For Victorian Britons,
George Bradshaw was a household name.
At a time when railways were new,
Bradshaw's guidebook inspired them to take to the tracks.
I'm using a Bradshaw's Guide
to understand how trains
transformed Britain.
Its landscape, its industry,
society and leisure time.
As I crisscross the country 150 years later,
it helps me to discover the Britain of today.
I'm concluding my journey around Southern England.
Today, sticking close to the River Thames,
I'll find out how the aquatic rivalry between Oxford and Cambridge
was institutionalised
and how women who were satisfied with neither one of them,
by degrees gained their own university.
But I'm looking forward to beginning with all the fun of the fair.
Following my Bradshaw's guidebook,
I travelled through the county of Kent,
took a route south of London,
through the picturesque towns of Surrey,
and visited racetracks and royal residencies.
The final leg of my journey will take me along the river
to Henley-on-Thames.
Today, I take a ride in Egham, push the boundaries in Staines,
drink in the industrial past of Slough
and cross the finishing line in the home of rowing.
I attempt to pull my weight on the River Thames...
Push and relax. Hands away.
Sorry, I've lost it completely.
..discover the radical implications
of one of the country's first universities for women...
I think it really was the starting point.
By having an education, by having a choice, they demanded other choices.
And let off some steam at a vintage funfair.
MICHAEL LAUGHS Oh, it's horrible!
Oh! Enough! Enough!
Stop!
Under each place name,
my Bradshaw's tends to give the date of the annual fair.
Originally, these were important gatherings for farmers
to trade with each other.
But over time, they became associated with amusements.
And those amusements were, of course,
transformed by the coming of steam.
I'm travelling on the South Western line
that links London Waterloo to Reading.
And my first stop is Egham.
On the outskirts, I find a vintage travelling steam fair -
custodian of rare and beautiful Victorian machines.
I step back in time to Bradshaw's day and put my mettle to the test.
Oh!
'It looks as if my Herculean strength hasn't quite hit the mark.'
BELL DINGS
Well done to you, that's how it's done.
Steam engines had been developed for use in factories and railways.
And in time, Victorian entrepreneurs
harnessed the new technology for entertainment.
I'm meeting Joby Carter
whose father started the steam fair in the 1970s,
collecting and restoring these superb Victorian fairground rides.
Joby, this is a very fine kind of antique ride.
When does that date from? Circa 1895.
That's amazing. And powered? By steam.
Before steam power, how would the rides be driven?
Predominately, rides were hand powered.
So, you had a hand crank in the middle of rides
and they had animals.
They may have had an animal in the centre pulling the ride round.
The dawn of the steam engine transformed the fairground industry
beyond all recognition.
One - because they could transport the rides with heavy locomotives
and they could power the ride with centre engines,
like the one in the galloper
and the one on the steam yachts we have here.
Now, your steam yachts really are a very elegant piece of work.
Tell me about them.
Well, the steam yacht originally was designed
by William Cartwright in 1888.
And along came Frederick Savage,
who was a farm machinery manufacturer,
got into the fairground game and pilfered the idea, if you will,
changed a few things to get round the copyright.
And it was Savage's that built the most steam yachts.
Ours was built in 1921 and it was the original white-knuckle ride.
It was a real, real thrill ride.
And how rare is it to have this kind of example of a steam yacht?
It's incredibly rare and, without any shadow of a doubt,
it's the finest example left in the world.
With these daring new rides, came the great showman.
Tasked with luring thrill-seeking Victorians onto the amusements.
Roll up, roll up, roll up for the steam yachts!
You'll be mesmerised, you'll be hypnotised!
You'll be swung from side to side!
Are you brave enough to come on the steam yachts today?
You'll be scared out of your wits!
Having talked the talk,
it's now time for me to experience this white-knuckle ride.
So, the seats are marked yellow for cowards
and then brave and then very brave.
And no self-respecting Briton could sit anywhere
except the very brave seat.
Come on then.
Oh, my goodness.
Oh, no. Oh, no.
HE LAUGHS
Oh, this is horrible. No, no.
Oh, the swing is appalling and in a Victorian device,
you're only held in by your own arms.
Oh, oh, oh!
I'm going vertical! I can't believe...
Oh, enough!
Enough! Stop!
Oh, thank goodness we're slowing down.
Those Victorians really knew how to scare you.
Glad to be back on solid ground, I remain in Egham
and I'm heading up the hill as I hope to learn a thing or two.
Fortunately for us, some Victorians who made a tremendous fortune
were interested in philanthropy and their own posterity.
And so it is that there is a corner of Surrey that is forever Holloway.
Royal Holloway is a spectacular university campus
now part of the University of London.
Its grand and traditional appearance perhaps belies
its radical pioneering origins.
Founded in 1886 by Thomas Holloway, a wealthy philanthropist.
It was one of Britain's first colleges for women.
The current principal is Professor Paul Layzell.
Paul, in order to found this extraordinary institution,
Thomas Holloway must have had a lot of money. Where did he make it?
Well, Thomas and Jane Holloway were very wealthy.
They produced pills and potions
that they claimed cured a variety of ailments.
But his secret to success was he was a brilliant marketeer,
he understood the power of advertising
and that's what sold the pills.
Do we think the pills were efficacious?
I'm told that they did you no harm.
I think they were a mild laxative.
What turned his mind towards philanthropy?
Well, the Holloways had no children and it was his wife, Jane,
who thought about creating a college for the education of women.
How undersupplied were women at that time with higher education?
There weren't many opportunities.
There was Bedford College which was founded in 1849 in Central London.
And you certainly couldn't get a degree until about 1900,
when both Bedford College and Royal Holloway College
joined the University of London.
Thomas and Jane had been a devoted couple
and following her death in 1875,
he resolved to build the college for women in her memory.
Holloway employed the architect William Crossland
to design this building.
It's based on the Chateau de Chambord
in the Loire Valley.
There it's white limestone, here it's red Victorian brick.
I notice that there's a statue of Queen Victoria
in your first court and you're known as Royal Holloway.
So did the Queen attach herself to the college?
Yes, the Queen was invited to come for the opening in 1886,
she liked it so much she granted the use of the royal title,
which is quite unusual in higher education institutions.
In the late 19th century,
higher education for women was controversial.
Many saw it as fraught with danger.
Care was taken to guard against ill health,
brought on by "strong brainwork."
There was a strict timetable and rules to keep women respectable.
The first year's intake was just 28 students,
but numbers grew rapidly.
Facilities included a beautiful gilded chapel.
As well as an art gallery, filled with works
from the leading painters of the day.
I'm meeting its curator, Laura McCulloch.
So, how did it come about
that a university college had an art collection?
It was all down to Thomas Holloway, the founder.
And I think the idea was that he needed something
to lure people to the college.
So he thought having an art gallery
would mean they'd come and then, of course,
once they're here, they couldn't help but see
how amazing the college was.
So I'm sure it was advertising.
But he was a 19th-century man so, of course,
he would have understood the idea of art for education as well.
So, I think it's a kind of dual purpose.
This painting here with its range of female beauties,
what's that about?
Well, what you have are women
who have not had enough money for a dowry
and they're being sold off at auction,
a marriage auction in ancient Babylon.
Really, I think the artist is trying to get his viewers
to compare ancient Babylon to Victorian Britain, saying,
"Have we really moved that far away?"
And I think the implied answer is,
"No, we are still not giving our women any choice.
"They must marry if they want to support themselves."
So, what role do you think Royal Holloway College plays
in changing the world that's been parodied in that painting?
I think it was one of the first stepping stones
for women to get freedom.
One of our students, Emily Wilding Davison, was a suffragette.
It allowed women to congregate together,
to talk about their status,
and I think it really was the starting point,
by having an education, by having a choice,
they demanded other choices.
And there's a painting that gladdens my heart -
a painting of a railway station.
It is. That's Paddington station.
And it was painted by William Powell Frith,
who really made his name with very large crowd scenes,
very complex scenes with lots of little narratives
but showing all the classes mixing together in these crowds.
And, really, it's a celebration
of the technology of Victorian Britain.
Over half the painting is dedicated
to the architecture of Paddington station.
Which, of course, you couldn't have without Victorian technology.
And then, the bottom half with the crowd scene -
now that's a celebration of Victorian society itself.
And it's quite a useful document, isn't it,
to tell us about what railway travel looked like
at the end of the 19th century? Absolutely.
Royal Holloway is today recognised as one of the leading
research universities in the country.
It has around 8,500 students.
And since 1945, has generously admitted men.
Thomas Holloway might today be considered a bit of a quack
and might be remembered as rather a rogue.
But his fortune built a college
that changed women's place in society
and an art collection that provides a social commentary
on late 19th-century Britain.
And that has earned him a position of honour in British history.
From Egham, I'm travelling just one station along the main line
for my overnight stop.
I'm going to spend my evening in Staines,
drawn by this reference in Bradshaw's
to the city boundary stone on which is inscribed,
"'God preserve the city of London AD 1280.'
"It marks the limit of the Lord Mayor's jurisdiction
"over the River Thames.
"When the civic authorities make their tour of inspection,
"they disembark here and wine is placed for them on the stone."
And that seems like a ritual that's worth re-enacting.
To pay off debts incurred fighting the Third Crusade, in 1197,
King Richard I sold the rights and revenues of the Lower Thames
to the Corporation of the City of London.
Staines stood at the title limit of the river
so it was an obvious place to mark the boundary.
Between the 12th and the 19th century,
the City of London could charge tolls
and levy taxes on fishing
along great stretches of the River Thames.
And they would visit each of their boundary stones
on three-day tours of inspection.
When the authorities lost that right in 1857,
they return from their last inspection symbolically by train
back to the City of London to drown their sorrows.
'It's the start of my second day.
I'm rejoining the railway at Staines and heading to Slough.
But I need to change at Windsor and Eton Riverside.
Windsor and Eton have two stations.
One by the riverside, one called Central.
You can walk between the two.
But the existence of two stations which are not joined together
is testimony to the railway mania of the Victorian age
when lines were constructed higgledy-piggledy.
In the shadow of the 11th-century Windsor Castle
and a stone's throw from Eton College, established in 1440,
I'm taking the riverside path
for my seven-minute walk between the stations
as I leave the South Western network
to join the trains of the Great Western.
It's still early, misty morning.
Luckily, I slept well last night.
There are some people who believe
that they rely for a good nocturnal rest
on a product made at my next stop, Slough.
Slough is known as home
to one of the largest industrial trading estates in Europe.
Just 20 miles west of London,
the town was bisected by the old Great West Road
and the Great Western Railway -
factors which attracted businesses from the mid-19th century.
In 1840, Slough was the closest station to Windsor Castle
and so was built bigger and grander than others along the line.
I'm to visit another local landmark built with trains in mind -
the original British Horlicks factory
which still produces the drink today.
To find out about its history,
I'm meeting the company's archivist, Jill Moretto.
Jill, how does this product start life?
In the early 1870s, James and William Horlick
emigrated to Chicago in the United States
and went into business together.
James had done his apprenticeship in a chemist in London
working with infant foods
and the two brothers decided that this would be the product
that they would make themselves and market.
So, what was the market opportunity for this new infant food?
In the Victorian times,
milk could sometimes take a long time to get
from the farms into the city, then out to the people who needed it.
By the time it got there,
it could cause illnesses or it might even cause death.
So by putting the milk in the product itself,
then you just needed to add water.
It was a sterile... It was much safer for the child.
This is a Horlicks feeder.
This is the predecessor to a baby bottle.
So, before plastics. So, it was stoppered at the one end.
You'd put your powder in, your water and mix it all up.
Then, the baby would have the teat on the end.
In 1883, the Horlick brothers had obtained a United States patent
for their dehydrated milk product
and were exporting it to their homeland as a baby food
and later an energy drink.
Demand was such that they started production in the United Kingdom.
Buying land from Eton College in 1906,
to build a factory alongside the railway line.
This is a card sleeve, probably 1920s.
You can see on the front we have,
"For infants, invalids, the aged and travellers."
"Infants, invalids, the aged..." I understand that. "Travellers"?
It was used by explorers, so, Roald Amundsen
and Admiral Byrd took it on their polar expeditions
to sustain themselves.
It could replace a meal.
During one of their expeditions in the 1930s,
they named a major mountain range after their sponsor
and to this day they are the Horlick Mountains in Antarctica.
So, I think of this product being advertised
as being very good for sleep.
So how did it change?
As milk became more available, it got pasteurisation,
the need to have this infant food for children wasn't as big.
They changed their marketing to keep their product going,
so they marketed it as a sleep aid.
And this is the drink itself. Yes.
I think I may be a novice to this.
So, it's warm.
Ooh, very wheaty, isn't it?
Yes. And quite thick. And quite thick.
And...
Now revived, I'm off to see how modern production is managed
in a facility that's over 100 years old.
The site director of the factory is Steve Smith.
Steve, a powerful, almost heady smell
which is very distinctive of the product.
What makes it smell like that?
So, you're right at the front end of the process,
Michael, here at Slough.
And that's where we mash the product together
with the malted barley and the wheat flour.
And that, with hot water, that provides us with that smell.
But I'm quite pleased that you've got, excuse me,
what appear like some quite antique pieces of machinery here.
This is one of our evaporators.
This equipment itself is 1929.
That said, if we remove the stuff, the equipment,
we actually change the flavour of the product
and therefore lose some of its traditional flavour.
This factory produces up to 14,000 tonnes a year
for domestic consumption
and to supply growing markets in Malaysia and Africa.
And where else is the product popular today?
So, in India.
38 million households drink the product
where, I guess, 190 cups of Horlicks every second are consumed every day.
And why is that such a strong market, do you think?
I think it's about helping support the malnutrition agenda.
So, really, the way the product's being used in India today
is not dissimilar for the way it was used
in the United Kingdom a century and a half ago?
Absolutely right.
I'm heading back to Slough station for the last leg of my journey
which takes me along the mainline westwards to Twyford station.
This will be my interchange for the branch line
to my final destination of Henley-on-Thames.
Hello, are you the station master of this... Hello. Yeah.
..of this lovely station? Yes. Welcome to Twyford.
Thank you very much indeed.
So, you're changing over now,
you're going back to being called the Great Western Railway?
We are, yes, yes.
How does that feel to you? It's quite...
It's good, it's good. I remember the Great Western, yeah.
What are your memories of it?
Oh, well, I started on the railway in '62
and it was still very much Great Western in name
although it was British Rail then, of course,
but all the staff were Great Western staff.
So you've been on the railway since 1962? Yes.
And how much longer would you have to go, do you think,
working on the railways?
I retire at the end of this month. No. Yes.
My goodness, you'll miss the railway.
Yes, after 53 years,
but we've all got to go sometime.
I'm now on the little shuttle train to Henley.
Bradshaw's tells me that it's
"delightfully situated on a sloping bank of the Thames
"over which there's a handsome bridge of five arches
"connecting the counties of Oxford and Berkshire."
The straight stretch of the river in the early 19th century
attracted the eligible blades of Oxford and Cambridge
to compete in boats, with no messing.
40 miles from Central London
and beyond the last of the capital's suburbs,
the River Thames winds through more rural surroundings
to reach Henley-on-Thames.
Located in Oxfordshire,
it's a pretty and affluent market town.
The river has always been key to its fortunes.
I'm going to the River and Rowing Museum to lap up
some of its watery history with curator, Eloise Chapman.
Hello, Eloise. Hello, Michael.
This is a beautiful but, I must say, very heavy looking boat.
What's the history of this?
So, this was the boat that won
the first ever Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race, won by Oxford in 1829.
And that race was actually rode at Henley-on-Thames
rather than in London.
It was started by two students,
one went to Cambridge, one went to Oxford.
And they met one summer holiday and waged a bet against each other
as to who could win a race on the Thames.
Why did they choose Henley?
They chose Henley because we have a very straight stretch of river here.
There's a lot of boat builders in the area. A lot of people came to
the area just to have fun on the river at the weekends.
So, it seemed like the ideal place, I imagine, for them.
And then at some point,
the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race moves away to London.
There was only one race held in Henley-on-Thames.
And they went to London after that.
I think because it had proved such a popular race
and they wanted to be somewhere where, you know,
there was a bigger arena for the competition.
The Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race has become a sporting highlight
since that first occurrence in 1829.
And as of 2015, Cambridge has won 81 races and Oxford 79.
The town lost the varsity race
but invented its own prestigious rowing event - the Henley Regatta.
The regatta got going in 1839.
And to begin with, it was really a social event,
a way of bringing people to the town
and making some money for the town as well.
And then about 20 years later,
with the coming of the railway, it became a much bigger social event
because people could come in from London and all the surrounding area.
Crews race a course of just over a mile.
And since 1851, when Prince Albert became patron,
it's been known as the Henley Royal Regatta.
They must've needed a lot of muscle
and expended a lot of sweat rowing that boat.
Oh, yeah, I mean, a huge amount. And they're not easy boats to row.
And to find out what it takes to be an oarsman,
I'm heading to the Henley Rowing Club to try my hand.
Under the tuition of rowing coach Stan Admiraal.
Stan. Hello there, Michael.
Good to see you. Good to see you.
Reporting for my training. Perfect.
Let me just introduce you to the basics of rowing
and let me teach you in a quick and brief way how we do that.
Just enough that I don't drown. Yeah. Perfect, no problem.
So, we grab the handle
and we just push on our legs and we stretch out.
It's what I call position one.
Then move the hands away first, all the way.
Good. Position two.
Then we reach forwards, but we keep the knees flat.
Call that position three.
Perfect. And then slide forwards.
We're going to take on the next stroke
so I'm going to push on my legs again.
Going to open up. Perfect.
'It's one thing to learn the technique on a rowing machine.
'Time to put it to the test on the river.'
Where shall I sit?
You can have a seat here in the middle of the boat. Ah-ha.
And you're going behind? Then I'll sit behind.
'I'm enlisting in a rowing eight for my first rowing experience.'
So, if we all sit backwards and backstrokes -
so that's position number one.
Go. Push on the legs.
Hands away.
Push on the legs. Hands away.
Good. Push. Legs.
Michael, try to push on your legs.
Sorry, I've lost it completely.
I've got to get the rhythm back.
Arms straight. Push on the legs. Up.
Better.
So, Michael, keep thinking about those legs.
Really push your seat backwards and keep your arms straight.
Going straight.
'I don't think my old university will be head-hunting me.'
Whoa.
'But it's been an oar-some experience.'
Keep it loose. Push on the legs.
In, out.
Since I embarked on my rail journey in Kent,
I've dynamited a quarry,
been flung about in a steam-powered fairground ride,
fought a duel, driven a Bentley and rode on the River Thames.
Along the way, I discovered that the pace of change
in Victorian social attitudes
matched the progress in science and industry.
In our own digital age too, we fundamentally changed our views
on the equality between the genders, races and sexualities.
The continuing development of our outlooks
is as unstoppable as our technological inventiveness.