I'm a Londoner, born and bred.
Three generations of my family
have lived and worked alongside the Thames.
And I want to show you how today,
it's even busier and a bigger part of our lives than ever.
Don't move.
It's very difficult to interview you while I'm counting.
How many have you got in there now? God knows.
My journey will take me to its furthest reaches,
from the Cotswolds in the west...
Some size quarry, isn't it?
...to where the river meets the sea in the east.
They're all laughing over that side. Keep a straight face.
I'm doing my best.
I'll meet people whose working lives depend on the Thames
and who feel as passionately about it as I do.
Best job in the world, Tone. Well, apart from yours obviously!
I'll go behind the scenes of its most iconic landmarks...
Oh, wow. Bang!
...and discover its hidden gems.
They do look sci-fi, don't they?
This is the River Thames as you've never seen it before.
Hectic, hardworking, breathtaking, awe-inspiring.
I can't wait.
When it comes to famous landmarks,
the Thames is like going to a party full of Hollywood A-listers.
You've got the Ml6 building just there,
Tower Bridge back there, the London Eye,
the Houses of Parliament.
But it's no accident these legendary buildings are here and nowhere else.
Because whether it's for prestige, practical or political reasons...
...they need the Thames.
And my journey starts with a personal favourite.
When I was a lad,
my dad worked on that side of the river round the bend
and there was one building that really overawed me down there.
And that was Battersea Power Station.
This four chimneyed, red-bricked beast
has towered over the river bank in South West London for over 8O years.
And I loved it.
As a kid,
I had no idea what Battersea Power Station was or what it did.
All I knew was it was big and squat and powerful and really unusual.
And that image has stayed with me all my life.
Battersea was built in 1929 to generate electricity
for London's ballooning population and was powered by coal.
And the reason it was here and nowhere else?
Because of the Thames.
A million tonnes of coal used to be landed here ever year in barges,
Thames water was used for its cooling processes
and, of course, Battersea is adjacent to the heart of London.
So it's the perfect place to generate London's power.
By the 1980s, coal was falling out of favour.
Gas, oil and nuclear were taking over.
Battersea became obsolete and closed in 1983.
Over the years, various dreams and schemes for the building,
including becoming Chelsea's new football ground,
came to nothing and it's lain dormant ever since.
Until now.
Music to my ears, it's going to be the centrepiece
of an incredibly ambitious £9 billion development project.
And for the very first time in my life,
I'm going to be allowed inside it.
Not just inside, but I'm going to go into the hallowed Control Room A,
which was once the beating heart of this monster.
I'm a little bit excited.
A giant reminder of Britain's industrial past,
this is one of London's most legendary buildings.
Work in Control Room A has only just started
so, apart from the scaffolding, it's pretty much unchanged.
Oh, wow. It's real old school electrics, isn't it?
It looks a bit like Chernobyl.
I guess these dials are where the power went to.
Horseferry Road, Peckham, Deptford, Verney Road. Cor!
At its peak in the '50s,
Battersea supplied a fifth of London's electricity.
It just goes on and on.
There are 181 of these boards.
91 E panels for east and 90 W panels for, you guessed it, west.
Wimbledon.
Alpha Place.
They've been gathering dust
since Battersea was shut down over 35 years ago.
Now, builder Danny Christodoulou has been drafted in
to give this room a new serge of life.
Danny. Hello, Tony.
How many people would have been operating this control room
in its heyday?
I would say three, to a maximum of five.
Oh, you're kidding. Why so few?
It's just a monitoring service. That's all it was up here.
The main controller sat behind his desk.
He could check all his dials all around to see how power was flowing,
if there was a serge, maybe it needed reducing,
if someone was lacking a bit, they were drawing too much,
they'd give them a little bit more.
What are you going to do with this control room?
My job is to give a sympathetic refurbishment,
restoration of the area to make it a function area
that will house parties, fashion shows, exhibitions,
that sort of thing.
So, it'll be well used.
I'm not sure how I feel about my beloved Battersea
becoming a cocktails and canapes kind of place.
But, fortunately, it's got protected status,
so any restoration has got to be sympathetic with its history.
This is one of our samples that we've produced for English Heritage.
So, this is waiting for the English Heritage inspector to come.
This has been inspected and approved.
That has set the standard now for us to work our way through
and do all the panels to look this way.
Shall we unwrap? Oh, yeah, if you don't mind.
Now, if you want to have a go at that. Oh, it looks fantastic.
As you can see, the colour comparison is pretty good.
That's great. I love that salmon pink paintwork.
It's come up a real treat.
And that's got a plate on it there because...
Because there used to be a dial in there...
It's lost or broken or whatever. It's gone.
All these light fittings will eventually be illuminated
because there'll be LED strip lights behind to shine through
the actual dials.
It'll look fantastic, won't it? It's going to look brilliant.
I can hear blokes up there. What's going there?
We're repairing the lay lights. Can I have a look? Absolutely.
We're going up into what looks like a metal matrix,
but it's the control room ceiling,
which has been given a temporary floor
to allow Danny and his team to spruce it up.
As you can see, our painter here is busy having a go.
Would you like to have a go yourself? Yes, I certainly would.
Just one bloke for this whole room seems a bit unfair, doesn't it?
A bit of paper here for you.
I was never going to pass on the chance to work on Battersea.
It's like a childhood dream.
So, what is this grid?
It's designed to accommodate etched glass.
So, originally it would have looked like this with natural light.
When the war came along, they blacked out all the glass above.
So, the Germans wouldn't bomb it? Absolutely.
And now we're tasked with bringing it back to its original finish.
That's your job, isn't it? Absolutely.
So I'm working under what will be a huge glass ceiling.
And to make sure everything hits the mark for English Heritage,
it's highly specialised work.
Too intricate to be done by machine,
every piece of steel in this massive space is being prepped by hand.
Endless amounts of samples have been researched
to source the right paints.
What colour's this metal going to be?
It's going back in a gold, in a satin finish. Satin gold. Oh, wow.
I've got a little piece of glass here, if you'd like to pop it in?
And each new four-millimetre toughened glass pane
will be individually cut.
There's a bit of new four mil toughed opaque, like so.
Everyone working here, metal workers, painters, glaziers,
are all experienced tradespeople.
Ooh, you needed someone a bit taller!
Unlike me.
Keep going. Keep going. We have touchdown. There we are.
I thought it was going to bust for a minute.
I've done one.
Just
But eventually, over 9,000 glass panes
will be placed into this never-ending grid.
That does look great, doesn't it?
Imagine what it's going to look like when this whole room is covered in glass. Yeah, it'll lookfantastic.
You're a Londoner, aren't you? Born and bred.
Do you remember the first time you saw this place?
Yeah, you're in awe of it because it's looks so big and massive.
And it is... That's exactly how I felt.
The word 'awe' is right, isn't it?
It is.
It's just great and what drives me on now is to see it finished.
To stand back and say, yes, we have created this wonderful space
and brought it back to life again.
It's lucky it's so well-prepped, isn't it? Absolutely.
Goes without saying.
Later, I'll be feeling the heat...
Oh, my God.
...when I head out of London to see how the red bricks
for Battersea's makeover are being made.
That is a very scary thing, isn't it?
And I join a very unique floating fire station on the river.
Man overboard! Man overboard!
Man overboard!
While industry has left its iconic mark on this river,
there are some buildings on the Thames that have been built to,
well, quite frankly, show off.
And that takes me 30 miles upstream to leafy Berkshire
to Cliveden House.
Stood majestically overlooking the river,
it may look all grand and innocent,
but it was home to the Profumo affair
and has a history steeped in sex, scandal and politics.
The manor was built over 300 years ago by the second Duke of Buckingham
to impress his mates and his mistress.
Well, if you were a duke with money and an ego then, of course,
you'd put your play palace on a prime spot overlooking the Thames.
And Cliveden's been a notorious party house
for the royal, rich and famous ever since.
Anyone who was anyone stayed here.
Queen Vic, Charlie Chaplin, Churchill, Gandhi
and more recently, on the night before her wedding, Meghan Markle.
The house is now a hotel,
which is so luxurious,
it's only really accessible to the very wealthy.
But the woodlands and the garden and the land leading down to the Thames
are available to the likes of you and me.
It's been owned by the National Trust since 1942
and 500,000 people visit this estate with its
manicured gardens every year.
Hello, Mark. Hello, Tony.
Mark Lamb is part of Cliveden's 100-acre gardening squad.
This is a classic piece of stately home gardening, isn't it?
Oh, well, it is, isn't it?
And that is a real spirit level?
We just do it to get the, you know,
not exact level, but you want it looking as good as you can, really.
Do you change every year what sort of animal
or pattern you're going do?
Oh, no. No, these have been peacocks since 1900.
I thought it was a bee!
Do you know, people have said they think it's Mickey Mouse,
but, yeah, they're peacocks.
Peacocks made of hedges? Well, you don't get more Cliveden than that.
And, of course, they're going to be trimmed by hand.
Can I have a little go? Course you can.
I don't want to do too much.
No. The idea of wrecking your topiaries...
No, you can't wreck it.
The thing is as well, the public love you doing this.
They chat to you, they think you're an artist.
And of course, you're not really,
you're just taking off the year's growth.
I'm trimming a posh bush. I'm quite good at it, too.
Normally I'm rubbish at these things but I'm steaming round.
There's one bit I've got to do. Can you move back slightly, Wil?
This bit is just doing my head in. Take it off. Right, ready?
That's going to be hard with that.
You need... Yay! Well done. Oh, I feel better for that.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Well done. Well done. Cheers.
Cliveden House has been home to countless counts and ladies,
but none are as famous or infamous as the last lady of the house.
She really knew how to milk its prime position on the Thames.
Nancy Astor, who was Lady Astor,
was one of the really big personalities in the history
of this place, and she used to invite the rich and famous here
at weekends to mess about on the Thames in boats.
And in order to facilitate this, she had the boathouse done up.
It is pretty wonderful, isn't it?
Nancy Astor and her husband, Waldorf, who were both Americans,
were the last owners of the estate.
Nancy got involved in British politics
and became the first woman MP
to ever take a seat in the House of Commons.
Oh, this is lovely. This isn't yours, is it?
And away from Westminster, this was the other seat Nancy liked to take.
Collections and House Manager Sophie Clarke
knows all about the Liddesdale canoe.
From the motor company? So, is it electric power?
I knew boating on the Thames was a Victorian and Edwardian craze,
but I'd always thought it involved lots of oars and hard work.
So, she looks really elegant and old-fashioned
but was actually the height of modernity at the same time.
So, has it always been here just rotting away?
I can't take her out though?
The National Trust raised 25,000 quid to restore Liddesdale.
Its elegance certainly represents the lady in Astor,
but maybe not so much the politician.
Nancy Astor was undoubtedly very glamorous,
but she was also a very strange person in many ways.
She was, on one hand, Britain's first woman MP
and she supported all sorts of causes
which now we'd think of as being progressive,
like votes for younger women.
But on the other hand,
her attitude towards Catholics and Jews was frankly ghastly,
and she flirted with the Nazi party prior to the Second World War.
So, you know, she was no high society angel.
But that didn't seem to matter to the high society hangers-on
at her posh boat parties.
I'm not allowed to take Nancy's beautifully restored canoe out,
but Cliveden does have river craft you can hire from Sam Harris.
And they're electric.
Hello, Sam. Hi, Tony.
It's not quite as glamorous as Lady Astor's boat,
but it's pretty sleek, isn't it?
These are very nice modern boats, we think, yes.
I think it's the lack of noisiness that I'm so impressed by.
I mean, you can hear nothing today,
whereas other rivers it's just grrrrr all the time, isn't it?
Exactly. Can I get in? Please do. Step aboard. Ta.
Cliveden Reach is a two mile stretch of the Thames
from Cookham Lock to Boulters Lock.
Ooh, there's a nice little breeze.
Cruising along in an electric boat isn't just in keeping
with its history, but it's kinder on the environment, too.
Where do you get these boats from? They're actually built in Poland.
Are they built to be electric?
No, these are built to take an outboard engine and as it happens,
we have very reliable electric outboards that will last
effectively all day, and then, we charge them overnight,
ready to go again the next day.
Your family on the river?
I'm the third generation of the family working on the Thames now.
Did you go on to the river straight from school?
No, I went to university first, got what you might call a proper job,
but after 18 months in an office decided the river was for me.
I think you probably made the right choice.
On a day like today, definitely.
This is Spring Cottage, so this was the site of the Profumo Affair.
Oh, this is the one that, uh,
Lord Astor lent to Stephen Ward for all his shenanigans.
Some stories to be told there.
So, that's presumably where Christine Keeler stayed?
It would have been.
It was a scandal that rocked the government.
Tories supposed to be running the country from one house
on the Thames, but instead, they're caught romping upriver in another.
It's not bad here, is it?
This is Boulters Lock, renowned in the 1920s as a very popular
spot on the Sunday of Ascot where people would flock from
far and wide and watch the rich and famous on their way home.
Gawping at the stars. Yeah.
Sadly, it's time to turn round and head back,
but I think Sam may have saved the best until last.
So, if you look around now, Tony, you'll see the best view
of Cliveden House on the river.
That is astonishing, isn't it?
From here you can see exactly why they built it in the spot they did.
Yeah. Absolutely strategic, isn't it?
Money, power, confidence, class.
We own this land, it says.
This messing about in boats for fun is all well and good,
but now I'm ready for some serious action.
And to find it, I've gone back downstream to South London.
Red Watch, Red Watch on, answer your names.
Firefighter Hulse? Sir. Firefighter Gordon? Firefighter Kelly? Sir.
Firefighter Kilminster?
Today, I'm going to be joining Lambeth River Fire Station,
which is the UK's only water-based fire station.
And I'm so looking forward to it.
High water today at Chelsea Bridge is 10:52,
low water 17:23 and we are bang on a neap tide.
Red watch, Red Watch. For your duties, fall out.
Blimey, it's like being in the army. Hope I can keep up.
So, you're going to be the boss today?
Lee Phillips is in charge of today's watch
and it turns out fires are the least of his worries.
Most of our calls on the river station are to people in the water,
eitherjumping off the bridges or falling in off boats.
It's quite slack tide now but the tide can move up to six knots,
so we've seen people jumping off the bridges, they've gone under
and they've not come up, because the current has got them
underneath the water, or they're entangled in something.
So, yeah, it is really dangerous.
The brigade responds to over 250 call-outs a year
along 48km of the river.
And when they're not dealing with an emergency,
they're doing drills to make sure they're primed and ready
for the next one.
Man overboard! Man overboard!
Man overboard!
It might only be a poor old dummy in the water,
but if you can't save that you certainly won't be any good
when it comes to the real thing, so even in a drill every second counts.
So, I want you to work with Glen. You're going to be a spotter.
What does that mean?
You're going to use that boat hook to line it up with the casualty,
and direct Nathan, the coxswain, in.
No pressure then!
Nath, got it? Luckily, we're coming straight in, so it won't be too bad
and as it gets closer, we'll give him an idea of how far away we are.
I'm rubbish at metres. ls that five metres?
Yeah, it's at five metres, Nath. Five metres, Nathan.
Four.
Three.
Two.
Oh, no. Missed him.
Sorry.
He's gone. He's gone. Go around, Nath. Go around.
Damn! It was my responsibility and I blew it.
My stress levels are rocketing.
About 25 metres away.
I don't want to mess it up again.
OK.
Right, coming up lovely.
Four.
Three.
Two.
Yep.
Contact! Contact. We've got him.
Try and guide him into the Jason's cradle now.
Don't worry sunshine, you're nearly safe.
Give us a hand on this now, Tony. That's it.
Man back onboard.
I let you down, mate, didn't I?
What struck me though was the speed that the Thames flows.
Cos it looked as though it was just sort of bobbing up and down
in still water. But as soon as we came up to it,
it was like it was going by at the speed of train.
Over 100 London firefighters have asked to transfer
to the river squadron and I can see why.
But there's no time to bask in the glory of a job fairly well done,
it's straight on to the next drill.
We've got the casualty just across the river there trapped in the mud.
Just under that bridge? Yeah.
I think it's the same guy we rescued earlier from the river.
He won't learn, will he?!
The Thames has a huge tidal range and its water level can rise
and fall by as much as seven metres.
So getting stuck in the mud at low tide
would land you in big trouble when the tide rises.
People think it's a good idea to go swimming,
especially when the weather's like this.
And then they try to get back to shore and they might become trapped
in the mud for that reason.
Or sometimes they've just had a few too many to drink
and they decide it's a good idea to go into the mud.
The raw sewage sometimes found in the Thames' mud banks
means Red Watch need to wear protective gear
when they're doing these types of rescue.
Well, I did say I was happy mucking in.
It's a really hot day, isn't it?
What do you reckon, 29 degrees, something like that?
Not really the right day for it.
Probably the worst day you want to be putting one on, to be honest.
There we go, that's the one.
Ooh, like a flower blossoming!
Gear on, drill two gets under way
and at low tide, there's only so far the boat can go.
Right, you stay on board. Yep. They're now going to pepper pot.
Use those mats, it's what we call pepper potting, up to the casualty.
Tossing a couple of mats across the Thames' mud bed may sound easy,
but from where I'm stood it's taking a heck of a lot of effort.
What are you thinking, when you're heaving that mat out of the mud?
It's hard work, it's just energy-sapping.
The mud's got a suction to it with the mat on top, so it's difficult.
And then, when you get to the casualty, you've then got the extra
weight of the casualty on the mats, which you've got to bring back.
And if it's someone who's injured or frightened, that's doubly difficult.
Yeah, exactly.
Within minutes, though, they're across.
That's incredibly fast, given the problems that they had
getting through that mud.
Yeah, they've done well to get there. That's very impressive.
Now they've got the even more difficult job of getting back...
We're pretty much aground here, lads.
...which is where I come in.
OK, if you want to step down onto that mat now, Tony. Yeah.
Okey doke.
One big lift...
Two, three!
...and my hero duties for the day are done.
HE CHUCKLES
The drills that we've been doing today have been really fun.
We've had quite a laugh actually, haven't we? It has, it's been good.
But they also have a very important point.
At some time, this will be a life-and-death moment for somebody.
And when that moment happens, it's crucial that these guys' skills
are really finely-honed.
Can you, er, have a go on the other side? Thank you.
Later, I'll be getting my hands dirty for the Thames again...
Right, let's go!
...making a brick for Battersea Power Station against the clock.
Rah! Oh, God, it's broken.
It's splitting in half!
On the Thames South Bank, I've been invited to see restoration work
being done on the magnificent power station at Battersea.
And what made this temple of power stand out wasn't just
its towering chimneys, but its solid, bold, red brick exterior.
Battersea Power Station is one of the biggest brick buildings
ever created.
It was the brainchild of Gilbert Scott, who was one of the
most famous architects of his time.
He also created what's now Tate Modern,
and he invented London's red telephone boxes.
It's funny, cos he didn't think this was one of his great works -
although now everybody loves it.
Pink Floyd even floated a giant inflatable pig over the top of it
for one of their album covers.
And you don't get more famous than that.
But it's Battersea's celebrated brickwork that's been one of
the biggest headaches for the developers doing it up.
They needed over a million bricks, and they all had to be the right
size and shape, and colour so they would fit seamlessly in -
turning the whole place into one humongous brick jigsaw puzzle.
They searched to see whether the original brick makers,
called Northwick, still existed, but nothing came up.
But a chance phone call revealed the brickyard was still operating,
but under a new name.
Kerching! They struck gold.
Away from Battersea and upstream from London is Northcot Bricks,
around 30 miles from the source
of the River Thames.
And amazingly, to make their bricks, they're using clay from
the very same quarry as they did 90 years ago.
Dale Moss is the manager here.
This quarry is where Battersea Power Station first emerged from.
Cor, some size quarry, isn't it?
What's the story of the site?
1925, the local landowner, Spencer Churchill...
Churchill, as in Winston Churchill?
Cousin of Winston, yes. Yeah.
Decided he'd find work for local people and, er,
he was going to start a basket factory.
But they found this lovely blue clay here, and decided to turn it
into a brickworks.
Why did they choose Churchill's quarry to supply
the bricks for Battersea?
I do believe he was a personal friend of the architect.
Do you know, I thought that might be the case.
THEY LAUGH
Over the last century, this quarry has produced
a third of a billion bricks.
Right, Tony, we're at a face of the quarry.
Do we know how old this clay is?
They say two million years, Jurassic.
They say Jurassic, because we do get fossil bands within the clay.
We found two dinosaurs out the quarry.
They were sea dinosaurs, about 15 metres.
Oh, so it was really big skeleton? Yes.
What puzzles me is that this clay is so very grey,
and yet Battersea is so very red.
On chemical analysis, this clay, although it's grey,
is very iron-rich. Mm-hm.
Of course, when iron's fired, it turns red, bright orange.
So, that's what gives it the depth and warmth of the colour
such as Battersea.
At one time, the clay would've been excavated by men with quarry picks.
Now, it's the job of one man and his digger.
But from that point on, each and every brick of the
1.3 million commissioned by Battersea is made using
traditional tools and techniques.
A Victorian Wheaton Roller grinds the clay to a fine texture.
It's mixed with water...
...then it's off to a master brick-maker to be thrown by hand.
So, this is where the magic happens?
This is where it all happens, yes.
It's a curious thing, a brick, isn't it?
But it's also beautiful.
Why do you make them by hand?
They match a lot of old buildings.
They get a better, more pleasing product to the eye.
And what's this stuff that Thomas is wrapping round them?
That's just a sand.
We do various sands, different granule sizes to get
a different appearance of a brick.
How many can you make a day, Thomas?
Thousand...thousand every day, yes. Five days.
Do you feel it much on your muscles?
It's a heavy job, you know? Yeah, yeah, it is a heavy job.
Yes, yes, yes. So, are we ready? Yeah, we're ready.
To show you how quick Thomas is, I'm having a go.
But first, the master needs to show me how it's done.
Right, you start forming it front and back, side and side.
Oh, yeah, and I'll wham it in.
That's it.
Cut it along, you get your two boards, tip the brick out,
roll it over, take the bottom off, take the mould off.
How long was that?
15 seconds. 15 seconds!
Now, it's my turn.
Right, let's go!
Now I have to get the sand on it.
HE STRAINS
Oh, God, it's broken.
Oh...it's splitting in half!
I don't know how I'm doing for time.
HE STRAINS Bash!
But I'm pretty sure I've passed Thomas' 15-second mark.
Maybe a little more?
Oh, yeah. Oh, God...
You're not meant to tell him, Thomas.
THEY LAUGH
In total, Battersea needs 18 individual brick types
in unique sizes to achieve its seamless repairs.
And it's really hard, heavy work.
Ahh! That's it.
You took just over two minutes to do one brick.
Absolute rubbish.
I've got a nasty feeling my beautiful brick
will end up in the reject pile.
But, once the bricks are made properly, they're taken to the drier
and stored at 8O degrees Celsius for six days.
Then it's off to a big underground oven to be fired,
which gives it that brilliant Battersea-red colour.
I can really feel the heat coming up off the ground.
The actual kilns are under your feet at the moment,
at currently 940 degrees.
Cor, and I can see it down there!
It's this gas-and-coal firing which transforms the relatively weak,
dried clay into strong, durable bricks.
That is a very scary thing, isn't it?
It's like a flame thrower.
I'm trying to do a gentle interested interview,
and there's a dragon behind me.
THEY LAUGH
Tom? Yes?
Are you going to show me what you do? Yep.
You can just see the edge of the brick there, the first one.
That's where we take our measure from.
So, we stack the bricks 22-high in a chamber, and then,
when they've shrunk three inches, we know we've got the vitrification
point which is when the bricks have gone hard enough.
Why do they shrink? What's in them that...
It's just moisture. It's amazing, isn't it?
It's such an old-fashioned way of doing it.
When the 22 have been reduced by three inches...
That's it. That's right? Yeah, it's when we're happy.
THEY CHUCKLE
It does look like the fire from hell, doesn't it?
Oh, my God!
Jeezg
The kiln is manned 24 hours a day for three days.
Five clays after firing's finished, the bricks can be removed.
This kiln is being emptied, and the bricks are still hot.
How do you do it, mate? Oh, you just stick...
We've got a good saying here, Tony.
Yeah? "If the bricks start to burn your hands,
"you're holding on to 'em too long." TONY LAUGHS
It's so stifling in here, even Dale's fittest lads can only
stack 30-40 bricks a time before needing a break.
I feel like I need suntan oil on my head, it's just going,
"Boom, boom, boom".
It's a nice job in the winter.
I bet it is, yeah. THEY LAUGH
Next, the bricks are plunged into a pool to cool,
sorted by colour, and packed ready for transport.
They don't look like new bricks, even though they are -
which is why they should sit alongside their 1930s and '40s
brick buddies at Battersea no problem.
To find out, I can't resist coming back to have a look.
And, of course, getting my hands on my beloved Battersea one final time.
Oh, it looks fantastic!
Austin, I've never laid a brick before in my life.
So, here we are, I get the cement on here, yes?
This is the way idiots do it, isn't it?
THEY LAUGH
ls that enough? Yeah?
Being left-handed, I've got to turn it around.
Yeah,yeah. Squeezeitin.
Tap, tap, taP-
I have put a brick into the new Battersea Power Station.
If you ever see one tumbling off the side -
you won't, of course -
but if you did, it would probably be this one.
Cheers, mate. Thanks.
Give us a shout if you need any more done.
Even with my dodgy handy work, my favourite building on the Thames
is well on its way to getting its legendary red look back.
And when it's done, it's going to come alive again
with homes, restaurants, shops, offices.
It's even getting its own tube station.
In there is a brick that I laid.
And ridiculously, that does give me quite a buzz.
And, when it's all finished, and it's flash and new,
and they've got rid of all this ghastly plastic stuff,
I think it's going to look even better than it did the first time
I ever saw it when I was a lad.
But Battersea isn't the only Thames treasure getting a makeover...
We'll get you kitted up.
...as I delve into the river's oldest bridge.
I never thought anything like this existed.
I couldn't end my look at the brilliant structures along
the Thames without paying homage to its bridges,
which have been popping up since Roman times.
Currently, there are 35 of them.
From the historic London Bridge to the beautiful Tower Bridge,
to the relatively new Millennium Bridge,
all these bridges have one common function -
to get people from one side of the river to the other.
But they've got something else in common, too -
they're all part of an ambitious £45 million
light installation project which is going to light up London's bridges
for the next ten years.
Hiya. Hi!
How are you? Good, thank you.
Sarah Gaventa is directing the project.
This is London Bridge.
Now, it's very unloved actually, I mean, a lot of people think
it's really ugly.
Yeah, I think I do, yeah, yeah. SHE LAUGHS
London Bridge was one of the first bridges that we illuminated.
It's a bit of a challenge cos it is so, kind of...concrete-y, isn't it?
It is, but it's also a wonderful canvas.
And so, there's a lovely coloured wash that moves across and changes,
and it's quite impressionistic.
So, every one will be different? Totally.
We know on some, it's about working on the surface, some it's about
revealing the rivets - all of them have a little bit of movement.
Not too much because we're not doing disco lights, it's not, you know -
this is something that has to last ten years, so we don't want
people to get bored with it.
What would you like people to think about it in ten years' time?
I would hope that they all have a particular bridge that they feel
more attached to, a particular point. Yeah.
That they've had a moment out of their busy, frantic lives
to just have a bit of calm.
I think if it reconnects people and gives them a moment ofjoy,
then I think it will be a success.
You probably don't realise this,
but if you've crossed the Thames over the last 18 months,
lights could've been going in right under your nose.
I must've crossed Westminster Bridge about 500 times in my life.
And normally, if I come to a safety barrier and there's a load of blokes
in orange glowing suits, I don't think much about it.
But this is actually extraordinary.
I never knew you could disappear into a bridge.
Today, Adam Barnes is letting me join his light installation team.
We're going to be installing 450 lights, er, on the bridge,
eventually illuminating the underside of the bridge
and the facades.
We'll get you kitted up. OK.
When he says "kitted up", he means it.
It's like a huge nappy without the absorbent bits -
which wouldn't be much use, really, would it?
I thought this abseiling gear was a bit overkill at first,
but now, I see why I need it.
Yikes, I hadn't realised that I'd actually be able to see
the river as I was coming down here.
It is a privilege...
...to be underneath Westminster Bridge.
I never thought anything like this existed.
It was built in 1862 to replace the original stone one
that went up a century earlier.
It's now London's oldest bridge,
and another of the Thames' Grade ll-listed structures.
How do you fix the lights onto the bridge?
As you can imagine, the age of the bridge, the finish of the bridge,
the finish of the lighting itself - it's all about aesthetics. Yeah.
The attention to detail is the most important thing.
Yep.
Ooh, whoa! It's a bit tight around the whatsit.
Yeah. But the bracketry themselves - actually quite simple.
Yeah, there you go.
Crocodile clamps on the top, a few bolts through -
there you have it, one hanging light.
I will, yeah. Are you the only abseiler here?
Night shifts?
I'm not sure I'd fancy abseiling in the dark,
but Will's been professionally dangling from buildings
for six years now.
So, tell me some of the London buildings that you've worked on.
Was that scary?
So, it's still a bit of a buzz.
It's amazing, isn't it, when a boat goes by?
They've got no idea that we're here or what we're doing.
That's one more light in place.
But the installation here will take another five months to finish.
Four bridges have been completed, though, and as darkness falls
and London's streets light up,
I've gone back onto the Thames to see how this art is taking shape.
There's Westminster Bridge, where I was earlier on,
totally upstaged by the London Eye now.
I can't wait to see that bridge lit up.
That's Blackfriars, which they haven't done yet.
See how lost in the landscape it is without any lights.
But go west, and the world on the water begins to illuminate.
It's brilliant just what a difference
these installations can make.
I always find London Bridge a bit, kind of, brutal.
But the lighting has really softened it, hasn't it?
The girders of Southwark Bridge catch the light beautifully.
Cannon Street, the railway commuters bridge.
Quite subtle, this lighting, isn't it?
But the more bridges you can see,
the more you get the sense of the Thames as a whole riverscape.
The last of the four finished is the Millennium Bridge.
Do you see the way the lights flash underneath them?
That is so clever.
This is just a taste of what's hopefully to come.
There are ambitious plans to light up 14 bridges in total,
which will make the Thames home to the longest artwork in the world.
When I was a kid, you wouldn't want to look at the Thames.
It was just dirty and stinky.
You'd be far more interested in what was going on over there.
But now, all that has changed.
Look at the iridescence of the water.
Who wouldn't want to feast their eyes on that?
Once again, the Thames is becoming the centrepiece of London,
and the men and women who built these extraordinary bridges
are being celebrated in light.
And I reckon that's a pretty good thing.
Next time...
This place isn't just big, it's ginormous!
...carte blanche access to the Thames' biggest port...
How many have you got in there now? God knows.
...behind the scenes at St Paul's...
Oh, wow.
Bang!
...and I try my hand at brewing.
How many pints would that make?
92,000 pints. 92,000 pints!
It's all in a day's work for the Thames.
Good on you, Thames.
Subtitles by Red Bee Media