converse was just as true.
Many of the important breakthroughs in raiI technoIogy
were made by mining engineers.
The pits were using trucks on tracks
Iong before the invention of the moving steam engine or Iocomotive.
As early as 1620,
mInes were usIng raIls and trucks wIthIn the pIts to move coal.
As the IndustrIal RevolutIon burgeoned,
the VIctorIans IncreasIngly demanded steam power for Industry and raIlways,
requIrIng huge quantItIes of coal to be moved from pIthead to dock.
One of the earlIest InnovatIons for thIs work was the rope-hauled raIlway.
I've come to the Bowes RaIlway Museum near Gateshead wIth engIneer John Young
to see the only survIvIng example In the world.
John, if I understand it, you have brought me to this spectacuIar pIace
because this is one of George Stephenson's earIy raiIway miracIes?
We're on the site of SpringweII CoIIiery.
This is the top of the hiII where the fuII wagons going down
wouId puII empty wagons up powered by gravity.
If I understand this correctIy,
this is operating by gravity and it's operating by baIance.
You've got six fuII wagons going down
and they are puIIing up six empty wagons to the summit.
Yes. A very unique system.
CouIdn't be bettered from 1826 to when it shut in '7 4.
DesIgned by George Stephenson when he was a collIery engIneer,
the rope haulage covered nIne mIles from pIthead to port.
GravIty alone allowed the full wagons to move downhIll
and, as they descended, to pull the empty ones up.
Where coal-laden trucks had to travel uphIll,
a statIonary steam-powered wInch was used.
ThIs system was saId to be so effIcIent
that the fIrst load of coal through In the mornIng
would be enough to pay the wages
of every man workIng on the raIlway that day.
This must have been a dangerous pIace to work.
Very. The death Iist for this site is in its hundreds.
Banksmen wouId have to run in front of fuII wagons to take the ropes off
and other men to run aIongside to put brakes on.
So if it's your job to run down in front of six fuIIy-Ioaded wagons of coaI
as they're gaining speed to get that rope off
and you happen to trip, what's the consequence?
You're dead.
Although the Bowes system closed In 197 4,
the technology was In operatIon much as Stephenson had desIgned It
forjust shy of 150 years.
So they're now running down just on gravity, are they?
Gravity puIIing them out. What I'm having to do is controI the rope speed.
As you can see, the rope's jumping up and down.
If you Iet it pay out under its own weight,
the wagons wouId just go out of controI and fIy off down the yard.
AII cIear!
WIthout the IngenuIty of engIneers workIng on mInIng and shIppIng coal,
It's doubtful whether the key developments of the locomotIve
and the raIlway could have evolved wIth the extraordInary speed that they dId.
The raiIway was an awesome technoIogy,
powerfuI enough to rub out borders and Iink previousIy hostiIe cuItures.
But as it stimuIated the IndustriaI RevoIution,
it created new communities based on coaI.
And they had their own distinct and ceIebrated cuItures.
On the next step of my journey,
I'll be gettIng down and dIrty In a Roman barracks...
- WeII, I am your sIave. Back to work. - Back to work. Quite right, as weII.
..dIscoverIng a small InventIon
that made a bIg dIfference to the publIc...
Let me do the dog ticket first. That's easy enough.
One dog ticket.
..and drInkIng In spectacular engIneerIng trIumphs
In the CumbrIan countrysIde.
Thank you for going so sIoly. Isn't that a beautifuI thing?
Aye.