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 now completing my journey from London to Newton Abbot
and I've arrived alongside the coastal beauty of what Bradshaw's
would call South Devonshire.
This was the scene of some of Isambard Kingdom Brunel's
greatest railway engineering successes and worst failures.
And both his triumphs and his disasters proved his genius.
Today I'll take to the sea with the heroes of the RNLI.
Couple of big waves coming now...
Here we go! Woo!
At the moment it feels a little bit like, I imagine, a jockey
in the Grand National, we're going up and down and over the fences.
'I'll visit a stormy coastal railway...'
When the waves hit this section, the plumes of water go right over
the top of the footbridge at the station.
'..and have a close, personal encounter with a boyhood hero.'
This is exciting, is this genuinely a section of Brunel's pipe?
It is indeed, yes.
Using my Bradshaw's Guide, I'm following the tracks
of Isambard Kingdom Brunel,
master engineer of the Great Western Railway.
I started at Paddington station, a monumental success,
and I'll finish in Newton Abbot in Devon, the scene of one of his
biggest disappointments.
The last leg of my journey begins in Exmouth, detours to Sidmouth,
then crosses the Exe estuary to Starcross, on to Dawlish
and finally, Newton Abbot.
My Bradshaw's says, "We have all have the romantic allurements
"of the watering places of the West, where we may find a fund of illimitable
"enjoyment in the rich bouquet that nature has spread before us
"on the freshening shores of Devon."
The Victorians could be pompous and verbose
but their appreciation of the beauties of Devon was sincere.
I'm on a line known locally as The Avocet, where a locomotive
first steamed the ten miles from Exeter to my first destination,
Exmouth, in 1861.
Once a small fishing village, Exmouth grew into an important port,
from which Sir Walter Raleigh launched many of his voyages.
The town became a very popular tourist destination
during the Georgian period and its two-mile long
promenade shows that it has remained so ever since.
# Oh, I do love to be beside the seaside... #
Already intoxicated by sea air!
Bradshaw's tells me that Exmouth has, "in its immediate
"neighbourhood a valley, sheltered on all sides from the winds,
"and capable of affording a genial retreat. Exmouth is
"a decidedly healthy place,"
but the sea also brings its dangers
and Exmouth has had a lifeboat station for more than 200 years.
Over the course of two centuries, lifeboats have saved
the lives of over 139,000 people off the coasts of Britain.
They first patrolled the waters around South Shields in 1790.
Exmouth has had one since 1803 and half a century later,
the station joined The Royal National Lifeboat Institution.
Tim Mock is a full time mechanic and coxswain.
Tim, you've had a lifeboat at Exmouth
going all the way back to 1803.
Yes, that's correct, yes. A privately run life boat in those days.
And those lifeboats in those days - how would they have been powered?
Well, that was pulling and sailing boats, that's rowing and sails only.
What do you think of that?
Very hard work, I had a go at it in one of the old boats
and just found it impossible.
How they ever managed to
row for hours and hours on end, I really admire them for that.
Standing on the former slipway here is a reminder that, actually,
you could be called out at any time today.
That's a possibility, yes,
south-easterly winds here means the sea is quite rough - although
it's a nice sunny day, small boats can get in trouble at any time.
Do the people of Exmouth feel a strong connection with their lifeboat?
Oh, definitely, yes. Are they supportive?
Very much so, the lifeboat's always been a big part of the community
and for our side of things we need the community to operate
the service and, of course, going back to Victorian times, the bigger
boats were launched by hand only, so you'd need 40 or 50 men and
women to pull the boat down here out into the water.
I see your present station is 1903, so you're just post-Victorian.
A connection between lifeboats and railways?
Most definitely, boats would have been
delivered by the railways, spare parts...
and in latter years, tractors
and heavier bits of equipment would have all come by rail.
Sir William Hillary founded the National Institution
for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck, in 1824.
Today almost 5,000 volunteers crew lifeboats,
and I've been invited aboard the Exmouth all-weather lifeboat
for a scheduled training exercise.
Luckily, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution
shares my taste in bright-coloured clothes.
Well, I have once before been out with the RNLI,
but that was in a small inflatable, this is a completely different
kettle of fish, this is a very substantial boat.
At the helm today is former Royal Marine, deputy coxswain Scott Ranft.
Well, it's quite surprising that on a warm
and sunny day there's quite a swell out here.
We've got a force five wind heading from an easterly direction
so it does pick up, especially in this channel as we come out
through, it specifically picks up because it's quite shallow.
There's a couple of big waves coming now...
There we go...whoa...
At the moment it feels a little bit like, I imagine, a jockey
in the Grand National, we're going up and down and over the fences.
That's right.
Roger Jackson, a crew member for the last 14 years, has taken the helm.
I've heard he was recently honoured for leading a particularly
hazardous rescue, manoeuvring the station's in-shore lifeboat
to retrieve four young men from very rough seas.
We had to get them one by one, climb and climb and climb,
dumping surf over the top, go back round and go in again,
and go in again four times.
What state were they in?
Absolutely hypothermic, really cold, really, really shocked,
and extremely pleased to see us. They were very lucky lads.
And you were given the Bronze Medal for Gallantry?
That's right, yes. Last week I actually went to London
and the Duke of Gloucester awarded it to me.
It was a very proud moment for myself, of course,
but also for Exmouth lifeboat station, as well.
I'd love to see it.
That is the actual medal there.
As you can see, that's Sir William Hillary, the founder of the RNLI.
How wonderful.
Would you like to have a drive?
I'd love to have a drive, thank you very much indeed.
If you want to come through...
OK. I've quite often been asked to take control of a steam engine.
I think I feel more control of this than I do when it's a locomotive.
How's that, Michael?
Well, it's just a great honour to be steering this vessel
standing next to a hero.
I don't know about that.
I'm travelling by road to my next destination.
Sidmouth didn't have a railway when my guide was written and the
line that opened in the 1870s fell to the Beeching cuts of the 1960s.
I'm intrigued to know why railway-less Sidmouth,
which my Bradshaw's describes as, "Nestled at the bottom
"of a valley between lofty hills, 500 feet high,"
was deemed important enough for an entry covering almost a whole page.
This range of cliffs, according to my guidebook has been
"the theatre of convulsions or landslips.
"One commencing on Christmas Day, 1839, whereby 45 acres of arable
"land were lost."
The beach is now fenced to the public,
so landslips are not a thing of the past, and this
so-called Jurassic Coast is of interest to geologists today.
Sidmouth's cliffs are particularly
important because they occasionally yield fossils of rare
pre-historic amphibians and reptiles.
Earth Science manager, Richard Edmonds, is
responsible for protecting this world heritage site.
Richard, hello. Hello, Michael, nice to meet you.
Apparently, for centuries, these cliffs have been tumbling down?
Well, that's right ,they're actually 230 million years old,
but the natural recession rate is about five metres a century.
But my Bradshaw's tells me that on one occasion there was a landslip
where 45 acres of farming land were lost,
so that has been going on a long time.
Yes, but landslides are a different process.
Landslides tend to be an enormous great, sort of, rending of the earth.
What we're seeing here is more cliff fall caused by the sea
undercutting the base of the cliffs.
In the 19th century did they take steps to slow down the erosion?
Well, to start with, Sidmouth was
built on the back of a vast shingle spit,
so it was a very healthy beach,
the waves could hit the beach and be soaked up, the energy,
but in the 1830s, after big storms, they started to construct
sea defences and those have just become bigger and bigger and bigger.
In the 1920s, a great gale breached the sea wall
and wrought havoc along much of Sidmouth's esplanade,
so the town built a new, higher wall at the then hefty cost of £100,000.
But in Bradshaw's day,
railway builders weren't put off by high seas and eroding cliffs.
I believe the Victorians tried to put a railway in here?
Yes, that's right, the plan was to build a harbour on the western
side of Sidmouth at Ship Rocks and use Salcombe stone which
comes from a village just a couple of miles this way.
The plan was apparently to quarry the stone and then transport
it in a railway in a tunnel running parallel to the back of the cliff.
And what happened to that plan?
The railway engine they bought didn't fit in the tunnel
and the company went bust.
That can't be true, can it? It is.
So, they at least got as far as making the tunnel?
That's right, you can still see the tunnel sticking out of the cliff,
but what's happened since then is the erosion has come through
and actually eaten away and destroyed the tunnel.
The entrance was literally just here at Pennington Point and in
the last 20 years the cliffs have receded and it's been lost.
So the tunnel added to the difficulties of the cliff?
Well, it's done its damage, yes, the cliff has got to the point
where it reached the tunnel,
and suddenly there's this increase in erosion.
That's likely to be one of the reasons why we've had this very
marked increase in erosion over the last years.
Hopefully now the tunnel's gone
and the sea is coming back into the solid geology,
we should see it slow down.
Richard, thank you very much, I must slip away. Bye-bye.
Back to Exmouth now to take not a train, but a short boat ride,
that will deliver me to the exact spot I'm aiming for.
PA ANNOUNCEMENT: "...on the ferry to Starcross.
I'm on the ferry crossing the mouth of the River Exe to Starcross,
a small place with a big chunk of railway history.
And I think I can see a relic of it coming into view now.
The final three destinations of my journey all played a pivotal
role in Isambard Kingdom Brunel's greatest railway failure -
his atmospheric railway,
where trains were not hauled by steam locomotive but forced
forward by atmospheric pressure, running through a pipe on the track.
Starcross is first.
This is a pumping station that was used on Brunel's atmospheric
railway, there's a pub dedicated to the history of that line
and after a long day I've earned myself a drink there.
Good evening. Good evening.
Could I have a half a lager, please? You sure can.
I see you're called The Atmospheric Railway,
are you quite an admirer of Brunel, are you?
I sure am, I think he's one of the greatest engineers we've ever had.
Why are you such an admirer?
Well, he just wasn't one particular item, was it, I mean
he built bridges, tunnels, boats, he was just an all-round great engineer.
Well, then, the toast is - Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
Cheers. Cheers.
After a day's travelling, it's a night cap and early to bed for me.
As a boy, I marvelled at the life of Brunel.
Even though the atmospheric railway was ultimately a failure,
I'm keen to find out more about it.
At my next destination, Dawlish, the line had a station.
I'm on the Exeter to Paignton branch line this morning.
Before trains reached the south Devon coast, Brunel's
challenge was to lay track over very hilly and sharply curving terrain.
The trains are now powered by diesel,
but the route is almost the same as in Bradshaw's day.
The result is one of the most thrilling
stretches of track in England.
My Bradshaw's is understandably excited about this
part of the journey.
"The magnificent scenery which opens on each side as we proceed.
"There is scarcely a mile traversed which does not unfold some
"peculiar picturesque charm, or new feature of its own to make
"the eye dazzled and drunk with beauty,"
and for me there's the additional interest that we're travelling
on tracks that were once part of Brunel's doomed atmospheric railway.
In 1044, King Edward the Confessor,
granted the parish of Dawlish to
his chancellor and chaplain, Leofric.
Salt-making, fishing and agriculture were the town's mainstay,
until the 18th century penchant for taking the sea air
and bathing, attracted the aristocratic set.
But when the South Devon Railway arrived in the 1840s, the town
was opened to everyone.
Here at Dawlish, the station is built between the beach and the
town, making this one of the most dramatic stretches of railway in
England, and that's not just because of the views from the trains.
In 1844, Brunel started building a sea wall to protect the line
standing just a few yards from the foaming brine,
but the elements were unkind to his coastal railway.
Heavy rain would cause rock falls, breaching its defences,
and even now the salty sea spray that billows up
and over on rough days can affect the operation of the railway.
John Wilkinson has lived here all his life.
John...
hello. Morning, Michael.
There's a bit of spray coming over the wall this morning, but I've
been on trains and seen it far worse than this, how bad does it get?
It gets very bad, on a bad day you wouldn't possibly be able to
walk along this wall, when the waves hit this section the plumes of water
go high in the air and actually get blown over onto Marine Parade,
and just to give you some idea of the height, the actual plumes
of water go right over the top of the footbridge at the station.
And what effect does that have on the functioning of the railway?
It does have effect on some of the train services,
because when the plumes of water go high in the air it actually
lands on the top of the trains and gets into the exhaust
and into the electronic systems on the top.
And historically it's interrupted services from time to time.
It has... indeed, but when you consider the length of time
it's been here I think the interruptions are not too serious,
and any form of transport is subject to adverse weather.
It's one of the great rides in England, isn't it?
I think so, yes. It's got to be in the top ten, if not...
A green tea, please.
So where would you rank this amongst English train journeys?
Number one!
It's a beautiful piece of coastline, isn't it?
It's a gorgeous piece of coastline, yes.
Certainly the most picturesque, most exciting railway line in the country.
You've got one of the best views of a railway
anywhere in Britain, I should think.
Do you like watching trains go by?
We do, yeah.
Hello. Hello.
Have you been here before?
Yes, I used to come down here when I was a baby.
Did you come on the train?
No, not on the train...
Ha-ha, that's a pity.
We used to wave at the trains!
So, you've brought your kids here now?
My kids are here now.
Are they waving at the trains?
Yes, they love seeing the trains go past.
Do you know who built this railway line?
I don't know who built this railway line, actually, no.
Isambard...
Kingdom Brunel...
and my son is named Noah Isambard after Brunel.
Wow, you are admirers of Brunel.
Yes, I'm an engineer, I think his work is fantastic.
Such a pleasure to talk to you, thank you very much. Thank you.
Bye-bye, enjoy your day.
With its track skirting the shore and with the sea pounding its
platforms and its footbridge,
there's no doubt that Dawlish is Brunellish.
The last nine miles of my current journey is an exciting
quarter-of-an-hour ride along the coastal line that Brunel
built for his hapless atmospheric railway, because even though
the technology failed, the route has remained in use for over 150 years.
In the past, my Bradshaw's guide has directed me to places described as
the Switzerland or the Athens or the Paris of the British Isles.
Now I'm headed for Newton Abbot,
dubbed The Swindon of the South West.
In Bradshaw's day, the station was called Newton Junction.
What became the South-West's Victorian rail hub was,
in the 17th century, the small market town of Newton Abbots,
an unlikely spot to shape the history of Britain.
Felicity Cole is the town museum's curator.
I think we've come across something else mentioned in my Bradshaw's,
regarding the declaration that was made
when William of Orange landed in Britain in 1688.
Tell me about that.
Well, William of Orange made his declaration, or his intent to
become king of England in 1688,
so a very politically-charged moment.
There were 30,000 troops that
came through the town that day,
and an extraordinary scene of things like Finlanders dressed
in bearskins, Spanish mercenaries with damseamed armour, but hundreds
of them processing through the town, so presumably anybody who had
said, "Well, we don't want that," would have got fairly well squashed
by the army.
Fundamentally, this was a Protestant rebellion
against a Catholic King which is why it says here, William III,
Prince of Orange, the glorious defender of the Protestant religion.
Indeed.
I've really come in pursuit of the town's railway history,
may we have a look at that, please?
Absolutely.
In 1892, The Great Western Railway built a new engine shed, workshops,
locomotive bays and a factory fashioned on their Swindon works.
The expansion in Newton Abbot meant that workers needed to be
housed, and whole streets were built for the purpose.
Here we are in a street that is really full of railway houses,
and where the railwaymen would have lived, and here is
David Grills who is one of those railwaymen that lived in the area.
Hello, David. Pleased to meet you.
Were these all occupied by railwaymen in your day?
More or less, yes.
There were at one time 49 railwaymen in this one street,
and that ranged from wheel tappers to guards, goods guards,
passenger guards, enginemen, boilermen
and people who worked in the factory, so there was quite an extensive
mix right the way throughout all these terraces.
Did Newton Abbot deserve the title of the Swindon of the South West?
It indeed did, it was little Swindon, without a doubt.
At times, I can remember when I started as a young lad,
there were at least somewhere in the region of a thousand plus men
employed at Newton Abbot. We boasted at one time nine
working platforms, and the main platform was at least
a quarter of a mile long, and during the busy season we would entertain
something in the region of 350 trains in one weekend.
What was your job with the railways?
I was a passenger coach shunter, rather a dirty job, wet,
miserable and if you notice on most coaching stock, all the drain pipes
run down onto the back of the poor shunter who
is in the middle, coupling coaches up, so I used to get very wet,
but very dirty, but the money was good
They sound like good old days.
They were indeed good old days. I confess to going to
work as a small lad where I wore a peaked hat,
I polished the peak and I also polished the buttons
on the front of my jacket, I was so proud to be a railman.
GWR - God's Wonderful Railway.
I'm very proud to have met you, David... And you, too.
Thank you, sir, very much indeed.
All the best, bye-bye.
It was Brunel's atmospheric railway that first ran to Newton Abbot.
Patented in 1839 by Samuel Clegg and the Samuda Brothers,
the system that ran on atmospheric pressure was
first employed on a Dublin line in 1844, where Brunel investigated it
and became convinced it was viable, and even preferable to steam power.
I'm hoping to find out more at Felicity's museum.
So, Felicity, can you explain to me how the atmospheric railway worked?
Well, the first question I could ask you is -
what do you notice about looking at this model?
No locomotive, and obviously a large
pipe running down the centre of the railway track.
And we've also got a pumping house or engine house here,
so what the pumping station is actually doing is evacuating
the air in front of the carriage in the pipe,
and then pressure is building up in the pipe behind the carriage
which pushes the whole thing along.
So you have a train that doesn't produce any smoke or any steam,
not very much noise, I imagine. It's extraordinary...
In fact, the passengers that travelled on it loved it,
and used to comment that it was swift, silent and smokeless,
and so despite all the things that did go wrong with it...
erm, people were very sad when it went.
The atmospheric railway caused great controversy.
Brunel's rival, Robert Stevenson,
claimed the atmospheric system would be expensive and less
reliable, compared to the steam locomotive he'd helped to invent.
Brunel refused to heed Stevenson's prophetic warning.
This is exciting. Is this genuinely a section of Brunel's pipe?
It is indeed, yes.
The piston would be travelling along inside this pipe,
which had been evacuated of air by the pumping house and as a
leather flap attached here was raised,
the air would come in behind the piston,
and creating the atmospheric pressure
to push the carriage forward, but then the problem would be the
flap had to return to its place and make a seal,
ready for the next train.
Although the technology had advantages,
it faced two major problems.
Its air pipes corroded in the salty sea air
and animal fat had to be manually applied to stop the leather seals from cracking.
Local legend has it that rats ate through the seals
and caused the line's closure, but it was the cost of upkeep which,
after eight months, finally did for it.
Undaunted, Brunel went on to engineer the ship, SS Great Eastern,
Paddington Station and the
magnificent Royal Albert Bridge in Cornwall
before he died at the age of just 53.
Well, his qualities certainly made him my boyhood hero,
and he's the hero of many people still living today who remember
the fantastic achievements of Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
Indeed.
My railway journey from London Paddington to Newton Abbot
has taken me past some of southern England's most beautiful buildings
and finest views.
My guidebook has opened my eyes to key events
and sights in our island history.
Where George Bradshaw has guided my tracks,
Isambard Kingdom Brunel built the tracks.
Standing here above his Great Western Railway,
I seriously doubt whether a finer civil engineer ever existed.
On my next journey, my Bradshaw's will lead me
across the Irish Sea, tracing 19th century tracks from Kerry
to Galway, landscapes shot to fame by Queen Victoria.
If it was good enough for the Royal Family, it was good enough for everyone? Correct.
'I'll visit the Irish National Stud,
and find myself bucked....'
Oh, the horse is going very fast now.
Absolutely exhausting!
'..and hear Irish history, preserved in song.'
# Oh, there is a land...
# far away. #
Well done, Michael.
Ooooooh!
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