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.
My Bradshaw's is now guiding me across northern EngIand.
The castIes that I've seen recentIy
remind us of the Iong wars between the Scots and the EngIish.
I'm now going to visit the very icon of that enmity.
For, as even recent history has shown us,
ruIers who want to maintain separation between peopIes buiId waIIs.
On today's leg of thejourney,
I'll be gettIng down and dIrty In a Roman barracks...
- WeII, I am your sIave. Back to work. - Back to work. Quite right.
..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 sIoly. - You're weIcome.
- Isn't that a beautifuI thing? - Aye.
I started thIsjourney In BerwIck-upon-Tweed
and I'm travellIng south-west across the shoulder of England
and wIll end my trIp by crossIng the IrIsh Sea to the Isle of Man.
Today's leg of thejourney begIns at Bardon MIll on hIstorIc HadrIan's Wall
and takes me through CumbrIa's breathtakIng landscape
to the IndustrIal town of WIgton.
My Bradshaw's says
that Hadrian's WaII is nearIy 700 miIes Iong from sea to sea.
I'm afraid that's wrong by about a factor of ten.
It's much shorter than that.
Bradshaw's goes on to say that ''it was buiIt by the Roman conquerors of Britain
to secure themseIves from the troubIesome savages beyond''.
Scottish viewers may ish to quarreI ith the accuracy of that, as weII.
HavIng studIed hIstory at unIversIty,
I've always been drawn to BrItaIn's Roman past.
So, I'm alIghtIng at Bardon MIll on the HadrIan's Wall Country LIne,
32 mIles from Newcastle,
to see the IconIc barrIer between warrIng populatIons
whIch stretches back two mIllennIa.
If you Iove history as I do, you adore Hadrian's WaII.
The Emperor Hadrian was facing rebeIIions in Libya and Egypt.
How history repeats itseIf.
He thought he might at Ieast Iimit his probIems
by buiIding a waII to keep out the CaIedonians.
It runs from coast to coast.
It was 1 1ft high.
It had ditches. It had a castIe every miIe.
It had fortresses big enough to hoId 1 7,000 troops.
Four Iegions buiIt it in eight years.
It was the most fantastic engineering project.
You have to be impressed.
And you have to be depressed
that so much effort was put into keeping two peopIes separate.
The VIctorIans, wIth theIr new-found freedom to travel on traIns,
loved to vIsIt ancIent sItes.
One of theIr favourIte destInatIons was the Roman garrIson fort of VIndolanda
where they Indulged theIr passIon for the new craze of archaeology.
I've followed In theIr footsteps
and I'm meetIng sIte dIrector PatrIcIa BIrley.
I've just come from Hadrian's WaII.
How does the fort here reIate to Hadrian's WaII?
WeII, you're standing a miIe south of Hadrian's WaII here, MichaeI.
There were forts Iike VindoIanda
about every seven to eight miIes aIong the Stanegate Road.
It was to protect the road for traveIIers, trade and so forth,
and make a frontier, reaIIy.
The arIstocracy had habItually undertaken the Grand Tour of Europe,
explorIng the RenaIssance and classIcal antIquItIes.
From the early 1 800s,
the BrItIsh started to take an Interest In theIr own Roman hIstory.
Archaeology Increased Its appeal and the VIctorIans realIsed
that there were treasure troves to be explored wIthIn theIr own country.
However, theIr methods of excavatIon were somewhat basIc.
We have a term for it in the north of EngIand.
We caII it ''howking'', which is digging a hoIe to find something.
Having said that,
the antiquarian excavators did try to record everything that they were doing
and indeed gave papers
to the nely-formed Iiterary and phiIosophicaI
and archaeoIogicaI societies that were springing up.
That was the start of what we wouId caII modern archaeoIogy.
The fIrst tourIst group to vIsIt VIndolanda arrIved In 1 849.
TheIr only access to the sIte was on a far-from-luxurIous IndustrIal raIlway.
ThIs wagon-way had been buIlt to carry stone from the quarrIes.
Our first piIgrims got in the, I hope, cIeaned-out wagons.
And the wagons stopped just on the hiIIside beyond us there.
The piIgrims got out
and they had a good Iook around and had their no doubt IittIe taIk.
And then got back into the wagons and away they went,
back down to the nely-opened raiIway Iine,
which must have been very exciting.
It brings a wonderfuI picture to mind.
These earnest Victorians in partiaIIy cIeaned-out stone wagons
arriving to pay tribute to this site.
The popularIty of hands-on archaeology
rose throughout the 19th and 20th centurIes,
leadIng to Improved understandIng of HadrIan's Wall,
mIlItary hIstory and Roman BrItaIn.
I've moved to the sIte of the modern-day excavatIons of the fort of VIndolanda
to meet archaeologIst JustIn Blake.
- Justin, heIIo. - HeIIo.
- MichaeI. - Nice to meet you.
What is it you're excavating here?
(JustIn) We're right in the middIe of a barrack room
that was buiIt in our earIy third-century fort of VindoIanda.
This is where eight men wouId have sIept overnight,
cooked meaIs, sociaIised together.
And, I wouIdn't be at aII surprised,
moaned about Iife on the northern frontier up to a point, as weII.
What do we know from what you've discovered?
(JustIn) We know that they've been using oIive oiI.
At the back end of Iast week, we found a beautifuI neck from an oIive oiI jar,
which is this one here.
So we've got that the handIe over there and part of the spout.
It's a huge, gIobuIar bol. UsuaIIy they hoId about 50 or 80 Iitres of oIive oiI.
- LoveIy thick cIay, isn't it? - It reaIIy is.
It's been imported from south Spain.
It's traveIIed quite a Iong way to get to VindoIanda.
Best of aII, we know that they've been pIaying games and sociaIising.
Just this morning, we found a wonderfuI IittIe bIack gIass gaming counter.
You found that this morning?
It came out about ten minutes before you arrived to see us.
I can't resIst a lIttle dIg myseIf,
just In case another Roman treasure lurks below the surface.
OK.
I hope you've pIanted some gem that I can find here.
To encourage me.
It's one of the wonderfuI things about archaeoIogy.
You never know what's going to be underneath the soiI.
You've been finding pieces of these peopIe's Iives.
- What impression do you have? - It's Iike modern society.
It's a huge spectrum of different peopIe doing aII manner of different jobs.
You get very different impressions in each IittIe bit that you dig in.
I am your sIave. Back to work.
Back to work. Quite right, as weII.
It's back to the tracks.
Though thankfully, not In a horse-drawn mIneral wagon
as my VIctorIan forerunners would have done.
One of the things that the Romans found attractive about northern EngIand
was its weaIth of mineraIs.
My Bradshaw's refers to
''mineraI specimens that may be procured in the caves,''
and aIso refers to the Iarge Iead mines which aIso produced siIver and copper.
Of course, in the 19th century,
these mineraIs couId onIy be expIoited successfuIIy using the raiIways.
LeavIng HadrIan's Wall behInd, I'm headIng west to HaltwhIstle,
to make thejourney to Alston In CumbrIa and the South Tynedale RaIlway.
ThIs branch lIne was key to transportIng the coal, lead and other mInerals
mIned In the area.
But at the beautIfully restored statIon,
I'm takIng a moment to InvestIgate a clever InventIon
that was to change the way we travel on traIns.
One ticket on your IoveIy raiIway, pIease.
(vendor) That'II be £6, pIease.
(MIchael) Thank you very much.
Now, that is what I caII a raiIway ticket.
AII my young Iife, that's what a raiIway ticket Iooked Iike.
It wasn't orange and it wasn't made of paper.
It was just a IoveIy bit of card Iike that.
What was the history of these tickets?
Apparently, a revolutIonary tIcket system was Introduced In thIs area.
South Tynedale lIne enthusIast Tom Bell wIll show me Its sImple brIllIance.
Why is it caIIed the Edmondson system?
Thomas Edmondson was appointed station agent at Brampton
by the NewcastIe and CarIisIe RaiIway when it opened in 1836.
Brampton's cIose to here?
It's about 20 miIes from here
and it's on the main Iine of the company that buiIt this branch Iine.
So, what's the great breakthrough about this system?
WeII, first of aII, if you Iook at this ticket,
you'II see that it has a seriaI number printed on.
The first thing he did was design a system
to seriaIIy number aII the tickets from one to 9,999.
That meant that you couId actuaIIy print tickets
for one station to every destination that peopIe wanted to traveI.
You had the price. You had the cIass.
You had whether it was aduIt or chiId or singIe or return.
PrIor to thIs InventIon,
raIlways Issued handwrItten tIckets, as stagecoach operators had done.
But they'd had only haIf a dozen passengers.
WIth hundreds of people usIng the boomIng raIlways,
the IntroductIon of the Edmondson numerIc tIcketIng system
met the modern need.
It also prevented unscrupulous clerks from lInIng theIr pockets
as they had to reconcIle daIly the cash
agaInst the unsold serIally-numbered tIckets.
The system spread rapIdly across the country
and amazIngly, served the UK's raIlways for over 150 years,
untIl the dawn of the computer age.
Now, if you have numericaI sequences,
it's pretty important to keep your tickets tidy and in order.
- Yes. - Did he aIso invent these racks?
He invented the racks.
SmaII racks for the IittIe-used destinations.
The big racks for frequentIy-used destinations.
The tickets were put in ith the Iowest number at the bottom.
Each station had a ticket assembIy Iike that.
And Iike a card shark, you deaIt from the bottom.
Very nice.
How can I heIp you today?
Can we have a famiIy ticket, pIease?
- I notice you've got a dog. - Yeah.
- WouId you Iike a dog ticket as weII? - Yes, pIease.
Let me do the dog ticket first. That's easy enough.
One dog ticket.
There we are.
- (chIld) Thank you! - Thank you!
From Its openIng In 1 852,
thIs raIlway was Important notjust for the tIcketIng system.
The lure of lead In the wIld hIlls
brought the Newcastle and CarlIsle RaIlway to Alston.
WIth the South Tyne valley also producIng large quantItIes of coal,
the arrIval of the raIlway was the catalyst for major growth In mInIng.
Today, happIly, the lIne's stIll open as a herItage narrow gauge raIlway.
It's IoveIy to be on the South TynedaIe RaiIway.
HistoricaIIy, though,
this is the raiIway that used to bring Iead from the mines.
That's right. It was buiIt to take Iead out of the North Pennines ore fieId.
My Bradshaw's aIso mentions siIver coming from those mines.
Any record of siIver?
(Tom) Yes. AIthough most of the ore was Iead and zinc,
there was a smaII amount of siIver brought out as weII.
In the VIctorIan age, lead had become a very Important commodIty
for the productIon of pIpIng, roofIng and paInt.
The lead mInes brought jobs and prosperIty to the area.
The raIlway began to transport both the ore
and the populatIon drawn to the valley.
It used to take a fair number of passengers.
It aIso was very earIy in the tourist industry.
The North Eastern RaiIway ran speciaI trains after Easter up to AIston
for peopIe to rent cottages for the summer.
We are running through some beautifuI countryside.
It's known as EngIand's Iast iIderness.
But if you Iook around, the Iandscape's entireIy man-made.
It's been man-made since Roman times,
but mainIy by the Iead miners since the 1 7th century.
It's tIme to retIre for the evenIng.
I'm headed for the small vIllage of GIlsland
on the edge of the Northumberland NatIonal Park,
sItuated hard upon HadrIan's Wall.
As the VIctorIans began to travel by traIn, they needed places to stay.
''Bradshaw's'' contaIns recommendatIons for the weary tourIst.
Where to spend such a pretty evening?
Bradshaw's has the answer.
''GiIsIand Spa.''
''A good suIphur spring which issues from a cIiff in the gIen
at the back of Shaw's exceIIent hoteI.''
The hoteI has changed shape and name,
but I bet the spring's stiII there.
To compete agaInst theIr rIvals,
VIctorIan hotels lIked to offer health experIences,
and the sulphur sprIngs fItted the bIll perfectly.
My guIde Is local hIstorIan WIll HIggs.
WeII, this is the fountain to which the suIphur water has now been piped.
AIthough that was quite a Iong time ago.
UnfortunateIy, the pipe seems to be getting bIocked
and it's pretty weII dried up.
You can certainIy smeII the stuff.
(exclaIms) That's terribIe. Rotten eggs.
- It's deIicious. - (laughs)
And that's not the only attractIon of the hotel.
Deep In the dreamy glens,
a rather suggestIve-shaped boulder called the PoppIng Stone
entIced the straIt-laced VIctorIan tourIsts
to cast asIde theIr InhIbItIons.
WeII, here it is. The famous Popping Stone.
Legend has it that this is the spot where WaIter Scott proposed to his ife,
CharIotte Carpenter.
It seems to have had associations ith courtship and possibIy even fertiIity.
- What did the Victorians make of that? - They had pIenty of fun.
CertainIy the hoIidaymakers who came here on the train
frequentIy made a beeIine for the Popping Stone
and had their photographs taken on it.
I've got a picture postcard here from 1910,
shoing a very smart chap ith a Iady,
sitting on the stone, much as it is today.
There's more to this photograph.
It gives us a IittIe hint of what's at the heart of the hoteI's aIIure.
If you Iook at the inscription on the back...
(MIchael) Er... Yes.
Mr Bonar and Mrs WiIson.
What was Mr Bonar doing ith Mrs WiIson on the Popping Stone?
They seem to Iook rather shifty as weII, if you Iook.
Oh! It's a pIace for dirty weekends. I hope they came by train.
You may have gathered that I Iove Victorian raiIway architecture.
It's a beautifuI summer's morning. What better time to see a viaduct?
I'm rejoInIng the lIne at HaltwhIstle statIon In Northumberland,
travellIng past the fabulous Roman mIlecastle of Poltross Burn,
on my way west towards CarlIsle.
This countryside is simpIy stunning.
It's so beautifuI.
O, to be in EngIand, now that summer's here.
And to be on a train.
Discussing this beautifuI Iandscape,
Bradshaw's refers to the stunning views and to the ravines.
This was not easy territory for earIy Victorian raiIway buiIders.
Nothing was going to sIow them in their progress.
I'm heading to the viaduct at WetheraI,
a pIace that Bradshaw's says ''is pIeasantIy situated on the Eden.''
Having seen Stephenson's viaduct on the River Tweed,
the remarkabIe thing about WetheraI is that it's much oIder.
SurprIsIngly for such a small, rural communIty,
the vIllage of Wetheral entered the raIlway age very early, In the 1 830s.
The Newcastle to CarlIsle LIne, lInkIng the east and west coasts of BrItaIn,
needed a spectacular pIece of pre-VIctorIan engIneerIng
to straddle the dauntIng 100ft gorge over the RIver Eden.
That Indeed Is what they got.
And now we cross the fantastic viaduct.
The driver has sIowed right down to give us a view.
We are so high above the river.
Isn't that spectacuIar?
- Driver! - How are we doing?
Wanted to thank you for going sIoly over the viaduct.
- Isn't that a beautifuI thing? - It's beautifuI, aye.
We had a wonderfuI view. It's a beautifuI piece of architecture.
It is beautifuI.
You haven't got a spare book, have you?
There we are. There's Bradshaw's. You can touch it.
Bye, driver. Thank you.
Thank you. Bye.
Completed In 1 834,
the Eden or Wetheral vIaduct
was one of the fIrst raIlway vIaducts to be buIlt In BrItaIn.
It's a notable early archItectural trIumph,
buIlt four years before VIctorIa came to the throne.
It lInked not only the burgeonIng cItIes of Newcastle and CarlIsle,
but also the vIllages on opposIte sIdes of the rIver,
Wetheral and Great Corby.
I'm hopIng that no less a personage than the mayor of CarlIsle, Barry Earp,
can tell me more.
Barry, weII met.
WeIcome to WetheraI. LoveIy to have you.
Ordinary Victorians must have thought it spectacuIar.
It's a great engineering achievement and a thing of beauty.
It was a thing of beauty.
PeopIe used to come from CarIisIe for day-trips out.
They enjoyed the river trip across to Great Corby
and then waIked across the viaduct, back into WetheraI.
Locals, meanwhIle,
were sIdesteppIng the cost of a ferry to travel between the two vIllages
and rIskIng lIfe and lImb to walk across the vIaduct
In 1 85 1, the raIlway was forced to buIld a walkway at the sIde of the track
whIch Is stIll In use today.
But there was a catch.
The waIkway over the viaduct cost the peopIe a ha'penny
in the oId L.s.d coinage.
It was a ha'penny there and a ha'penny back.
This started in 1851
and continued untiI 1956,
by which time the cost had gone up to a penny each way.
The toll was fInally scrapped In the late 1950s.
But Wetheral StatIon has another claIm to fame.
DespIte beIng closed In the BeechIng cuts of 1967,
Barry and the parIsh councIl succeeded In havIng It reopened In 1981.
I have to comment that your station is deIightfuI. WetheraI Station.
Not Ieast this fantastic bridge.
I'm so pIeased to see it open.
WetheraI was a groing viIIage and had more and more peopIe Iiving here.
And, of course, it is onIy a very short distance into CarIisIe.
It was a Iot easier and cheaper in actuaI fact to use the train.
It's always extremely cheerIng
to hear about the reopenIng of a statIon once consIgned to hIstory.
All credIt to Barry and hIs colleagues for campaIgnIng hard.
Now I'm on the last leg of today'sjourney, to CarlIsle,
to catch the CumbrIan Coast LIne to the market town of WIgton.
- Bye-bye! - AIright.
WeII, after aII that beautifuI open countryside,
CarIisIe feeIs Iike a big pIace.
It's where I'm changing train.
WeII, this is an extraordinariIy crowded train.
I'II have to stand here and teII you that I'm headed for Wigton,
which my Bradshaw's GuIde teIIs me has print and dye works.
Now, I have a feeIing that those works are no Ionger there.
But I'm interested to see what happens in Wigton today.
(announcement) We are now approachIng WIgton.
Why is the train so crowded?
- It's the first train to CarIisIe. - There's onIy one in three hours.
This is the first train from CarIisIe this morning.
That's why it's overcrowded.
It's not usuaIIy as bad as this, to be truthfuI.
OK.
UsuaIIy you can go up and down the train.
It's been a very intimate experience.
(laughs) I'II say!
I can onIy apoIogise.
- Thank you. - Not a probIem.
I apoIogise.
No, no. Not at aII. We enjoyed it, actuaIIy.
It was fun.
Bye.
The VIctorIan era saw some of the most Important InnovatIons
of the last two centurIes.
From the lIghtbulb to effectIve anaesthesIa and plastIc.
Invented by EnglIshmen Alexander Parkes In 1 856,
the fIrst synthetIc plastIc, ParkesIne,
was demonstrated at the World FaIr In London.
It was derIved from cellulose,
and began an Industry that would radIcally change the way we lIve.
WIgton,just east of CarlIsle,
was strugglIng at the end of the 19th century
as Its tradItIonal IndustrIes declIned.
But another unIque InventIon from the use of cellulose came to Its rescue
as engIneerIng specIalIst Roy CrosthwaIte Is goIng to explaIn.
What was the industriaI history of Wigton?
WeII, the industry was based around tanneries and dye works for cotton,
which has one of the principaI products produced in Wigton at the time.
You now produce something compIeteIy different.
We do indeed.
We actuaIIy manufacture ceIIophane and poIypropyIene fiIms on this site.
CeIIophane's been produced since 1933.
What's the raw materiaIs for that?
Wood puIp is the principaI raw materiaI,
which was brought in by steam trains down these very Iines.
DurIng the 19th and early 20th century, synthetIcs were In theIr Infancy.
It was a perIod of experImentatIon.
Inkwells, cutlery handles and the very earlIest gramophone records
all pushed the boundarIes of synthetIc productIon,
wIth the records, rather revoltIngly,
beIng made from mIxed beetle excretIons and powdered mInerals.
WhIlst these InnovatIons were useful enough,
plastIcs and what would become cellophane
dIdn't really take off untIl the 20th century.
(man) You'II put on your pIastic raincoat. Put up your pIastic hood.
Wait. It's stopped now.
Open your pIastic bag
to see if that pIastic hood has messed up your hairdo.
Roy's company specIalIses In food and product wrappIng
and Is the largest employer In WIgton.
ThIs company and town have boomed on the back of InventIon.
But It was the ease of movement offered by the raIlway,
IncludIng a set of sIdIngs runnIng Into the heart of the factory,
that allowed an Isolated CumbrIan town to compete globally.
And it's because of the raiIway, in fact, that we actuaIIy had the factory.
We brought in raw materiaIs.
Our product was exported or shipped out by train.
So it was quite significant.
Without this, there's no doubt there'd be no factory.
One of the company's key products Is cellophane,
whIch was Invented In 1908 and Is now used worldwIde In packagIng.
It's made from cellulose vIscose,
whIch, to my surprIse, Is derIved from wood pulp.
So, here is the most interesting part of the process.
We've manufactured the viscose.
It's then pumped in through the sIop dye into a bath of suIphuric acid,
when, hey presto...
..it hits the acid and forms the fiIm.
This fiIm iII then be drawn off and fed down the casting machine,
where the suIphur is washed out, and it forms into ceIIuIose.
It's as simpIe as that.
(laughs) As simpIe as that.
I mean, I see this product every day of my Iife.
It's never occurred to me to think about how it's made.
(Roy) AbsoIuteIy.
The cellophane made here wIll be found on everyday consumer products,
from chocolates to perfume, cheese to teabags.
I saw the wood puIp at the beginning. A IoveIy naturaI resource.
Of course, the food wrappings come out of the other end
and very often, they're part of Iitter in our society.
What can we do about that?
We have deveIoped a product recentIy which is biodegradabIe.
It iII actuaIIy degrade in six weeks.
You put it in the famiIy compost heap
and in six weeks' time, it's back to nature.
I teII you, I was disappointed when I came here
that your raiIway Iines are no Ionger in use.
- You don't use the raiIways any more? - Not reaIIy.
We do pay Network RaiI a retainer,
so we have the option to use the siding some time in the future.
The company stopped usIng the raIlway for transport In the late 1960s
once the M6 motorway reached CarlIsle
and road haulage sadly proved cheaper than raIl.
But gIven that the Infrastructure stIll exIsts on the sIte,
I hold a hope that, maybe for thIs company at least,
the raIlways mIght rIse agaIn.
I've rareIy seen such unspoiIed country as on this journey.
But this terrain has aIways been made to work for man.
The Romans quarried its stone.
The Victorians mined its Iead.
Now it produces manufactured goods, incIuding some new products
that aim to be as green as this Iandscape.
When I contInue my raIlway adventure,
I'll be takIng a traIn from coast to mountaIn top...
Every now and again,
a IittIe smut hits the eye to remind you of the joys of steam traveI.
..gaInIng rare access to an Industry that dIvIdes opInIon worldwIde,
nuclear power...
And it is absoIuteIy massive.
The goIf baII itseIf is probabIy about 60 metres high.
..and beIng present at the unveIlIng
of an extremely rare Cumberland Luck.
This is, I must say, a rather emotionaI moment, isn't it?