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.
I'm continuing my journey through the Scottish Highlands.
This morning, I boarded the overnight sleeper train from London
on its last leg to Inverness.
Today, I'm looking forward to vistas of land and sea
and to discovering how tracks laid in Victorian days
helped to inspire authors and even a cultural revival.
'On today's leg, I ride a picturesque railway...'
I have no words. I'm out of superlatives.
'..visit Scotland's smallest station...'
Nearly everyone has joined the queue to get off at the single door
that opens at 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. THEY CHUCKLE
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.
On today's leg, I'm taking a detour west, along a Highland railway.
From Inverness, I'll head first to Beauly, then Dingwall,
and finally cross-country to the coastal town of Plockton.
My Bradshaw's tells me that Inverness lies, as it were,
"at the back of Scotland,
"in a part formerly little visited or accessible.
"Invernesians speak purer English than any other Scotch people."
I'm wondering whether it was the previous remoteness of the city
that led its inhabitants to speak such refined version of the English tongue.
Dubbed the capital of the Highlands,
over the centuries, Invernesians have spoken at least three languages.
First inhabited by the Picts, whose ancient language has disappeared,
the area was then occupied by Gaelic-speaking Irish settlers,
but subsequent invasions pushed Gaelic to the brink of extinction,
and English to the fore.
I wonder whether the townsfolk rejoice
that Bradshaw's dubs them "speakers of the purest English,"
or whether they feel prouder of their Gaelic heritage?
Hello. I'm just wondering, are you from Inverness?
Not originally, not ME, but my parents are.
Did you ever hear it said, as my guidebook says,
that the purest English is spoken in Inverness?
I never understood why people would say that,
cos there's a very distinct accent here.
Any of your family speak Gaelic?
Erm...very few, actually.
Hello. Hi, there.
Do you hear people speaking Gaelic in the town? Not usually, no.
Do you think it's a pity if Gaelic is not much spoken today?
Yeah, yeah...
I think it should be taught more in schools, and stuff like that.
I think it would be nice to, you know, keep it going.
So, it's only as you get older you start to appreciate, you know,
what it means to keep your traditional languages
and stuff like that.
In the 17th and 18th centuries,
Scotland's Privy Council called for the abolition of Gaelic,
and wearing tartan was criminalised.
But in the 19th century,
Queen Victoria's love affair with Scotland
made all things Highland fashionable...
RADIO V/O: "Tha na Bord na Gaidhlig ag iarraidh an sgoil Ghaidhlig..."
Ever since, there's been a gradual thawing of antipathy toward Gaelic.
And here at the BBC, the language is nurtured.
This is BBC nan Gaidheal, a Gaelic-language radio station,
and Donald Morrison is just finishing his morning show.
And you're off air...
An hour and a half, that's it. MICHAEL CHUCKLES
So, how long have you had the Gaelic-language radio station?
It started off very small, to be honest.
When Gaelic first came to Inverness, there was the Gaelic minute.
They had a minute a day. HE LAUGHS
Now, from Inverness, we broadcast this hour-and-a-half news programme in the morning.
That's in combination with the other output of Radio nan Gaidheal,
which is a Scotland-wide radio station.
Why do you think the broadcasts in Gaelic are so valued?
Well...because it's...it's...
I think an academic once, a few years ago,
described Gaelic radio, Radio nan Gaidheal
as the cement that binds the Gaelic communities together.
Bear in mind the Gaelic communities are spread from the Western Isles
to mainland Highland, an enclave here in Inverness,
Glasgow, throughout Scotland,
and I think the radio is the thing that brings them all...
into the one...sort of community pot, if you like,
and it's also in their own language, of course.
Have you any idea whether the number of Gaelic speakers in Scotland
is going up at the moment?
It's stabilised at the moment.
When the figures for the new census come out,
we'll have a better idea.
It's a pretty worrying situation.
You know, for years, Gaelic has been declining.
The policy at the moment for the language developers
is to stabilise it and then to grow,
but, you know, here in Inverness, a minority language like that,
it IS in a pretty precarious state, unfortunately.
Since 1871, The Gaelic Society of Inverness
has also been trying to rejuvenate the language.
Allan Campbell is a former chairman.
Which language did you learn first?
Well, Gaelic was my first language,
and I went to school at the age of five in the west of Skye, without...
Well, maybe I had one or two words of English,
but I'm still learning English, Michael.
When did you start to learn English? Oh, the day I went to school...
because, although my primary school teacher was a native Gaelic speaker,
we were forbidden to speak Gaelic in school.
And, so, here, in an area that was formerly very remote,
Gaelic, at one time, predominated?
Oh, yes. Gaelic was, at one time,
the language of a large proportion of Scotland.
What happened to Gaelic before the 19th century? Quite a lot.
Many people will say today that it's astonishing that Gaelic survives,
because it has been the subject of persecution
and legal suppression for centuries.
The Gaelic Society has seen two relatively recent successes.
Several schools now teach in Gaelic, and the society's lobbying
led to the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act of 2005,
which recognises Gaelic as equal to English as a Scottish language.
Why does it matter?
Well, I think it matters because Gaelic is part of this country.
Gaelic belongs to Scotland.
As you make your journey through Scotland, Michael,
and you see all these mountains, rivers and railway stations,
many of them will have names whose origin is Gaelic,
and you might actually learn a bit of the language as you go along the way.
I hope you do, and enjoy it.
Would you, for the moment, send me on my way
with a farewell in Gaelic?
Well, indeed...
Turas math, a Mhicheil. Tha mi an dochas gun chord Alba riut.
That's very, very kind of you. Thank you so much, Allan. Bye, bye.
It's been a struggle to keep Gaelic cherished as a living language.
As I leave Inverness, I turn my attention to another thing
for which the community has had to fight.
My next stop is Beauly,
which Bradshaw's tells me is a place of importance
on account of its cattle fairs and belonging to Lord Lovat.
Lord Lovat was deputy chairman of the Highland Railway Company
and had a private waiting room at Beauly station,
but, even so, train services ceased there in 1960...
But I'm alighting there today,
so clearly that wasn't the end of the story.
'And I've heard that to keep down the cost of rebuilding the station,
'its platform is minute.'
Are you getting off at Beauly? Yes.
And it's a good service? Yes.
And I'm told there's only one door we can get off at, at Beauly...
Yes, that's right. Which one's that?
This one. That one there. MICHAEL LAUGHS
So, do you have to form yourselves into a queue to get off the train?
Yes, you'll see that in a moment.
Oh, will I? I can't wait!
You'll be caught in the rush.
This is the most extraordinary sight.
Nearly everyone in this carriage has joined the queue to get off
at the single door that opens at the incredibly short platform at Beauly.
Beauly station closed in 1960,
but a campaign led by Frank Roach succeeded,
and it reopened in 2002.
Hello, Frank. Hello, Michael.
Welcome to Beauly, the shortest railway platform in Britain.
It's wonderful to see such a small place
that has railway services still,
and I think you had something to do with that, didn't you?
That's right. The station actually closed in 1960, pre-Beeching,
and gradually, over the years, congestion has increased...
there is a bridge into Inverness
that gets a lot of congestion in the morning peak...
So, I decided it would be interesting to try and reopen the station,
so I put the funding package together and persuaded various parties
that a short platform would be an obvious solution.
Well, Frank, I think while I'm here, I need to measure this phenomenon.
Perhaps you'll join me...
..as we pace it out?
One, two, three,
four, five, six,
seven, eight, nine, ten,
11, 12, 13,
14, 15, 16,
17...
..18 on the Portillo scale, equals 15 metres.
Frank, any prospect of opening other mini stations on the line?
Yes, we've got pretty advanced plans to reopen Conon Bridge,
which is six miles up the track.
Again, a mini platform looks to be on the cards,
and predictions suggest 40,000 people could use it every year,
and this from a village of under 3,000 people.
Just itching to get back on the tracks?
Absolutely. They've seen the success at Beauly, and want to be part of it.
'Sadly, the town for which I'm bound now
'hasn't succeeded in reopening its station,
'so I shall use a car from the next stop, Dingwall.'
My next destination is the village of Strathpeffer,
where, my Bradshaw's tells me,
"the large Ben Wyvis Hotel, 156 feet long,
"has been built over an excellent sulphur spa."
Taking the waters and bathing enjoyed a vogue in Victorian times,
and I'm anxious to know how the little Strathpeffer
joined the elite of British spa towns.
Originally no more than a few farms,
Strathpeffer grew when sulphurous springs were discovered
in the 1770s.
The first pump room was built in 1819,
but Strathpeffer truly flourished from 1885,
once it had a railway station.
Grand hotels and substantial Victorian villas were built
to accommodate the steady stream of visitors
who came to "take the waters."
Local businessman Steve Macdonald
takes Strathpeffer's history seriously.
Steve, hello. Michael!
What a splendid machine!
HE LAUGHS Pleased to meet you.
I'm just wondering whether George Bradshaw
might have ridden on one of these?
He died in 1853. Were these popular in the mid-1800s?
They were, yes. They were very popular then. That was the heyday.
Let's park that fellow up somewhere, shall we?
Now, after the glorious opening of Strathpeffer station in 1885,
presumably people were really pouring in to take the waters?
Trains came directly from London,
and brought patients of Harley Street doctors
to houses that had been built especially for patients to the area,
and people promenaded around the village and went to tea dances,
took the waters, went for healthy walks...
Mid to late 19th century, it was the place to be.
I'm a Victorian gentleman with a skin complaint.
I'm coming to Strathpeffer for my health. What routine can I expect?
Well, when you get up in the morning,
your doctor will probably have prescribed you
a glass of sulphurous water, which you'd drink...
probably sip during the day.
After you'd recovered from that,
you might well have a bath in peat mixed with sulphurous water.
You would probably lie in that for an hour.
It might be followed by a massage,
after you've been hosed down with warm, salty water,
then you might well go for a brisk walk
on one of the paths that have been laid around here.
In the afternoon, you may well go to a tea dance,
and have dinner in the evening at the regular time,
and then repeat every day until you're cured.
And would I be cured?
You might well be... THEY LAUGH
I wouldn't like to say.
The Ben Wyvis Hotel, as advertised in my Bradshaw's.
I believe that the peat baths have now given way to hot baths,
and I shall reject a sulphurous drink,
because I believe that the Highlands have a better tipple to offer.
Rested, refreshed and refuelled, I'm excited about the day ahead,
which will take me along one of the most remote lines in Britain.
In the quiet of this isolated station,
I could hear the train maybe a mile away
clattering its way through the glens,
and now, here it is, approaching the platform.
I'm now travelling on what my Bradshaw's calls
the Dingwall and Skye Rail, "a line 53 miles long
"that runs westwards through fine mountain scenery
"near Ben Wyvis and Rogie Falls."
In the years just before my guide was published,
this area had been opened for the first time to train passengers,
and judging by the large numbers on board today,
I say, "Rejoice! This rural and remote railway is resurgent."
First train of the day, and it's absolutely heaving with people.
Is it often like this?
It started to get very popular with bus parties,
so we get bus parties joining the train at Inverness,
the bus moves up to Kyle, and they get picked up there,
and it's part of their package, and the last four or five years
it's proved very popular, which is great for the line.
Well, let's hope more and more people
find out about the wonders of this line. Definitely.
May I ask, do you travel on the line very much?
Yes, quite often. Every sort of second day in the summer, anyway.
Why is that?
Well, I study in Skye, doing Gaelic, so I get the train to Kyle,
and then get a bus to Sabhal Mor Ostaig, the university there.
Do you feel lucky to have such a beautiful commute?
Yes, it's very nice.
Do you still watch the beautiful countryside go by,
or have you become kind of blase about it?
No, no, no! I always watch it. It's lovely, especially on a nice day.
The Highlands have been associated with Romanticism
ever since the Victorians began to explore them.
In 1880, Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson
may have alighted here at Garve because,
during a holiday with his wife, Fanny, he stayed in Strathpeffer.
He visited my next destination,
Rogie Falls, on the Blackwater River,
where I'm meeting professor of literature, Linda Dryden.
Magnificent! Linda, it's the most glorious sight. Isn't it?
Enough to inspire any Romantic writer, don't you think?
Well, indeed. In fact, Robert Louis Stevenson actually came here
and wrote a letter to his literary agent,
literary friend, Sidney Colvin, about this very place.
He says to Colvin, "I've lain down and died.
"No country, no place, was ever for a moment so delightful for my soul.
"Give me the cool breath of Rogie waterfall henceforth and forever,
"world without end."
And he signs off saying, just lets us know what a good time he's having,
"May you have as good a time as possible, so far from Rogie..."
In other words, I'm having the best time in the world.
Most interesting.
Do we think his visit to Rogie Falls had an enduring impact on him?
It's very difficult to say, but when he was writing Kidnapped,
he set a lot of that in the Highlands.
This passage here, to me, looks exactly like
we're looking at up there.
"And with that, he ran harder than ever down to the waterside
"in a part where the river was split in two among three rocks..."
One, two... Can we see three rocks? I think... Yes, mm-hmm.
"It went through with a horrid thundering that made my belly quake,
"and there hung over the lynn a little mist of spray.
"Alan looked neither to the right nor to the left,
"but jumped clean upon the middle rock,
"and fell there on his hands and knees to check himself."
Yes. It looks it, doesn't it?
You can just imagine looking at that waterfall there.
Is Robert Louis Stevenson regarded as a great hero of Scottish writing?
SHE CHUCKLES It's with the publication of Treasure Island
that we get a great success for Stevenson.
He becomes famous not just in the UK, but in the States,
particularly after Jekyll and Hyde.
This is the problem, I suppose, with Robert Louis Stevenson
We read Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Jekyll and Hyde when we're children,
probably never go back to those books or back to Stevenson.
Absolutely. If you mention Robert Louis Stevenson, what comes to mind?
Treasure Island, Jekyll and Hyde or Kidnapped. Yes.
With my mind full of swashbuckling feats of derring-do,
I'm back to Dingwall and onward through this rugged terrain
to the west coast, and my next destination, Plockton.
I'm fulfilling a long-held ambition, to ride The Kyle of Lochalsh line.
Two hours of train travel with hardly a human habitation glimpsed,
radiant greens, imposing terrain...
The line has been described as a symphony in three movements.
First, pastoral, then mountainous and, finally, marine,
as the line, at last, reaches the sea
and the symphony reaches its glorious climax.
Oh! Every curve brings a more spectacular vista.
This line is wonderful.
I have no words. I'm out of superlatives.
My Bradshaw's says, "Several fine lochs penetrate the Atlantic coast,
"such as Loch Broom, Loch Ewe, Gairloch, Loch Torridon,
"and Loch Carron, where the Dingwall and Stromeferry rail terminates."
But it doesn't terminate there any longer,
and I want to know why this railway line to distant hamlets
was pushed yet further away from any centre of population.
The Dingwall and Skye Railway is certainly one of the most picturesque of routes,
but Victorian rail companies had to be more businesslike than romantic,
and I want to know about the economics
behind this vast and expensive engineering project.
I'm hopeful that local historian Pat Myhill will enlighten me.
I'm wondering why a line like this to such remote places
was built in the first place, Pat?
The Victorians were great improvers, great entrepreneurs,
and, so, they saw what a lot of people would regard as a wilderness
as an untapped resource, particularly the fisheries,
which were considered to be inexhaustible at the time...
But I think, really, what it comes down to
is a group of very, very large landowners
saw the benefits to them of bringing improved communications in.
There was a measure of altruism, certainly,
but there was also a great deal of self-interest in it for them.
How much difference would it make to the fisheries,
first in Stromeferry and then in Kyle, having a railway line?
Massive, because the price of fish
depends on the speed with which you can get it to the market.
The best markets, like Billingsgate, wanted very fresh fish,
so the price wasn't as good if you couldn't get them to market so quickly.
Therefore, if you could get a railway line in,
and you could get the fish down to London in little over 12 hours,
you're going to get a much much better price for them,
and, of course, that helped develop the fisheries industry itself.
I rode along the line today, and it was a lovely gentle ride.
Give me an idea of what it would have been like
in its early days at the end of the 19th century?
Uncomfortable, especially on a day like this.
The original carriages were six-wheelers,
that's a rigid wheel base,
and this is a twisty, tortuous switchback line,
lots of short bends and lots of ups and downs,
so they gave you a bumpy ride.
They were wooden, no toilets, no heating...
I really enjoyed my journey today.
How would you sell it to a prospective tourist?
Oh, as the greatest scenic, coastal railway journey in the country,
quite probably in the world.
That's pretty good, isn't it?
In Bradshaw's day, the catch around Plockton
consisted mainly of white fish and crab,
but now the waters of Loch Carron are fished for prawn.
Bob Rowe has agreed to show me how it's done.
Hello, Bob. Hi, how are you doing? How are you? Not bad.
Where are your markets for the prawns?
Well, we land to a company based in Dingwall,
and they're trying to develop a market in Britain,
so a lot of their stuff goes to hotels, restaurants, in the British Isles.
Fresh? Yes, fresh. Well, alive, they send them live,
because when they're landed, they go into this tank,
which is spraying fresh water on them to keep them alive.
Nowadays, I guess you're not sending the catch by train?
No, they don't go by train now. Most of them go by road.
I think that's more... Well, it's...
Because the bulk of it, you know, it's so bulky,
and also the timetabling, and...
I hadn't thought of that. In the days of the train,
you had to fish to the... Fish to the timetable, yeah.
So, if the train was timetabled for five o'clock,
then the fishermen would have to have their catch ashore
and packaged up, ready to go on the train for five o'clock.
So, nowadays because it goes by road,
they're not under that same pressure.
'These days, fishing boats are under pressure to maximise their catch,
'so they'd do well to leave ME ashore.'
I'm baiting the creel in order that it can go back into the water,
ready for the next lot of prawns.
I have to put this bit of herring in the middle here...
..and it just needs to be secured in that position
by sliding down that knot,
Now, the creels, with their bait, are going back overboard again
to try and catch more prawn,
and while Bob chucks them over the side,
the rope is running along the deck and I'm standing clear,
cos I don't want to go over with the creels.
Being a fisherman is still a pretty tough lot, isn't it?
Yeah, well, it's still the most dangerous job in the world, I think.
Well, you certainly have my respect.
OK, well, you did pretty good for a beginner, I think.
I'll be thinking about you the next time I'm on a warm train journey.
HE LAUGHS I'm sure you will.
I'm sure I'll never make a trawlerman!
I think my skills lie at the consuming end of the food chain.
Since I'm in sight of the sea,
I thought this would be a good time to taste the catch of the sea.
It must be really fresh.
Oh, thank you! Your fish platter.
Oh, that looks wonderful. So, what have I got there?
You have some langoustines and squat lobsters,
they're from a local Plockton creel boat.
The crabs and the mussels are from Skye,
and they're hand-dived scallops from Loch Alsh, near Kyle.
How wonderful! Thank you very much. OK, enjoy your meal.
Hmm, start with the scallops...
Glorious. Glorious!
Today, I have enjoyed a feast of Scotland's natural beauty
on tracks laid by 19th-century railway builders.
The trains were the means by which fishermen in the remotest places
could supply their catches, still fresh, to distant cities.
Now, the line is thronged with tourists
who, like Queen Victoria herself,
are attracted by the majesty of the Highlands.
'On the next stretch of my journey, I'll learn how one man's vision
'helped to bring train travel to the Highlands...'
He really saw the social value of railways,
and in opening up the county of Sutherland.
'..discover how farming's changed since Bradshaw's day...'
We have about a tonne in the grain tank there.
That would hopefully produce about 400 litres of neat whisky.
Wow!
'..and re-live the drama of Scotland's Victorian gold rush...'
Gold! We've found gold!
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