In 1840, one man transformed travel in the British Isles.
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 of journeys across the length
and breadth of these isles to see what of Bradshaw's Britain remains.
At the halfway point,
my Scottish journey has brought me to the Highlands.
Here in the rural county of Moray, small-scale industries
based on high-quality local resources
were transformed by the railways,
and are now brand names sought out by connoisseurs across the globe.
'Today, I learn how Victorian whisky trains were raided by robbers.'
Do you think anyone's spotted us yet?
I don't think so. I'll keep an eye out.
'I traverse one of Scotland's most impressive viaducts.'
Really is a spectacular piece of architecture and engineering.
'And I discover that life isn't always sweet
'on a shortbread production line.'
Stop the conveyor belt! I want to get off!
Using my 1880s Bradshaw's, this trip started in Stirling,
passed through Perthshire, moved on to the granite city of Aberdeen
and is now taking me west to Banffshire,
thence to the classic lochs of the Highlands,
to finish at John O'Groats.
Today's leg begins in Dufftown, in north-eastern Scotland,
indulges my sweet tooth in Aberlour,
samples some luxury in Elgin,
and, via Inverness, ends in mountainous Aviemore.
My Bradshaw's has guided me onto these tracks
which are carrying me towards Dufftown, of which my book says that
"It is situated on the River Spey at the foot of a range of hills,
"the principal and centre of which is Ben Rinnes.
"A little further south lies Glenlivet."
There's the clue. I'm travelling on the most northerly heritage railway
in Britain - the Keith and Dufftown, also known as the Whisky Line.
'Although its castle, Balvenie, dates back to the 13th century,
'Dufftown was founded only in 1817, when James Duff, 4th Earl of Fife,
'decided to create a new town,
'where, following the Napoleonic wars,
'local people could find work.'
'Dufftown attracted a cluster of distilleries
'for some of the most famous names in Scotch whisky.'
'And I'm meeting senior guide Jennifer Proctor at one of them,
'Glenfiddich, to find out why.'
Jennifer, hello. Hello, nice to meet you.
Good to see you. What a stunning place.
Beautiful setting in the hills.
Why is it that great whisky is made here?
Well, pretty much from what you can see, the surrounding countryside
helps supply us with the barley that we need for the malt.
It also gives us the water that we need,
so the vital ingredients for making whisky.
Originally, this area was perfect, as well,
because of the transport links,
so there's a great deal of railways in the area
that could transport things that we didn't have here onto the site,
but it also meant that we could take the finished product
of the whisky off and then eventually transport it
all around Scotland.
And it's not just an historic thing. You're still making it today.
Yes, we are.
In 1886, founder William Grant set out to fulfil a lifelong ambition
of creating the best dram in the valley.
With the help of his seven sons and two daughters,
William built his distillery in a single year.
Their hard work was rewarded on Christmas Day 1887,
when the first drop of spirit flowed.
William named his distillery Glenfiddich,
Gaelic for Valley of the Deer.
What actually is distilling?
Well, basically what we're trying to do is refine a beer-like liquid
into a spirit that we can go on to put through the maturation process
and eventually that will become whisky.
Malted barley, water and yeast are the ingredients.
Scotch malt whisky is produced from a natural chemical alteration
of wort, a sugary liquid which is fermented in vats,
then distilled in copper stills and finally matured in wooden casks.
Would this be recognisable to a Victorian?
Yeah. I mean, it's certainly larger in terms of its scale,
but the process hasn't really changed a great deal over the years.
The railways, then. What difference did they make?
Well, essentially, all distilleries at that time
pretty much had their own sidings
and there was a lot more train lines, railway lines put in
specifically for transporting goods like whisky,
so really it was fundamental to the distilleries
that these lines were put in place.
Was there any downside to having the railways?
There were a few, yeah.
I mean, the most noticeable would have been the theft they found
that happened from the trains themselves.
Distillers, they kind of accounted for a certain amount of loss,
but the trains often were very slow,
and they would take a day or two to get from somewhere like Dufftown
down to Glasgow, where the whisky was actually going to be going to.
During that time, a lot of the time would be spent
in very remote sidings, so they were unprotected.
It was very easy for people to go and siphon off
a little bit of whisky and take it home.
Oh, I see. So they weren't taking a whole barrel,
which would be quite challenging.
No, they were just siphoning it off a cask,
usually only a very small amount,
enough for themselves, or maybe them and their friends.
It wasn't huge quantities people were taking.
I'm intrigued by these Victorian whisky thefts, and wonder whether
Ian Macdonald, Glenfiddich's master cooper, can show me how it was done.
Ian.
Hello, Michael. How are you doing?
Very well. Nice to meet you.
This is a first for me.
I don't think I've ever met a cooper before.
That's what you are, isn't it?
Yes. I'm what they term a Master Cooper.
I served a five year apprenticeship to become a craftsman.
Ian, I'm thinking about my retirement,
and I was thinking of turning to a little whisky theft in my old days,
and I've been hearing a bit about it.
How would I set about it then?
We'll remove a hoop, we'll bore a hole and remove a bung
and hopefully we can extract some of the good old whisky that way.
Great. I can't wait.
Right, well. Right.
OK, so what we'll do is just use a boring brace.
Would you like to have a shot?
Yep, let me have a shot at that.
Put a wee bit of pressure on and twist it round at the same time.
That's it.
American oak is quite a hard oak, so you do need a really sharp bit.
Do you think anyone's spotted us yet?
No, I don't think so. I'll keep an eye out. You're OK.
I can see the shavings of wood coming out.
That's right.
Whoa, we're through.
We'll create a vacuum.
Not too noisy.
Whoa, there she flows!
OK, here we go! Tilt her back.
Oh, that is magnificent!
You're spilling a bit there, Ian,
but it doesn't matter as long as we get our bottle full.
Are you paying?
OK, up you go.
Right, what do we do now to cover our crime?
Oh, no problem.
We'll just plug the hole.
Look at that.
So we'll just replace the hoop.
That's it back on. Never know.
It's as good as new, isn't it?
It's just as well you work for the forces of law and order!
Well, I'll just give you a wee souvenir.
Thank you.
Tastes all the better for being purloined.
Good.
Feeling both warm and mischievous,
I'm proceeding by road to my next destination,
the Speyside village of Aberlour.
Thomas Telford, the renowned civil engineer,
designed Craigellachie Bridge,
spanning the River Spey about two miles north,
but I'm in Aberlour for a different reason.
Bradshaw's tells me that at Craigellachie,
"the rail system divides into two, one of which runs along Strathspey,
"the valley which gives its name to a highland dance,
"passing in its route the station of Aberlour."
Well, the station no longer has any trains.
Nowadays, it's a cafe, feeding
hungry Strathspey tourists taking a short break with shortbread.
In 1898, Joseph Walker, a baker with a passion for shortbread,
borrowed £50 and opened a shop.
More than a century later, his shortbread,
a blend of flour, butter, sugar and salt, is sold in 80 countries
and its factory produces 500 million shortbreads a year.
Joseph's grandson Jim is a joint managing director.
Hello, Michael. Hello, Jim.
Welcome to Walker's, welcome. Thank you very much.
Come in, come in.
The changing room second on your left,
and we'll get togged up to go into the factory.
Jim, Scotland really is
enormously associated with shortbread, isn't it?
Why do you think that is?
Well, shortbread is one of those foods
that is synonymous with Scotland, Michael.
Scots can readily claim to have invented shortbread,
and it's really always been part of Scotland,
it's part of the heritage.
The distances here are huge, aren't they?
Yes, indeed. It seems a long way. The ovens are 60 metres long.
And does the heat vary at different places in the oven?
Yes, indeed. The heat varies right through the oven,
so we end up at the end with a nice flash of hotter temperature
to make the shortbread a nice golden brown,
because that's exactly how it should be.
I'm going to introduce you to Pauline. Pauline, hello.
Hello. Pleased to meet you. You too.
May I have a pair of gloves and then I can join in your work?
Indeed, yes.
If you take two of the trays. Two trays.
And then place three thistles in each of the compartments.
Two, three.
One, two, three.
This is like waltzing, isn't it? One, two, three.
We got an empty one there, whoa!
Sometimes its easier to do two at a time.
Oh, is it? Right. What, left hand, right hand? Exactly.
OK. Let's try the double-handed approach.
One, two... Do it simultaneously. ..three.
One, two...
..three.
They go past pretty fast, don't they, Pauline?
They do, really.
You'll be a natural.
This is a merciless process!
Stop the conveyor belt! I want to get off!
Shortbread has been attributed to Mary, Queen of Scots,
who, in the mid-16th century,
was said to be very fond of Petticoat Tails,
a thin, crisp, buttery shortbread
originally flavoured with caraway seeds.
My next task is to feed 21st century shortbread
into its wrapping machine.
The two-handed technique.
They're coming pretty fast and furious just at the moment.
Get in there! Get in there!
You've really got to keep your wits about you, haven't you? You do.
They're coming...
You've got to be one step ahead the whole time.
I'm going to have to leave a gap there. I missed a few there.
It's like that nightmare in The Sorcerer's Apprentice, isn't it,
where you unleash forces that you cannot control
and they descend relentlessly upon you.
The demands of mechanisation cannot be assuaged.
Is there anyone to take over?
Phew, what a relief. Thank you very much.
Hello.
Now this looks to me like the ultimate raw deal.
Oh!
Got to be pretty nimble.
Ah!
Thank you very much.
Oh, no!
This is definitely the worst ordeal I've been set today.
This is...
Help! Somebody, help!
Well, Jim, I really enjoyed that,
and I've done a lot of factory visits,
and I'm not trying to butter you up,
but this one really took the biscuit.
Well, that's what we're all about, Michael. Thank you.
'I've had a busy time learning about two of Scotland's
'finest Victorian products,
'and I'm hoping that at my final stop of the day
'I can sample them both.'
Ah, good evening.
Hi, there.
I see your pub's called The Mash Tun. What does that mean?
That's correct. Well, a Mash Tun is a large receptacle used
in the whisky-making industry.
It's somewhere that they used to mix up all the ingredients,
hence a good name for a pub.
And I see that you stand just behind the railway station.
Any connection with the railways?
Yeah. This used to be the station refreshment rooms, initially,
and then, obviously, once the railway station closed down in '65,
it was then renamed The Mash Tun.
After the day that I've had, could I have a glass
of your local malt whisky and a stick of shortbread, please.
Certainly.
Thank you.
There we are.
Now, do not try this at home.
Ah!
A rush of sugar, butter and alcohol.
'Refreshed and ready for the day ahead,
'I'm continuing my journey by train from my nearest station, Keith.'
'This small area of Scotland is known as the golden triangle,
'because of the pure local water which allows companies to flourish
'despite their remote location.
'Today, I'll visit another industry that also benefited greatly
'from the arrival of the railways.'
My first destination today is Elgin, which my Bradshaw's tells me is
"a borough five miles from the sea on the River Lossie.
"It contains five chapels, a prison, a library, assembly rooms,
"literary and horticultural societies, breweries,
"gas and water works, woollen factory,
"grammar school and free school."
Now, amongst those, I know that the woollen factory still exists,
so no material change there.
'Elgin was a favourite hunting ground of early Scottish monarchs.
'With its ancient cathedral
'and lying either side of the River Lossie,
'it grew steadily throughout the medieval period,
'until by the 17th century it boasted fine buildings
'that reflected the prosperity of its merchants.
'When the railways arrived in the 1850s, business in the town boomed,
'and firms like cloth manufacturers Johnstons of Elgin blossomed.
'James Sugden is a director.'
James, hello. Good morning.
Michael, good to see you.
You're lost in your archives, I can see, which is not surprising
because your company goes all the way back to 1797.
Why was it that the woollen industry took off in this particular place,
quite a remote place?
We had a local supply of fibre from our sheep,
and we had, also, that very important ingredient - water.
Soft, Scottish water.
During the 19th century, what were the developments in the business?
James Johnston made tweed for the local market.
As time went on, he moved into finer fibres, and with the advent of
Queen Victoria, we moved into design fabrics, particularly tartans,
and then the local estate tweeds.
Because Queen Victoria actually rescues the tartan
from being a, kind of, banned thing
to being a fashion item in a short period of time.
Yes, she made it very fashionable,
and we produced a lot of tartan and still do, but the other thing
that her advent to this district brought
was this estate tweed business,
making bespoke design fabrics for the upper class.
This is what the servants wore indoors,
but I suppose what they wore on the moors, as well?
The ghillies, the keepers, the stalkers,
they wanted camouflage,
but then they also wanted fabrics that were distinctive
and so, often, the wives of the laird would insist on
little quirky over-checks and colourings
that were perhaps not just camouflage,
but were their own idiosyncratic designs.
When did you get your railway here?
1852, and that's when our export business really took off.
I think in the next 40 years, our turnover went up by eight times
and it was all based on the export business,
but export in those days could have been considered London.
And does that impact of the railways show up in your archives?
This was 1859, and here's a customer in London still in existence,
A Gagniere & Company, who are cloth merchants,
and there's a lovely entry here which says "by rail all the way",
so that cloth came off the mill here, was taken to Elgin station
and went all the way to London, probably within a couple of days.
1859.
1859. Great.
James Johnston seized the opportunities afforded
by the railway, and also expanded his business
by negotiating a supply of a fine thread first made popular in Europe
some years earlier, by Napoleon Bonaparte.
What's this book showing us?
This ledger here shows us the first purchase of cashmere fibre...
Ah!
..which was really James Johnston's first venture
into exotic soft handling fibres,
and this was in 1850 from a company called A Buxton in London.
And cashmere, this is a goat?
It's a goat, largely bred in Mongolia,
and it's the soft underfleece of the animal,
so when the fleece comes off the animal, 50%, 60% is coarse hair
and the down is what we extract
to make, obviously, what people know as cashmere today.
This is cashmere?
That's pure cashmere from Mongolia, this is our raw material today.
Most of our raw material comes from that area.
Hmm, it is very, very soft.
And is that the finest thing you do now?
No, we do have one other fibre called Vicuna,
which I'll show you a sample of.
That's lovely soft stuff.
Is that more expensive than the cashmere?
Yes, it's ten times the price of cashmere.
Ten times.
And cashmere's ten times the price of wool.
Lovely.
Your company clearly has an amazing history,
but also, I think, a present and future,
and I'm going to go and look at your factory. Thank you so much.
Thank you for coming, Michael. Bye.
'As with many companies,
'its success relies on the stability and loyalty of its workforce.'
'Generations of the same families
'have trodden the floors of this factory.
'They've taken raw fibre
'through every stage of the production process
'from design to weaving, to dyeing, to hand-crafted finishing.
'Yarn Manager Mike Matheson is from such a family.'
Hello. Hello.
You have the most wonderful colours here. Yes.
Beautiful dyes. Have you been in the business very long?
Yes, I've worked here since I left school, since I was 16,
served my apprenticeship here,
for 36 years I've been with Johnstons.
Congratulations. Were you an Elgin man, born and bred?
Yes, born and bred just up the road near Elgin.
My family are all Elginners, come from Elgin.
Any of them in the business before you?
Erm, yes, my great-auntie was here in the '50s, and then my mother,
she started here in the '60s and I started here mid '70s.
Will it go on through your family, do you think?
Yes, my daughter, my younger daughter, she's 24
and she works in the dye house,
so we're following on a sort of a family tradition,
of one of us being in Johnstons.
Well, let's hope it goes on for a long time yet.
Thank you. Bye, now. Bye.
I wonder whether, even in a state-of-the-art textile house,
fine knitwear requires a human touch,
in its design and its finishing.
Marketing assistant Kirsty Cunningham should know.
During the 19th century,
the company was having to adapt to new tastes and demands.
Is it the same today?
Absolutely. We're very fortunate to have a big team of designers
based here in Elgin, woven designers, and we also have
a set of designers in our knitwear factory in Hawick
and both teams work really hard to keep up with
the fashions of today, but at the same time they're very fortunate,
especially the designers here in Elgin,
as they have fantastic resources like our archive room
where they can look through manuscripts
or swatches of fabric that date back to the 1800s.
And when you are exporting, do you think that it's helpful
not only that you're Scottish, but that it's a rural Scottish industry?
Yeah, I think definitely.
I think buyers today look for authenticity of product
and I think we're very lucky in that our product is 100% made in Scotland
and it has been for 215 years.
So, in spite of all these fantastic machines
we have in the factory nowadays, Michael,
one thing that is very special to Johnstons of Elgin
is the teasel head. The teasel? Yes.
Now, we use these teasels to raise the pile of the cashmere
during the finishing process.
Now, if you look, you'll see there's very small little hooks
on the end of the teasel. Yeah.
And it's those hooks that lift up the pile of the fabric,
and create that lovely rippled effect,
so if you look at this piece of cashmere here,
you'll notice there's almost a ripple... Yes.
..and a shine, and that comes from the teasel.
And you've found nothing better?
Nothing that will replace the teasel.
And where do you get these things?
We buy these from Spain.
So in the land of the Scottish thistle
you need the help of the Spanish teasel? Indeed.
'Cutting it fine, I'm bound now for Inverness
'where I'll change trains.
'I'm now directed south to the winter resort of Aviemore
'along one of the most picturesque lines in Scotland.'
Hi, I'm Michael, pleased to meet you.
This main line from Inverness down to Edinburgh hadn't been built
when my Bradshaw's was published,
and my guidebook gives me a clue as to why.
It says of Inverness-shire that
"The surface is, in general, extremely rugged and uneven,
"consisting of vast ranges of mountains separated from each other
"by narrow and deep valleys."
So no wonder the railway was constructed so late,
and there's no better place to get an idea of the challenge
presented to the railway engineer by this terrain
than in the driver's cab.
I'm riding the famous Inverness to Aviemore direct line.
It was opened in the 1890s to cut journey times south from Inverness.
And with two major rivers to cross
and a mountain pass of 1,315 feet to conquer,
building it was no mean feat.
Gordon, I can hear the train wearying
as it goes up this steep gradient.
Do you ever think about what it must have been like
for the engineers planning and building this line?
I couldn't imagine the work that must have gone into this.
It's a beautiful line, I must say.
At the moment, luckily, we're not seeing snow,
we're seeing some beautiful heather.
We're just at the right time of year now
to be seeing the heather coming out.
In winter, sometimes, its like a toboggan run,
just made for the train, because the snow is cleared for the train,
but on either side there's maybe three, four or five feet of snow.
This line really is a railway connoisseur's delight,
because just outside of Inverness,
standing to the east of the famous Culloden battlefield,
the longest masonry viaduct in Scotland, measuring 544 metres,
spans the River Nairn.
This is a moment I've really been looking forward to.
The line is descending quite steeply towards the Culloden Viaduct,
and very often you don't get a good view of a viaduct when you're
actually on it, but fortunately, as we approach it now, I can see it
curving round to the right.
I'm getting a very, very good view of it,
and it really is a spectacular piece of architecture and engineering.
Built over five years, using local quarry stone and completed in 1898,
like the rest of the line,
the Culloden viaduct was engineered by Sir John Fowler
and Murdoch Paterson.
I'm now headed to Aviemore to meet Anne Mary Paterson,
who's written a biography of her great-grand-uncle.
Hello, Anne Mary.
Oh, hello.
Hello, good to see you.
So, here you are admiring your great-grand-uncle's railway line.
That's right, yes.
I came over that viaduct just now, and it's a great structure.
What did he think of it?
He thought it was his masterpiece, but by the time
it was nearing completion, he was ill,
because he was long past retiring age, in his early 70s,
and he had been out in all weathers and so on
without proper protective clothing.
Did he get to see the viaduct completed?
No, he didn't see it completed.
He was staying in the station master's house at Culloden
and he realised that he was never going to go on a train across it,
so he asked the railwaymen if they would push him across on a bogie
and he could look and see if everything was all right
and give them orders about what should be done.
So they pushed him across and back again
and then he went to the house and he just died shortly after.
You must be very proud of your ancestor.
Yes, I am.
That was why I decided that I was going to write about him.
Thank you, Anne Mary, very much. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.
Small towns in northern Scotland are home to major industries
that grew rapidly once the railways reached them.
The worldwide fame that they've since acquired
hasn't gone to their head.
They remain proudly Scottish,
commercially independent, rooted in their historic communities
and reliant on the skills of local people.
'On the next leg of this journey, I ride a picturesque railway.'
I have no words, I'm out of superlatives.
'I visit Scotland's smallest station.'
Nearly everyone has joined the queue to get off at the single door
that opens on the incredibly short platform at Beauly.
'And I go on a spa break, Victorian-style.'
After you've been hosed down with warm, salty water,
your doctor will probably have prescribed you
a glass of sulphurous water.
And would I be cured?
You might well be.
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