1 00:00:04,920 --> 00:00:08,680 For Victorian Britons, George Bradshaw was a household name. 2 00:00:09,920 --> 00:00:11,760 At a time when railways were new, 3 00:00:11,760 --> 00:00:16,160 Bradshaw's guidebook inspired them to take to the tracks. 4 00:00:16,160 --> 00:00:20,000 I'm using a Bradshaw's Guide to understand how trains 5 00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:25,040 transformed Britain, its landscape, its industries, society 6 00:00:25,040 --> 00:00:27,080 and leisure time. 7 00:00:27,080 --> 00:00:30,760 As I crisscross the country 150 years later, 8 00:00:30,760 --> 00:00:34,000 it helps me to discover the Britain of today. 9 00:00:51,640 --> 00:00:54,920 I'm nearly halfway through my exploration 10 00:00:54,920 --> 00:00:56,880 of the web of tracks that links up London. 11 00:00:57,960 --> 00:01:02,160 Today I'm approaching east London on Britain's first high-speed line. 12 00:01:04,440 --> 00:01:08,240 Upper and middle class Victorians viewed the East End of London 13 00:01:08,240 --> 00:01:09,640 with horror. 14 00:01:09,640 --> 00:01:13,480 Its slums were the scene of unspeakable depravity, 15 00:01:13,480 --> 00:01:17,120 its dark streets lent themselves to robbery and murder. 16 00:01:17,120 --> 00:01:20,120 And respectable folk feared revolution, 17 00:01:20,120 --> 00:01:23,720 the mob and cholera sweeping down the Thames. 18 00:01:23,720 --> 00:01:27,520 I hope to see how the East End was transformed by railways 19 00:01:27,520 --> 00:01:30,680 in the 19th century and again in the 21st. 20 00:01:37,440 --> 00:01:41,400 Supplementing my usual guidebook with Bradshaw's special London edition, 21 00:01:41,400 --> 00:01:44,320 I'm following a route from east London's 22 00:01:44,320 --> 00:01:45,680 railway hub at Stratford 23 00:01:45,680 --> 00:01:47,760 towards the centre of the metropolis, 24 00:01:47,760 --> 00:01:50,920 pausing at Temple en route to Victoria station. 25 00:01:51,960 --> 00:01:56,080 I'll learn how the Olympic Park sustains a Victorian ideal 26 00:01:56,080 --> 00:01:58,680 of providing leisure space for Londoners... 27 00:01:58,680 --> 00:02:01,080 Whoa! Oh! 28 00:02:01,080 --> 00:02:04,520 ..hear how a lawyer who learnt his trade in Victorian London 29 00:02:04,520 --> 00:02:06,440 went on to change the world. 30 00:02:06,440 --> 00:02:09,080 To this day, every meal served 31 00:02:09,080 --> 00:02:13,040 at the Inner Temple has a vegetarian option in memory of Gandhi. 32 00:02:13,040 --> 00:02:16,160 And meet a modern descendant of the Hackney cab drivers 33 00:02:16,160 --> 00:02:18,120 that Bradshaw would have known. 34 00:02:18,120 --> 00:02:24,040 How can you get from Bishopsgate to the Old Bailey without crossing a road? 35 00:02:24,040 --> 00:02:28,240 Ha-ha! By hiring a cab with a knowledgeable driver! 36 00:02:34,640 --> 00:02:38,560 My Bradshaw's tells me that my first stop is "an important junction" 37 00:02:38,560 --> 00:02:42,520 and at the time of my guidebook, it was also home to 38 00:02:42,520 --> 00:02:45,920 the Great Eastern Railway's locomotive works. 39 00:02:45,920 --> 00:02:48,840 A few years ago, I came here to Stratford to see how 40 00:02:48,840 --> 00:02:51,920 one of Victorian London's largest railway sites was being 41 00:02:51,920 --> 00:02:54,680 transformed to host the Olympic Games. 42 00:02:54,680 --> 00:02:58,480 Today, I want to see whether tracks laid at the dawn 43 00:02:58,480 --> 00:03:02,160 of the railway age coped with the crowds of spectators 44 00:03:02,160 --> 00:03:07,000 and whether the flame of regeneration still burns brightly in the east. 45 00:03:11,280 --> 00:03:14,800 The former Olympic Park has recently reopened to Londoners, 46 00:03:14,800 --> 00:03:18,880 creating a vast new public space the size of Hyde Park, 47 00:03:18,880 --> 00:03:21,000 studded with contemporary sculptures, 48 00:03:21,000 --> 00:03:24,480 including Anish Kapoor's striking ArcelorMittal Orbit. 49 00:03:25,520 --> 00:03:29,280 Parks, as we now know them, were invented in the 19th century, 50 00:03:29,280 --> 00:03:32,240 green oases, ringed by elegant homes, 51 00:03:32,240 --> 00:03:35,440 in the midst of industrial Britain's smoky cities. 52 00:03:36,560 --> 00:03:40,560 Dr Paul Brickell has been working to ensure that the Olympic Games 53 00:03:40,560 --> 00:03:42,800 bequeathed London a worthy park. 54 00:03:43,840 --> 00:03:46,120 Paul, I was here before the Olympic Games 55 00:03:46,120 --> 00:03:48,800 and the expectation was that many, many people, 56 00:03:48,800 --> 00:03:51,920 most people would come by train. Did it work out that way? 57 00:03:51,920 --> 00:03:53,600 Well, it did and there were many. 58 00:03:53,600 --> 00:03:56,520 You imagine the park down below us, quarter of a million, 59 00:03:56,520 --> 00:03:58,160 third of a million people every day. 60 00:03:58,160 --> 00:04:01,000 Plus the tens of thousands of people going to the shopping centre, 61 00:04:01,000 --> 00:04:05,040 plus the tens of thousands of people going about their normal business. 62 00:04:05,040 --> 00:04:08,520 And it worked. The railway was astonishing. 63 00:04:08,520 --> 00:04:11,160 It's such a connection with the Victorian period, isn't it? 64 00:04:11,160 --> 00:04:14,040 This was the most extraordinary railway works. 65 00:04:14,040 --> 00:04:17,160 Of course, you can still see the pattern of the railways all around. 66 00:04:17,160 --> 00:04:21,120 Yeah, I think they were the biggest railway engineering yards in Europe. 67 00:04:21,120 --> 00:04:25,960 Stratford works opened in 1847 and were the creation of the so-called 68 00:04:25,960 --> 00:04:30,200 "Railway King" George Hudson, chairman of the Eastern Counties Railway. 69 00:04:31,720 --> 00:04:37,720 At the peak of its 115-year history, the works employed some 6,500 people 70 00:04:37,720 --> 00:04:39,960 and to this day, the whole area is 71 00:04:39,960 --> 00:04:44,000 criss-crossed with railway lines dating back to Victorian times. 72 00:04:48,160 --> 00:04:50,560 One of the big challenges of building the Games was to 73 00:04:50,560 --> 00:04:54,080 weave this new piece of city around all this hard infrastructure, 74 00:04:54,080 --> 00:04:57,080 this hard railway and I think to get the beautiful view 75 00:04:57,080 --> 00:04:59,840 that you now see in the midst of all that is a tribute 76 00:04:59,840 --> 00:05:01,720 to the people who built the Games. 77 00:05:01,720 --> 00:05:04,680 Another thing that makes me think of Victorian times 78 00:05:04,680 --> 00:05:06,720 is that you have created a park here. 79 00:05:06,720 --> 00:05:10,880 Now, of course, Victorians had to create parks because their city was growing so fast. 80 00:05:10,880 --> 00:05:13,600 But it's a while since London had a new park. 81 00:05:13,600 --> 00:05:15,080 Tell me about yours. 82 00:05:15,080 --> 00:05:17,840 Like those Victorian parks, it's for the local population. 83 00:05:17,840 --> 00:05:20,080 Half the people who come here live around the park. 84 00:05:20,080 --> 00:05:22,360 But also it's a great park for London, for the world. 85 00:05:22,360 --> 00:05:25,120 We're here in the south with the stadium, the aquatic centre. 86 00:05:25,120 --> 00:05:28,360 The South Park Plaza is a waterside promenade, 87 00:05:28,360 --> 00:05:31,200 tree-lined promenade with lots of break-out spaces 88 00:05:31,200 --> 00:05:32,360 and lots going on in it. 89 00:05:32,360 --> 00:05:35,320 As you get further north, you can see the river winds, you get this 90 00:05:35,320 --> 00:05:38,400 sense of river valley, it's a much quieter park up there 91 00:05:38,400 --> 00:05:42,680 and it leads then of course to the Hackney Marshes and the Walthamstow Marshes. 92 00:05:42,680 --> 00:05:44,280 Now, you're a Stratford boy, I think. 93 00:05:44,280 --> 00:05:47,920 The East End was traditionally seen as the place of Jack the Ripper, 94 00:05:47,920 --> 00:05:49,400 Fagin from Oliver Twist 95 00:05:49,400 --> 00:05:52,280 and then the terrible bombings during World War II. 96 00:05:52,280 --> 00:05:53,760 Is all of this changing 97 00:05:53,760 --> 00:05:56,600 the way we feel about the East End of London? 98 00:05:56,600 --> 00:05:58,960 The positive side of that is that it was always 99 00:05:58,960 --> 00:06:02,320 full of entrepreneurial vim and vigour, which has mostly 100 00:06:02,320 --> 00:06:05,520 been on the right side of the law and occasionally perhaps not! 101 00:06:05,520 --> 00:06:08,760 The kind of people who are coming here are people who want to do new things. 102 00:06:08,760 --> 00:06:10,280 Some of them are old institutions. 103 00:06:10,280 --> 00:06:12,760 We're talking to the Victoria and Albert Museum, 104 00:06:12,760 --> 00:06:16,520 Sadler's Wells, University College London about coming to sites here. 105 00:06:16,520 --> 00:06:20,320 So, I think that that same spirit is here in east London. 106 00:06:20,320 --> 00:06:23,640 But hopefully more regulated, more legal. 107 00:06:23,640 --> 00:06:25,400 Stratford on track. Yes. 108 00:06:29,600 --> 00:06:32,320 Just as the creators of Victorian parks sought, 109 00:06:32,320 --> 00:06:36,040 the promoters of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park aim to provide 110 00:06:36,040 --> 00:06:40,320 space for Londoners to mingle, relax and exercise. 111 00:06:40,320 --> 00:06:44,200 But no park in Bradshaw's day could offer Olympic-standard 112 00:06:44,200 --> 00:06:47,080 amenities like the Copper Box Arena, 113 00:06:47,080 --> 00:06:52,680 designed for sports as diverse as basketball, fencing and netball. 114 00:06:52,680 --> 00:06:53,760 Get it back, Blue! 115 00:06:57,240 --> 00:07:00,800 Hello! Hi. Sorry to interrupt your game. 116 00:07:00,800 --> 00:07:03,560 How does it feel playing in an Olympic facility? 117 00:07:03,560 --> 00:07:04,880 It's really, really good. 118 00:07:04,880 --> 00:07:07,320 We've been playing here for one season now. 119 00:07:07,320 --> 00:07:09,920 We've been practising for some really interesting events 120 00:07:09,920 --> 00:07:12,440 while playing in the Copper Box. It's a really good experience. 121 00:07:12,440 --> 00:07:15,080 And make my day. Who comes here to play by train? 122 00:07:15,080 --> 00:07:16,120 Hands up. 123 00:07:16,120 --> 00:07:17,280 Yeah? 124 00:07:17,280 --> 00:07:19,280 Do you use the train? Yes, I do. 125 00:07:19,280 --> 00:07:20,720 It's the perfect way to travel. 126 00:07:20,720 --> 00:07:24,960 That's the best thing about this location is how easy it is to access. 127 00:07:24,960 --> 00:07:28,040 We've attracted a lot of new players because of it. 128 00:07:28,040 --> 00:07:32,720 Well, I guess I'm in the blue team. I think so. Let's go. 129 00:07:32,720 --> 00:07:36,200 Here we go. Straight away. Someone throw to Michael. 130 00:07:36,200 --> 00:07:39,400 To me, Michael. 131 00:07:39,400 --> 00:07:41,760 Back to Michael. Let's go. 132 00:07:41,760 --> 00:07:43,680 Don't make it easy for him, girls! 133 00:07:47,040 --> 00:07:48,880 Whoa! Oh! 134 00:07:52,640 --> 00:07:55,120 Having caught my breath, I'm continuing my journey 135 00:07:55,120 --> 00:07:58,480 on the capital's newest rail service, London Overground. 136 00:07:59,880 --> 00:08:02,960 I'm travelling from Stratford to Hackney Central, 137 00:08:02,960 --> 00:08:05,520 passing straight through the Olympic Park. 138 00:08:07,960 --> 00:08:11,800 Long before Victorian train tracks wove their way across the city, 139 00:08:11,800 --> 00:08:13,840 Londoners travelled by carriage, 140 00:08:13,840 --> 00:08:17,520 and its descendant still works the streets today, 141 00:08:17,520 --> 00:08:21,600 recognised the world over as a symbol of the British capital. 142 00:08:22,920 --> 00:08:26,200 Hackney Central seems like a good place to take a hackney carriage, 143 00:08:26,200 --> 00:08:29,600 which is the official name of a London taxi. 144 00:08:29,600 --> 00:08:31,960 According to Bradshaw's London guide, 145 00:08:31,960 --> 00:08:35,720 "Every driver of a hackney carriage shall, when hired, 146 00:08:35,720 --> 00:08:38,160 "deliver to the hirer a card whereon 147 00:08:38,160 --> 00:08:42,760 "is printed the number of the stamp office plate fixed to the carriage. 148 00:08:42,760 --> 00:08:45,920 "The utility of this ticket will be readily seen 149 00:08:45,920 --> 00:08:48,440 "in the case of loss of luggage." 150 00:08:48,440 --> 00:08:51,200 I must say, I would find it very useful if that rule still applied. 151 00:08:51,200 --> 00:08:55,400 So handy when you leave your spectacles in the back of a cab. 152 00:08:55,400 --> 00:08:56,440 Taxi! 153 00:08:57,800 --> 00:08:59,200 Spitalfields, please. 154 00:09:03,840 --> 00:09:08,120 My driver, Howard Taylor, has been a cabbie for 27 years. 155 00:09:08,120 --> 00:09:11,960 What is the origin of calling a London taxi a hackney carriage? 156 00:09:11,960 --> 00:09:14,400 There's nothing written in stone 157 00:09:14,400 --> 00:09:17,760 but most people think it derives from the French term haquenee, 158 00:09:17,760 --> 00:09:21,160 which was a horse-drawn carriage, I believe. 159 00:09:21,160 --> 00:09:24,880 Ah, so not necessarily anything to do with good old Hackney at all. 160 00:09:24,880 --> 00:09:27,600 How long have hackney carriages been around then? 161 00:09:27,600 --> 00:09:31,600 Over 300 years now. We were licensed at the end of the 17th century. 162 00:09:31,600 --> 00:09:34,320 Good heavens. I wasn't there at the beginning! 163 00:09:34,320 --> 00:09:35,960 HE LAUGHS 164 00:09:35,960 --> 00:09:40,320 London taxis are the oldest regulated transport system in the world, 165 00:09:40,320 --> 00:09:42,200 and their drivers are famed 166 00:09:42,200 --> 00:09:44,800 for knowing the city like the back of their hand. 167 00:09:44,800 --> 00:09:48,240 That's because of the daunting exam they have to pass called 168 00:09:48,240 --> 00:09:49,960 "the Knowledge". 169 00:09:49,960 --> 00:09:53,800 How far back does the Knowledge go? Well before my time. 170 00:09:53,800 --> 00:09:55,640 And my father's before him. 171 00:09:55,640 --> 00:09:59,880 My father was a taxi driver, that's why I am, in truth. 172 00:09:59,880 --> 00:10:01,440 What did you have to learn? 173 00:10:01,440 --> 00:10:05,360 I had to learn everything within a six-mile radius of Charing Cross. 174 00:10:05,360 --> 00:10:09,560 So that's about 25,000 streets, 175 00:10:09,560 --> 00:10:14,800 and 70, 80, 90,000 places of interest. 176 00:10:16,440 --> 00:10:20,200 I reckon I know my city pretty well, but I'm no match for Howard. 177 00:10:21,680 --> 00:10:26,680 How can you get from Bishopsgate to the Old Bailey without 178 00:10:26,680 --> 00:10:28,640 crossing a road? 179 00:10:31,200 --> 00:10:35,120 Ha-ha! By hiring a cab with a knowledgeable driver! 180 00:10:35,120 --> 00:10:37,680 With a knowledgeable driver who'll tell you that the 181 00:10:37,680 --> 00:10:43,080 City of London has streets, alleys, hills and places, but no roads. 182 00:10:44,200 --> 00:10:48,120 Ah! Little bit unfair, I think. That's a clever one. 183 00:10:48,120 --> 00:10:52,080 In Bradshaw's day, the railways rivalled the hackney cab trade 184 00:10:52,080 --> 00:10:56,120 and new technology is still affecting business today. 185 00:10:56,120 --> 00:11:00,680 Nowadays we have these sat-nav Johnnies. Satnav Johnnies! 186 00:11:00,680 --> 00:11:05,040 Private hire vehicles, if that's what you want to call them, pull up next to me totally confused. 187 00:11:05,040 --> 00:11:07,160 And the passenger in the back is asking me 188 00:11:07,160 --> 00:11:10,080 for directions cos the driver's not sure where they're going 189 00:11:10,080 --> 00:11:12,360 and the sat-nav has really lost them. 190 00:11:12,360 --> 00:11:14,480 So you can't beat the Knowledge. 191 00:11:15,640 --> 00:11:18,600 My hackney cab has brought me to a part of town which, 192 00:11:18,600 --> 00:11:20,280 at the time of my guidebook, 193 00:11:20,280 --> 00:11:22,600 was the capital's multicultural melting pot. 194 00:11:22,600 --> 00:11:23,800 Thank you. 195 00:11:29,680 --> 00:11:32,240 I'm a few yards from the City of London, 196 00:11:32,240 --> 00:11:36,920 but those who broke off from investing in the Victorian railway bubble, 197 00:11:36,920 --> 00:11:41,120 and ventured from their counting houses as far as Spitalfields, 198 00:11:41,120 --> 00:11:42,960 entered a different world. 199 00:11:42,960 --> 00:11:45,880 Here they encountered foreign immigrants. 200 00:11:45,880 --> 00:11:51,280 Your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. 201 00:11:52,840 --> 00:11:57,000 For hundreds of years, this area just outside the old city walls 202 00:11:57,000 --> 00:12:00,320 has been home to wave upon wave of immigrants. 203 00:12:04,240 --> 00:12:07,800 Dr Daniel DeHanas has researched migration in Spitalfields 204 00:12:07,800 --> 00:12:09,080 over the years. 205 00:12:13,360 --> 00:12:15,440 Dan, you've really taken me back in time, 206 00:12:15,440 --> 00:12:18,200 but a long way back, way before my Bradshaw's guide? 207 00:12:18,200 --> 00:12:22,640 Absolutely, we've moved into a Huguenot weaver's house. 208 00:12:22,640 --> 00:12:24,840 This is probably from around 1720. 209 00:12:24,840 --> 00:12:28,880 And you can see that Huguenots were masterful silk weavers, 210 00:12:28,880 --> 00:12:30,560 that was their main trade. 211 00:12:30,560 --> 00:12:34,480 But they were forced to leave Catholic France because 212 00:12:34,480 --> 00:12:39,560 they were Calvinists, Protestants who were being persecuted. 213 00:12:39,560 --> 00:12:44,400 In the late 17th century, following violent persecution in France, 214 00:12:44,400 --> 00:12:48,520 some 50,000 Huguenots fled to Protestant England. 215 00:12:48,520 --> 00:12:52,200 Within the City of London, the textile trade was tightly controlled 216 00:12:52,200 --> 00:12:56,720 by the city's guilds, which were largely closed to foreigners. 217 00:12:56,720 --> 00:13:01,280 So a community of Huguenot weavers set up shop here, just outside 218 00:13:01,280 --> 00:13:05,480 the city walls, where they found a ready market for their beautiful silks. 219 00:13:07,520 --> 00:13:10,960 Overall, the Huguenots were quite a prosperous group who did 220 00:13:10,960 --> 00:13:13,760 very well from their silk trade which was really 221 00:13:13,760 --> 00:13:16,040 valued by the upper classes at the time. 222 00:13:17,440 --> 00:13:20,880 Did they face prejudice here? They certainly did. 223 00:13:20,880 --> 00:13:24,120 There's record actually from Parliament about a swarm 224 00:13:24,120 --> 00:13:26,880 of frogs which had invaded England. 225 00:13:26,880 --> 00:13:30,440 And that actually is something which was mirrored by other 226 00:13:30,440 --> 00:13:33,640 waves of immigrants that have come to this area as well. 227 00:13:33,640 --> 00:13:35,040 In the late 18th century, 228 00:13:35,040 --> 00:13:40,480 the opening up of global trade led to the decline of the London silk weaving industry, 229 00:13:40,480 --> 00:13:43,440 and the Huguenots gave way to Irish immigrants, 230 00:13:43,440 --> 00:13:46,120 escaping the great famine of the 1840s and '50s. 231 00:13:48,200 --> 00:13:51,760 They were drawn to Spitalfields by its abundant employment 232 00:13:51,760 --> 00:13:53,880 opportunities in the nearby docks 233 00:13:53,880 --> 00:13:56,680 and in the vast Truman Brewery on Brick Lane. 234 00:13:58,080 --> 00:14:00,800 It's called Brick Lane because this was where 235 00:14:00,800 --> 00:14:03,120 they would have carted bricks back and forth. 236 00:14:03,120 --> 00:14:05,520 The bricks had to be made outside of the city walls 237 00:14:05,520 --> 00:14:09,360 and this was actually a very, very busy and noxious 238 00:14:09,360 --> 00:14:11,760 and loud and noisy sort of lane. 239 00:14:11,760 --> 00:14:14,680 Then, around the time my guidebook was written, 240 00:14:14,680 --> 00:14:18,320 Spitalfields began to change again as Russian 241 00:14:18,320 --> 00:14:23,000 and East European Jews fleeing persecution settled here, 242 00:14:23,000 --> 00:14:26,120 earning the area the nickname Little Jerusalem. 243 00:14:26,120 --> 00:14:29,080 And now, as I look around me, we've got balti houses, 244 00:14:29,080 --> 00:14:30,440 we've got curry houses, 245 00:14:30,440 --> 00:14:33,440 so evidently there was another wave of immigration after that. 246 00:14:33,440 --> 00:14:34,800 Well, there was. 247 00:14:34,800 --> 00:14:38,000 The Bangladeshis are the wave since the '60s. 248 00:14:38,000 --> 00:14:42,280 They've really reshaped Brick Lane as a real curry mile. 249 00:14:42,280 --> 00:14:45,520 But beneath the trappings of so-called "Banglatown", 250 00:14:45,520 --> 00:14:48,880 it's possible to glimpse this area's many-layered past. 251 00:14:50,040 --> 00:14:53,520 Well, it seems that the minaret has been purpose built, 252 00:14:53,520 --> 00:14:57,440 but the mosque behind is not, I think, tailor-made. 253 00:14:57,440 --> 00:15:02,000 That's correct. The building is from 1743 254 00:15:02,000 --> 00:15:05,600 and what's remarkable is that it's been a place of worship 255 00:15:05,600 --> 00:15:09,400 for all of these successive waves of immigrants over time. 256 00:15:09,400 --> 00:15:12,320 So it was built as a Huguenot chapel. 257 00:15:12,320 --> 00:15:14,800 It spent part of its life as a Wesleyan chapel 258 00:15:14,800 --> 00:15:16,440 and a Methodist chapel. 259 00:15:16,440 --> 00:15:19,040 In the late 1800s, this became the great synagogue 260 00:15:19,040 --> 00:15:23,000 and at that time, there were more than 100,000 Jews 261 00:15:23,000 --> 00:15:25,600 living in the East End of London. 262 00:15:25,600 --> 00:15:28,680 And today, this is the great mosque. 263 00:15:28,680 --> 00:15:32,320 It's like the archaeology of all the religions that have been 264 00:15:32,320 --> 00:15:35,160 here in Brick Lane. Anyway, thank you so much. 265 00:15:35,160 --> 00:15:37,560 I'm off to see if I can have a really spicy evening! 266 00:15:37,560 --> 00:15:38,600 I hope you do. 267 00:15:47,920 --> 00:15:51,400 My journey is now taking me away from the East End as I travel 268 00:15:51,400 --> 00:15:54,440 towards central London on the District Line. 269 00:15:54,440 --> 00:15:59,160 I'm alighting at Blackfriars, where Bradshaw's Handbook of 1875 270 00:15:59,160 --> 00:16:03,080 promises a "new and truly magnificent bridge". 271 00:16:03,080 --> 00:16:06,560 Indeed it is, but Bradshaw was referring to the road bridge, 272 00:16:06,560 --> 00:16:08,120 which was new then. 273 00:16:08,120 --> 00:16:13,080 Today we can admire a bridge which arguably might have excited him even more. 274 00:16:17,600 --> 00:16:20,640 Since 1831, when London Bridge was demolished, 275 00:16:20,640 --> 00:16:21,920 there hadn't been a bridge 276 00:16:21,920 --> 00:16:24,800 spanning the River Thames with buildings on it. 277 00:16:24,800 --> 00:16:28,880 But that's all changed now with the new Blackfriars station. 278 00:16:28,880 --> 00:16:32,640 It spans the river and it has entrances on the north bank 279 00:16:32,640 --> 00:16:34,640 and the south bank. 280 00:16:34,640 --> 00:16:38,040 My Bradshaw's guide loves statistics about railway stations, 281 00:16:38,040 --> 00:16:42,760 so let me tell you that it's part of a £6.5 billion refurbishment 282 00:16:42,760 --> 00:16:44,640 of the Thameslink system. 283 00:16:44,640 --> 00:16:50,240 And that this station has 4,400 solar panels. 284 00:16:53,840 --> 00:16:58,040 I'm making my way just upriver, to the so-called Inner Temple, 285 00:16:58,040 --> 00:17:00,880 where Victorian lawyers learnt their craft. 286 00:17:04,280 --> 00:17:07,000 The Temple, according to Bradshaw's, 287 00:17:07,000 --> 00:17:10,040 "formerly the residence of the Knights Templar, 288 00:17:10,040 --> 00:17:13,320 "that was a medieval Christian military order 289 00:17:13,320 --> 00:17:16,600 "and now leased by the common law students. 290 00:17:16,600 --> 00:17:20,680 "There is, in the tranquil retirement of these buildings, and the garden 291 00:17:20,680 --> 00:17:24,800 "facing the river, an appearance of delicious quietness." 292 00:17:24,800 --> 00:17:29,280 And yet it was the brief of one of those students to shake the world. 293 00:17:34,960 --> 00:17:38,800 Much of the Inner Temple was rebuilt in Bradshaw's day, 294 00:17:38,800 --> 00:17:41,840 but its legal pedigree dates back to medieval times. 295 00:17:43,600 --> 00:17:46,840 Patrick Maddams is a member of the Inner Temple 296 00:17:46,840 --> 00:17:48,160 and is showing me around. 297 00:17:49,600 --> 00:17:52,640 Patrick, the Inner and Middle Temple take their names 298 00:17:52,640 --> 00:17:57,200 from the Knights Templar, but then lawyers came here and occupied 299 00:17:57,200 --> 00:17:59,680 Inns of Court. What are Inns of Court? 300 00:17:59,680 --> 00:18:04,040 Inns of Court were places where you would work, where you would sleep, 301 00:18:04,040 --> 00:18:08,280 where you would eat and drink and see friends. 302 00:18:08,280 --> 00:18:11,960 You have a good example of an Inn of Court here in King's Bench Walk. 303 00:18:11,960 --> 00:18:14,880 It was a single building where at the basement 304 00:18:14,880 --> 00:18:18,240 you would have the kitchen and where the servants lived. 305 00:18:18,240 --> 00:18:21,600 On the ground floor you would have the chambers where 306 00:18:21,600 --> 00:18:23,920 the barristers would see their clients. 307 00:18:23,920 --> 00:18:27,360 Above that you would have the rooms where the barristers lived 308 00:18:27,360 --> 00:18:31,120 and right at the top in the eaves was where the student barristers, 309 00:18:31,120 --> 00:18:33,880 called pupils, would live. 310 00:18:33,880 --> 00:18:35,280 By the time of my guidebook, 311 00:18:35,280 --> 00:18:39,480 this quiet corner of London was becoming a global centre for law, 312 00:18:39,480 --> 00:18:43,320 as Britain exported its legal expertise across the Empire. 313 00:18:43,320 --> 00:18:45,040 Is the opposite happening, 314 00:18:45,040 --> 00:18:47,280 are students coming from the Empire to here? 315 00:18:47,280 --> 00:18:49,040 It is. It's a two-way trade. 316 00:18:49,040 --> 00:18:52,440 By the time of the late Victorian era there are many, many, 317 00:18:52,440 --> 00:18:56,520 for example, young Indian barristers practising English law in India. 318 00:18:56,520 --> 00:18:57,960 Any notable examples? 319 00:18:57,960 --> 00:19:01,520 Well, of course, the most famous of all is Gandhi. 320 00:19:03,000 --> 00:19:09,320 Mohandas Gandhi would become the leader of the Indian nationalist movement against British rule. 321 00:19:12,640 --> 00:19:16,560 But his extraordinary career began in Victorian London 322 00:19:16,560 --> 00:19:18,280 as a young law student. 323 00:19:20,480 --> 00:19:23,600 So here we have, clearly, a bust of the great man. 324 00:19:23,600 --> 00:19:26,560 Here he is. And these documents? 325 00:19:26,560 --> 00:19:30,280 These are very important because Gandhi arrived at the Inner Temple in 1888 326 00:19:30,280 --> 00:19:35,080 and, as every student has to do to this day, he has to fill 327 00:19:35,080 --> 00:19:36,800 in an admission form. 328 00:19:36,800 --> 00:19:39,000 Here we see in his own handwriting, 329 00:19:39,000 --> 00:19:45,440 "I, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, of 20 Baron's Court Road, West Kensington," 330 00:19:45,440 --> 00:19:49,680 signing his declaration that he is a fit and proper person. 331 00:19:49,680 --> 00:19:55,080 Luckily for historians, Gandhi kept a diary during his three years here. 332 00:19:55,080 --> 00:19:58,200 He took dancing lessons, he played the violin 333 00:19:58,200 --> 00:20:02,800 and he just seemed to be absorbed by everything that London had to offer. 334 00:20:02,800 --> 00:20:06,360 There's a very poignant final entry in the diary 335 00:20:06,360 --> 00:20:11,920 when he is on the boat leaving London and there's 336 00:20:11,920 --> 00:20:15,440 a copy of it there, Michael, if you'd like to have a look at it. 337 00:20:15,440 --> 00:20:18,440 Gandhi's final thoughts on London. 338 00:20:18,440 --> 00:20:20,400 "So much attached was I to London 339 00:20:20,400 --> 00:20:23,240 "and its environments, for who would not be? 340 00:20:23,240 --> 00:20:25,040 "London with its teaching institutions, 341 00:20:25,040 --> 00:20:28,360 "public galleries, vegetarian restaurants is a fit place 342 00:20:28,360 --> 00:20:30,800 "for a student and a traveller, a trader 343 00:20:30,800 --> 00:20:35,080 "and a faddist, as a vegetarian would be called by his opponents. 344 00:20:35,080 --> 00:20:38,400 "Thus it is not without regret that I left dear London." 345 00:20:38,400 --> 00:20:41,840 And this reminds us of one final legacy. 346 00:20:41,840 --> 00:20:45,080 Gandhi gave to the chef here some recipes 347 00:20:45,080 --> 00:20:47,160 that his mother had sent him 348 00:20:47,160 --> 00:20:51,800 and the chef took kindly on him and cooked a vegetarian curry. 349 00:20:51,800 --> 00:20:53,440 It soon became very popular 350 00:20:53,440 --> 00:20:57,480 and to this day, every meal served at the Inner Temple has 351 00:20:57,480 --> 00:21:00,120 a vegetarian option in memory of Gandhi. 352 00:21:00,120 --> 00:21:04,040 This place is full of traditions. It certainly is. 353 00:21:04,040 --> 00:21:08,480 After Gandhi qualified as a lawyer in 1891, he briefly returned 354 00:21:08,480 --> 00:21:13,320 to India before heading to join an Indian law firm in South Africa. 355 00:21:13,320 --> 00:21:17,880 Until that point, Gandhi had shown little interest in politics. 356 00:21:17,880 --> 00:21:21,440 Indian barrister Ram Viraraghavan knows more. 357 00:21:24,640 --> 00:21:28,400 Ram, hello. Hello, Michael. Very good to see you. 358 00:21:28,400 --> 00:21:32,360 What has brought you from India to London? 359 00:21:32,360 --> 00:21:37,120 I wanted to taste the waters at the fountain of justice. 360 00:21:37,120 --> 00:21:39,520 That was why I came to the Inner Temple. 361 00:21:39,520 --> 00:21:41,120 What a lovely answer. 362 00:21:41,120 --> 00:21:43,800 I've been learning about Mahatma Gandhi, 363 00:21:43,800 --> 00:21:46,520 it seems that when he was in London he was not particularly 364 00:21:46,520 --> 00:21:50,160 interested in politics, so what changes him? 365 00:21:50,160 --> 00:21:53,720 I should think the provocation was he was 366 00:21:53,720 --> 00:21:56,520 thrown off a train in South Africa 367 00:21:56,520 --> 00:21:57,960 and that, I should think, 368 00:21:57,960 --> 00:22:00,880 was the beginning of his political consciousness. 369 00:22:00,880 --> 00:22:04,720 He was brown and the South Africans would have nothing of it. 370 00:22:04,720 --> 00:22:06,680 They threw him out of the train. 371 00:22:06,680 --> 00:22:08,720 This is what he says: 372 00:22:08,720 --> 00:22:12,880 "The hardship to which I was subjected was superficial, 373 00:22:12,880 --> 00:22:17,520 "only a symptom of the deep disease of colour prejudice. 374 00:22:17,520 --> 00:22:21,440 "I should try, if possible, to root out the disease 375 00:22:21,440 --> 00:22:24,560 "and suffer hardships in the process. 376 00:22:24,560 --> 00:22:28,240 "Redress for wrongs I should seek only to the extent 377 00:22:28,240 --> 00:22:33,320 "that would be necessary for removal of the colour prejudice." 378 00:22:33,320 --> 00:22:35,400 And so began in a small way, 379 00:22:35,400 --> 00:22:38,600 the road which ultimately leads to free India. 380 00:22:39,600 --> 00:22:43,160 It's quite extraordinary when you think that such important 381 00:22:43,160 --> 00:22:46,640 history begins with an incident on a train. Of course it does. 382 00:22:49,400 --> 00:22:52,200 It's time for me to take a train from the very same 383 00:22:52,200 --> 00:22:55,640 station that the young Gandhi would have used all those years ago 384 00:22:55,640 --> 00:22:59,920 and travel on the District Line to my final stop - Victoria. 385 00:23:01,080 --> 00:23:05,000 Here the District and Circle Lines, constructed in the 19th century, 386 00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:08,240 meet the 1960s-built Victoria Line 387 00:23:08,240 --> 00:23:11,000 and the result can be chaotic. 388 00:23:11,000 --> 00:23:12,440 It's a complete mess. 389 00:23:12,440 --> 00:23:15,160 They are at the moment doing some improvements. 390 00:23:15,160 --> 00:23:17,200 Do you think that's going to make it better? 391 00:23:17,200 --> 00:23:20,480 I'm hopeful that it will, and just ease some of the congestion. 392 00:23:20,480 --> 00:23:23,400 It's not intuitive, the way you get around the station. 393 00:23:23,400 --> 00:23:26,960 They tell us that in a few years' time we're going to have great big new ticket halls. 394 00:23:26,960 --> 00:23:30,000 That's something to look forward to, isn't it? Yeah! 395 00:23:34,160 --> 00:23:38,240 As Bradshaw says, "Occupying the site of the Grosvenor Canal basin, 396 00:23:38,240 --> 00:23:41,840 "the Victoria station is now the busy scene of the arrival 397 00:23:41,840 --> 00:23:45,680 "and departure of the West End and Crystal Palace, the Brighton 398 00:23:45,680 --> 00:23:49,640 "and South Coast and the Chatham and Dover lines." 399 00:23:49,640 --> 00:23:54,000 Not surprisingly then, Victoria has become cluttered, congested 400 00:23:54,000 --> 00:23:57,720 and confused, and clearly in need of an upgrade. 401 00:24:01,280 --> 00:24:05,240 Since 2009, the Underground station that serves this busy 402 00:24:05,240 --> 00:24:09,720 terminus has been undergoing a £700 million makeover, 403 00:24:09,720 --> 00:24:12,160 due to be completed in 2018. 404 00:24:15,040 --> 00:24:16,680 David Waboso is showing me 405 00:24:16,680 --> 00:24:19,680 what will eventually be a vast new ticket hall. 406 00:24:25,160 --> 00:24:28,760 David, Victoria Underground station is very badly congested, 407 00:24:28,760 --> 00:24:30,520 what is your master plan? 408 00:24:30,520 --> 00:24:35,440 We want to increase capacity of this station by a whopping 33%. 409 00:24:35,440 --> 00:24:39,240 We have more passengers use just Victoria Underground station 410 00:24:39,240 --> 00:24:40,320 than Heathrow Airport. 411 00:24:40,320 --> 00:24:43,720 Over 80 million passengers a year come through here. 412 00:24:43,720 --> 00:24:45,760 To link the new and old ticket halls 413 00:24:45,760 --> 00:24:48,520 and to improve connections between the Tube lines, 414 00:24:48,520 --> 00:24:52,000 280 metres of new tunnels are being squeezed in 415 00:24:52,000 --> 00:24:55,200 amongst the existing underground infrastructure. 416 00:24:55,200 --> 00:24:57,720 The trouble with that, from an engineering point of view, 417 00:24:57,720 --> 00:25:00,800 is we're having to basically tunnel through water-bearing sands, 418 00:25:00,800 --> 00:25:03,480 which is not very good material to tunnel through. 419 00:25:03,480 --> 00:25:04,840 How do you cope with that? 420 00:25:04,840 --> 00:25:08,760 We've effectively here put in over 2,000 jet grouting columns. 421 00:25:08,760 --> 00:25:11,840 Basically vertical columns of concrete that we pour 422 00:25:11,840 --> 00:25:14,880 into the ground under controlled methods, and that stabilises 423 00:25:14,880 --> 00:25:18,600 the ground so that we can then build these huge underground caverns. 424 00:25:18,600 --> 00:25:21,040 I walk past here probably most days of my life, 425 00:25:21,040 --> 00:25:25,880 I had no idea that this great big hole, this great big box was here, 426 00:25:25,880 --> 00:25:28,720 I just wish everybody could see it. 427 00:25:28,720 --> 00:25:31,760 It's a great achievement that during these vast works 428 00:25:31,760 --> 00:25:35,040 going on below ground, Victoria station has stayed open. 429 00:25:37,040 --> 00:25:40,960 David is now taking me to the cutting edge. 430 00:25:40,960 --> 00:25:43,200 DRILLING 431 00:25:45,920 --> 00:25:48,240 Hello! How are you? 432 00:25:48,240 --> 00:25:50,640 Michael. Eugene. Pleased to meet you. Good to see you. 433 00:25:50,640 --> 00:25:53,160 And what is it that Eugene's doing? 434 00:25:53,160 --> 00:25:55,840 I'm used to seeing great big boring machines. 435 00:25:55,840 --> 00:25:59,120 I'm quite surprised to see Eugene doing kind of hand-mining, really. 436 00:25:59,120 --> 00:26:02,920 Yeah, when you get this close in, the space is so limited 437 00:26:02,920 --> 00:26:07,040 that you really need manual methods of doing it, and we exploit 438 00:26:07,040 --> 00:26:11,200 the skills of people like Eugene who have hand-mining capabilities. 439 00:26:11,200 --> 00:26:14,120 In Victorian times, they had to do all this hand-mining, 440 00:26:14,120 --> 00:26:16,320 but without these wonderful pneumatic tools. 441 00:26:16,320 --> 00:26:18,920 They must have been really good men, mustn't they? 442 00:26:18,920 --> 00:26:22,200 Yeah, they were, it's heroic stuff and we owe them a huge debt 443 00:26:22,200 --> 00:26:24,760 because a lot of the stuff we use today is based on 444 00:26:24,760 --> 00:26:28,680 the Victorians who built the first sections of the Tube in the 1860s. 445 00:26:28,680 --> 00:26:30,200 Where exactly are we now? 446 00:26:30,200 --> 00:26:32,440 So we're about 24 metres below ground level. 447 00:26:32,440 --> 00:26:35,120 Right on top of us is the Victoria Palace Theatre, which is 448 00:26:35,120 --> 00:26:36,960 currently having a matinee concert. 449 00:26:36,960 --> 00:26:39,720 Either side of that will be London buses 450 00:26:39,720 --> 00:26:42,040 and there'll be taxis and cars 451 00:26:42,040 --> 00:26:46,240 and people walking around and all this stuff is going on underground. 452 00:26:46,240 --> 00:26:49,440 Just behind us, about a metre behind that clay, will be 453 00:26:49,440 --> 00:26:51,400 the running tunnels for the Victoria Line. 454 00:26:51,400 --> 00:26:52,960 Just behind that wall? Yeah. 455 00:26:54,480 --> 00:26:58,320 On this journey I've witnessed London's insatiable restlessness 456 00:26:58,320 --> 00:26:59,960 and constant reinvention. 457 00:27:01,440 --> 00:27:03,280 Today, as in Bradshaw's day, 458 00:27:03,280 --> 00:27:07,800 its energy attracts visitors and settlers from around the world. 459 00:27:09,840 --> 00:27:13,440 As a new Underground station takes shape in the heart of the capital, 460 00:27:13,440 --> 00:27:18,920 in East London, Victorian railway sidings have become an Olympic Park. 461 00:27:18,920 --> 00:27:21,000 The East End is used to change, 462 00:27:21,000 --> 00:27:26,200 because waves of immigration altered it from one generation to another. 463 00:27:26,200 --> 00:27:31,200 As the son of a refugee, let me urge you to speak kindly to foreigners. 464 00:27:31,200 --> 00:27:33,560 After being insulted on a train, 465 00:27:33,560 --> 00:27:38,600 Mahatma Gandhi led a movement that deprived the British Empire 466 00:27:38,600 --> 00:27:43,920 of what had once been the jewel in Victoria's crown, India. 467 00:27:43,920 --> 00:27:46,440 Careless talk can be expensive. 468 00:27:50,160 --> 00:27:53,880 Next time, I'll discover how 19th century engineering 469 00:27:53,880 --> 00:27:56,480 made for spectacular theatricals. 470 00:27:56,480 --> 00:27:58,600 Ben Hur was produced there twice. 471 00:27:58,600 --> 00:28:01,400 To make it more exciting, they turned the treadmills round 472 00:28:01,400 --> 00:28:03,920 so that the horses were running towards the audience. 473 00:28:03,920 --> 00:28:07,560 Discover a Victorian luxury fit for a Queen... 474 00:28:07,560 --> 00:28:12,120 If I dab this behind my ears, I can smell like Queen Victoria. 475 00:28:12,120 --> 00:28:15,160 And come face to face with my hero... 476 00:28:15,160 --> 00:28:16,840 George Bradshaw.