0:00:02 > 0:00:06BBC Four Collections - archived programmes chosen by experts.
0:00:06 > 0:00:09For this collection, Janet Street-Porter has selected
0:00:09 > 0:00:12programmes about post-war architecture.
0:00:12 > 0:00:14More programmes on this theme
0:00:14 > 0:00:18and other BBC Four Collections are available on BBC iPlayer.
0:00:22 > 0:00:24This is the bar in the basement
0:00:24 > 0:00:27of the Architectural Review's offices in Westminster.
0:00:27 > 0:00:30Bars and architecture...
0:00:30 > 0:00:33Ian Nairn died seven years ago at the age of 53.
0:00:33 > 0:00:37This is where he began his career,
0:00:37 > 0:00:42in the mid-'50s, as a sort of enfant terrible of architectural criticism.
0:00:43 > 0:00:48Unlike many such creatures, Ian Nairn never mellowed,
0:00:48 > 0:00:52he never succumbed to the embrace of the English Establishment.
0:00:52 > 0:00:56Even had he wanted to, he couldn't have.
0:00:56 > 0:01:00There was nothing desiccated or understated about him.
0:01:00 > 0:01:04He exhibited the profoundly un-English attribute of passion.
0:01:04 > 0:01:06It's in the beer, bustle the convulsion,
0:01:06 > 0:01:10and I hope that most of the people here are genuine Munichers,
0:01:10 > 0:01:14not just...tourists coming to watch a spectacle!
0:01:14 > 0:01:16Because they disgust me
0:01:16 > 0:01:18and I'll probably get through more alcohol in a week
0:01:18 > 0:01:20than most of those bastards get through in a year!
0:01:20 > 0:01:24Bolton - St Saviour, Deane Road.
0:01:24 > 0:01:29By Paley and Austin. 1882 - 1885.
0:01:30 > 0:01:34And one of their noblest churches.
0:01:34 > 0:01:36And now look at it!
0:01:37 > 0:01:39Talk about football vandalism...
0:01:40 > 0:01:43I don't quite know how...
0:01:45 > 0:01:49..you would categorise the vandalism of the yobbos who did this.
0:01:52 > 0:01:56It makes me ashamed to be part of the same branch of biology.
0:01:56 > 0:02:00MEADES: No-one has ever written about buildings with greater passion
0:02:00 > 0:02:02and I suspect that
0:02:02 > 0:02:05no-one has ever written about buildings so eloquently.
0:02:05 > 0:02:09This was not least because he knew as much about writing as he did
0:02:09 > 0:02:13about buildings, he was not just a terrific architectural writer,
0:02:13 > 0:02:15he was a terrific writer full stop.
0:02:15 > 0:02:20Has prose was and indeed is vivid...
0:02:20 > 0:02:24demotic, poetic, vital, and thankfully,
0:02:24 > 0:02:26the absolute obverse
0:02:26 > 0:02:29of that straightened English of Nancy Mitford.
0:02:29 > 0:02:32Nairn was defiantly non-U.
0:02:32 > 0:02:36He was, and it's an expression you don't hear much today, "redbrick".
0:02:36 > 0:02:40That was usually a deprecation, but I don't intend it thus, anything but,
0:02:40 > 0:02:43he was a genuine outsider.
0:02:43 > 0:02:46If he belonged to a type, it was to a type of one.
0:02:46 > 0:02:49There are correspondences, though.
0:02:49 > 0:02:52He reminds me of Anthony Burgess crossed with Tony Hancock
0:02:52 > 0:02:54with a bit of Jeffrey Bernard thrown in
0:02:54 > 0:02:57and maybe a dash of the Richard Cobb of Promenades.
0:02:57 > 0:03:00He's the only man to have written a guidebook
0:03:00 > 0:03:03that is a literary masterpiece.
0:03:03 > 0:03:06Nairn's London is a great and various poem to this city
0:03:06 > 0:03:09and a tour de force of topographical sensibility.
0:03:09 > 0:03:12It's the work of a weird virtuoso.
0:03:14 > 0:03:18Over the next six weeks, BBC Two is transmitting six of the films
0:03:18 > 0:03:21he made for telly in the late '60s and early '70s.
0:03:21 > 0:03:24Scholars of the platform are sure in for a treat
0:03:24 > 0:03:29and so too is anyone else who reveres originality, who reveres contact with
0:03:29 > 0:03:33an independence of spirit and with profligacy of ideas.
0:03:33 > 0:03:37Nairn threw away in asides ideas that others would have spun out
0:03:37 > 0:03:40into entire programmes, into whole series even.
0:03:40 > 0:03:43If some of the filmic techniques seem a bit dated,
0:03:43 > 0:03:46and nothing dates quite like the recent past,
0:03:46 > 0:03:49there is only a weary freshness about the man himself.
0:03:49 > 0:03:52If he was the victim of his generation,
0:03:52 > 0:03:55it was only in his willingness to find good in modern buildings
0:03:55 > 0:03:58in which we can now only see bad.
0:03:58 > 0:04:00But that doesn't matter.
0:04:00 > 0:04:03And nor does it matter that his mostly ad hoc scripts
0:04:03 > 0:04:05are less polished than his written prose.
0:04:05 > 0:04:10The quality of the building, which is so rare in modern architecture.
0:04:10 > 0:04:12These bricks, they're solid, they're there,
0:04:12 > 0:04:14the pointing's been carefully done.
0:04:14 > 0:04:20No-one's going to say of this, "Oh, how shoddy were last year's ideas."
0:04:20 > 0:04:22They'll recognise it was built at a certain time -
0:04:22 > 0:04:25it was built for 1972 - just as you would say the same
0:04:25 > 0:04:28of a Gothic cathedral that was built for 1300 or 1500.
0:04:29 > 0:04:33MEADES: The thing about Ian Nairn is that he opens our eyes
0:04:33 > 0:04:35to the extraordinariness of the ordinary.
0:04:35 > 0:04:39His love of Belgium, of Halifax, of the hidden bits of forgotten towns
0:04:39 > 0:04:43is not perverse, he simply failed to get conditioned
0:04:43 > 0:04:47or institutionalised by common ideas of what is good and what isn't.
0:04:47 > 0:04:51He abhorred the cute, the half-baked and the prettified.
0:04:51 > 0:04:55He sought out the essence of a place and it's our good fortune
0:04:55 > 0:04:57that he not only usually found it,
0:04:57 > 0:05:00but that he was able to transmit his sadness, or his delight,
0:05:00 > 0:05:02or scorn, or whatever,
0:05:02 > 0:05:06in a manner that remains unique and exhilarating.
0:05:06 > 0:05:10The first film takes him from London to Manchester
0:05:10 > 0:05:13and it's notable for its diversion to Northampton,
0:05:13 > 0:05:16which was then in the process of being destroyed
0:05:16 > 0:05:18by braindead town planners.
0:05:18 > 0:05:22It was because of people like Nairn that not more was destroyed.
0:05:22 > 0:05:26But his voice was not heard as loudly as it should have been.
0:05:26 > 0:05:29In Nairn's day, architectural journalism was ghettoised,
0:05:29 > 0:05:33it was peripheral. Architecture was not a mainstream subject.
0:05:33 > 0:05:36Today it is and the unthinkable has occurred,
0:05:36 > 0:05:40the leading newspaper in this country is edited by a man who made his name
0:05:40 > 0:05:43writing about the depredations of British townscapes and buildings.
0:06:22 > 0:06:24NAIRN: Marble Arch in London
0:06:24 > 0:06:27is a good place to begin a set of journeys,
0:06:27 > 0:06:30journeys whose purpose is first to show the astonishing
0:06:30 > 0:06:35variety of landscape and townscape there is in Britain,
0:06:35 > 0:06:38more than any other country in a small area that I know...
0:06:38 > 0:06:43and second, to try and guess at what we are doing to it,
0:06:43 > 0:06:46whether what we do on the landscape
0:06:46 > 0:06:51is going to enhance the variety or diminish it.
0:06:51 > 0:06:54But Marble Arch, especially for my first journey,
0:06:54 > 0:06:58which is a simple line, a direct line between London and Manchester...
0:06:59 > 0:07:02It isn't the same as hammering it up the M1.
0:07:02 > 0:07:04It's a very different story, in fact.
0:07:04 > 0:07:06It only goes through one big town.
0:07:06 > 0:07:10In between there are marvellous passages of tranquillity
0:07:10 > 0:07:13and a marvellous variety of landscape and village,
0:07:13 > 0:07:18and the road to Manchester starts as it started for 2,000 years,
0:07:18 > 0:07:22just over there, the Edgware Road, the Romans' Watling Street
0:07:22 > 0:07:24and now as then,
0:07:24 > 0:07:27it simply points like an arrow to the Midlands and the North.
0:07:36 > 0:07:38Going up the Edgware Road...
0:07:38 > 0:07:42is a good place to check what we're doing to the townscape
0:07:42 > 0:07:47and if Marble Arch is an improvement, here, it's a sad diminishing
0:07:47 > 0:07:51because it's always been a funny, quirky, rough and tumble place,
0:07:51 > 0:07:53not quite in the West End,
0:07:53 > 0:07:55you never know what you're going to meet quite next.
0:07:55 > 0:07:57When I first came to London,
0:07:57 > 0:07:59the Edgware Road actually looked like that.
0:07:59 > 0:08:01The buildings were, up and down, Victorian,
0:08:01 > 0:08:04some sleazy, some posh...
0:08:04 > 0:08:06Now they've all been replaced
0:08:06 > 0:08:08and while the character of the Edgware Road
0:08:08 > 0:08:09and the people is still there -
0:08:09 > 0:08:12it's still the funny old mixture it always was -
0:08:12 > 0:08:15the buildings have become smooth, platitudinous.
0:08:18 > 0:08:20Running down the hill now to Cricklewood,
0:08:20 > 0:08:24which is one of the long, straight suburban high streets
0:08:24 > 0:08:26on this way out of London.
0:08:26 > 0:08:27It works pretty well.
0:08:27 > 0:08:31The buildings are undistinguished enough,
0:08:31 > 0:08:35but they planted trees when all this went up in the 1880s and '90s and...
0:08:35 > 0:08:39now you can feel a sense of identity here,
0:08:39 > 0:08:42that's what the business is basically all about.
0:08:52 > 0:08:57That straight line from London to Manchester has now taken us beyond
0:08:57 > 0:09:01the rather tatty edges of London, out into the real countryside.
0:09:01 > 0:09:04This is the first big landscape change,
0:09:04 > 0:09:07it's a chalk ridge and though you can't see much here -
0:09:07 > 0:09:08it's enclosed -
0:09:08 > 0:09:11actually, a lot of this was planted at the Festival of Britain time,
0:09:11 > 0:09:13so there's another improvement.
0:09:14 > 0:09:18This thick planting suddenly, right at the top of the ridge,
0:09:18 > 0:09:21gives way to openness, open down land.
0:09:22 > 0:09:24You're on the roof of the world.
0:09:40 > 0:09:41It's Dunstable Downs.
0:09:41 > 0:09:43Over there at the bottom
0:09:43 > 0:09:46is one of the most famous gliding clubs in Britain.
0:09:46 > 0:09:48The gliders use the scarp of the chalk to get lift,
0:09:48 > 0:09:51just as they do at Sutton Bank in Yorkshire
0:09:51 > 0:09:53and Great Hucklow in the Peak District.
0:09:53 > 0:09:57Some people think that the gliders shouldn't be there, an intrusion,
0:09:57 > 0:09:58and that I really can't see
0:09:58 > 0:10:01because provided the buildings are kept modest,
0:10:01 > 0:10:04the gliders themselves add to the landscape.
0:10:04 > 0:10:09They're...in a partnership - man and the air and the hills -
0:10:09 > 0:10:12they're getting the sustenance from the hills in a very real sense.
0:10:13 > 0:10:16Here, there's a small intrusion from the parked cars of people
0:10:16 > 0:10:20come to look at the gliders than there is from the gliders themselves.
0:10:36 > 0:10:37I've never done any gliding,
0:10:37 > 0:10:40but everyone who has seemed to think it's marvellous fun.
0:10:40 > 0:10:42Down the road there at the bottom of the hill
0:10:42 > 0:10:44is the edge of Dunstable town.
0:10:44 > 0:10:46There's a modern building
0:10:46 > 0:10:48where the designer has had quite considerable fun.
0:11:28 > 0:11:29When I first saw it,
0:11:29 > 0:11:32I thought this was a church with those two great rocking roofs.
0:11:32 > 0:11:34It's not, it's a pub.
0:11:34 > 0:11:36And although inside it's not as dramatic
0:11:36 > 0:11:40because you can't see right up into the timberwork in there,
0:11:40 > 0:11:43they certainly had an enormous amount of fun outside.
0:11:43 > 0:11:46There should be far more buildings like this.
0:11:46 > 0:11:50We sometimes go in for odd shapes, but dead serious about them,
0:11:50 > 0:11:52like some of the new university buildings.
0:11:52 > 0:11:54This is just having a lark and a good thing too,
0:11:54 > 0:11:58especially in things like new shopping precincts.
0:11:58 > 0:12:02One building like this could revitalise the whole thing,
0:12:02 > 0:12:05it could indeed revitalise the one rather limp
0:12:05 > 0:12:06in the middle of Dunstable itself
0:12:06 > 0:12:10cos there the focal point is just a bit of abstract structure.
0:12:10 > 0:12:11It would have been so much better
0:12:11 > 0:12:14if something like this had been the focal point.
0:12:14 > 0:12:19And across there, there's an exceptionally nice public park -
0:12:19 > 0:12:21no railings, no notices,
0:12:21 > 0:12:24just a broad wedge of grass going up between the trees
0:12:24 > 0:12:28and then off into rough ground, which is the beginning of the Downs.
0:12:28 > 0:12:31Now, that's public space that is really meant to be used,
0:12:31 > 0:12:34it's not just an area left on a map, you know, left over,
0:12:34 > 0:12:36they can't think what to do with it,
0:12:36 > 0:12:38which is what so many public open spaces are.
0:12:38 > 0:12:39This is necessary,
0:12:39 > 0:12:43just as the gliders using the lift from the Downs was necessary.
0:12:46 > 0:12:49How not to go from London to Manchester, at least for me.
0:12:49 > 0:12:52The straight line route is intersected by the M1
0:12:52 > 0:12:55at a couple of places this end of the journey.
0:12:55 > 0:12:58Here, it's the service area at Newport Pagnell
0:12:58 > 0:13:04and these, er, cafes have taken...a bit of stick.
0:13:04 > 0:13:07But although they are not marvellous buildings in themselves,
0:13:07 > 0:13:10the fact that there's a bridge over, I'm standing on,
0:13:10 > 0:13:11from one side to the other,
0:13:11 > 0:13:15means that the basic act of tying these structures
0:13:15 > 0:13:17into the environment has been done.
0:13:17 > 0:13:19If they'd made a tunnel instead
0:13:19 > 0:13:21you'd have just had two isolated things either side.
0:13:21 > 0:13:25Here, it's made a tiny knot in the landscape.
0:13:25 > 0:13:29This is the basic thing, far more than the quality of buildings.
0:13:29 > 0:13:33As I said, it is not my way of going from London to Manchester.
0:13:33 > 0:13:37These next few miles here are exactly the straight line
0:13:37 > 0:13:41and just this once, I'm going to make a motorway journey,
0:13:41 > 0:13:46but, believe you me, I'd rather go from Newport Pagnell to the next town
0:13:46 > 0:13:50via the quiet and winding A50 any day.
0:14:53 > 0:14:56Well, there at last is my turn-off.
0:14:56 > 0:15:01It's only about 10 or 11 miles, but it felt much more.
0:15:02 > 0:15:07From here on in, it's about another, oh...five miles...
0:15:07 > 0:15:10The place I said was the only big town, the whole way
0:15:10 > 0:15:14on this direct line between London and Manchester.
0:15:14 > 0:15:17- Local-grown tomatoes, light plum. - Extra large cucumber.
0:15:17 > 0:15:19Peach, pear or plum.
0:15:19 > 0:15:21- WOMAN: A pound, please. - SELLER: A pound, yeah?
0:15:21 > 0:15:22Right. Two?
0:15:22 > 0:15:26- Extra large peaches. - BOTH SELLERS: Nice, ripe peaches!
0:15:27 > 0:15:28NAIRN: Northampton...
0:15:28 > 0:15:32Northampton Market Square, it's a very surprising place to find in...
0:15:32 > 0:15:36what is otherwise a rather drab, South Midland town.
0:15:36 > 0:15:39Northampton had a fire about 1680,
0:15:39 > 0:15:41it meant the whole town centre had to be rebuilt - a new church,
0:15:41 > 0:15:44public buildings, and also a new market square.
0:15:44 > 0:15:46And the way they rebuilt it...
0:15:47 > 0:15:49..makes the place really humming.
0:15:51 > 0:15:55A few of the old buildings are left, the whole rhythm is still left,
0:15:55 > 0:15:58the rhythm of very narrow frontages, lots of detail,
0:15:58 > 0:16:00the buildings coming out fighting.
0:16:00 > 0:16:03The way everything is packed in, especially on a day like today
0:16:03 > 0:16:06where the market's in full swing.
0:16:06 > 0:16:08It makes it look more like Belgium
0:16:08 > 0:16:10than any other town I know in England.
0:16:10 > 0:16:12And, of course, it's got troubles,
0:16:12 > 0:16:16it's going to expand from 120,000 to about 200,000.
0:16:16 > 0:16:19That means a much bigger town centre
0:16:19 > 0:16:24and as part of that, the whole of the north side here is due to be replaced
0:16:24 > 0:16:29by a monolithic frontage with an office block behind
0:16:29 > 0:16:32and the centre of that is the Emporium Arcade -
0:16:32 > 0:16:37built 1901 and in spite of its size, it has the same quality
0:16:37 > 0:16:41as the rest of the earlier, smaller buildings around the market square.
0:16:41 > 0:16:44It's full of detail, things are always happening on the facade.
0:16:44 > 0:16:48There's a balcony, gables and chimneys going up at the top.
0:16:48 > 0:16:52You might call it debased if you were worrying about architectural styles,
0:16:52 > 0:16:55though why people want to, I just don't know.
0:16:55 > 0:16:57But for all that, it's a good neighbour here.
0:17:00 > 0:17:02It's a bit difficult to talk about the arcade at the moment
0:17:02 > 0:17:05because by the time the programme goes out,
0:17:05 > 0:17:07its fate will probably have been decided.
0:17:07 > 0:17:10So if this turns out to be an obituary, I'm very sorry.
0:17:11 > 0:17:14At the moment, though, there's one hell of a fight going on.
0:17:14 > 0:17:16There's been a petition.
0:17:16 > 0:17:1810,000 people have signed to try and save this,
0:17:18 > 0:17:24which is quite something in a town of only 120,000,
0:17:24 > 0:17:27and a town with a sort of fairly pragmatic reputation.
0:17:27 > 0:17:29The trouble with it originally was,
0:17:29 > 0:17:33it was meant to go through at the end there
0:17:33 > 0:17:35and they couldn't get the building next door,
0:17:35 > 0:17:37so it became a kind of blind arcade,
0:17:37 > 0:17:40which is always the worst thing for an arcade to be.
0:17:40 > 0:17:45Yet, in the last ten years, it has begun to regenerate itself naturally
0:17:45 > 0:17:47and meanwhile,
0:17:47 > 0:17:50here's the reasons given by the council for demolishing it
0:17:50 > 0:17:52as reported in the local paper.
0:17:52 > 0:17:58First, "The success of the new scheme depends on running a service road
0:17:58 > 0:18:00"at roof level through this place."
0:18:00 > 0:18:04Well, my answer to that is - change the scheme.
0:18:04 > 0:18:09You know, what's more important, the fate of a living bit of Northampton
0:18:09 > 0:18:11or just one scheme, the details of it?
0:18:11 > 0:18:15Number two, "The hotchpotch of small shops, many of them rather
0:18:15 > 0:18:19"on the seedy side, is an illogical use in a modern town centre."
0:18:19 > 0:18:20That seems to me to be nonsense,
0:18:20 > 0:18:23it's exactly what a town centre is about.
0:18:23 > 0:18:27Number three, "The arcade was bought by the council for demolition
0:18:27 > 0:18:28"and not as an investment."
0:18:28 > 0:18:30Well, what a confession of failure.
0:18:30 > 0:18:34You just buy up parts of the town to demolish them
0:18:34 > 0:18:36and don't alter your opinion,
0:18:36 > 0:18:39even in the face of regeneration that's already happening?!
0:18:39 > 0:18:44And number four, "The arcade has no real architectural value."
0:18:44 > 0:18:48No architectural value with this great cupola here and the balconies?
0:18:48 > 0:18:50And the arches down there?
0:18:50 > 0:18:52Arches with a perspective effect
0:18:52 > 0:18:55because this arcade is on quite a considerable hill,
0:18:55 > 0:18:56and that, in my experience,
0:18:56 > 0:18:59which, with respect, is probably rather larger than
0:18:59 > 0:19:02that of Northampton councillors, is architecturally unique.
0:19:03 > 0:19:07If they really do pull this place down, it'll be a diabolical shame.
0:19:19 > 0:19:22I said the Leicestershire villages are pretty drab,
0:19:22 > 0:19:25well, this one certainly is - Stoney Stanton.
0:19:25 > 0:19:27It's about the centre of England,
0:19:27 > 0:19:30it's also about halfway between London and Manchester.
0:19:30 > 0:19:33A dead centre, you might think, looking at the bits of it.
0:19:33 > 0:19:35Although it's fairly prosperous,
0:19:35 > 0:19:38it gives the feeling of having laid down and died.
0:19:40 > 0:19:44Verges just left with concrete posts and...chicken wire,
0:19:44 > 0:19:47no attempt to make anything of them.
0:19:49 > 0:19:53Fragments of old walls broken down.
0:19:53 > 0:19:56Still a working farm, that's about the happiest thing in this village.
0:20:00 > 0:20:03DOG BARKS
0:20:06 > 0:20:09DOG BARKS
0:20:15 > 0:20:16Yet, in spite of all that,
0:20:16 > 0:20:20I did say there was one thing here which could make the place
0:20:20 > 0:20:24into one of the most exciting villages in England, and it's this...
0:20:26 > 0:20:29Right in the middle of the village, an abandoned quarry
0:20:29 > 0:20:33with a lake at the bottom, the houses all around it.
0:20:33 > 0:20:37It's very hard, very old rock, this.
0:20:37 > 0:20:40It wasn't much use for building stone, you could use it for rubble.
0:20:40 > 0:20:43It was more use as road metal.
0:20:43 > 0:20:48Now the quarry's worked out, one side is a municipal rubbish tip,
0:20:48 > 0:20:52all round the end people seem to be chipping in with their own
0:20:52 > 0:20:55bits of rubbish. What a waste!
0:20:55 > 0:20:57But think what could happen.
0:20:57 > 0:20:58You've got a ramp there now,
0:20:58 > 0:21:02you could get down and use the lake part for small-scale boating.
0:21:02 > 0:21:04You could have houses all round, looking in,
0:21:04 > 0:21:06taking advantage of the view
0:21:06 > 0:21:09instead of shunning it and haring off somewhere else.
0:21:09 > 0:21:13It makes you feel this view's too big for the people.
0:21:13 > 0:21:16They daren't look at it, it would worry them too much.
0:21:17 > 0:21:20You know, when you think of what Finchingfield has done
0:21:20 > 0:21:22with its little duck pond, just imagine what Stoney Stanton could do.
0:22:47 > 0:22:49Staunton Harold -
0:22:49 > 0:22:54this group of house, church, lake in front and landscape park all around
0:22:54 > 0:22:57is one of the very finest in the whole country.
0:22:57 > 0:23:02It's one of the things that are just waiting quietly to be looked at
0:23:02 > 0:23:04if you don't belt up the M1, that is.
0:23:05 > 0:23:09That front is 1763, the church itself's about 100 years older
0:23:09 > 0:23:11and it's a very remarkable building
0:23:11 > 0:23:15cos it was actually built in the Commonwealth in 1653
0:23:15 > 0:23:17when all the Roundheads were about.
0:23:18 > 0:23:21And the person who built it was a staunch Royalist...
0:23:22 > 0:23:26..so he built it defiantly Gothic - this was no preaching box -
0:23:26 > 0:23:29and it has an inscription on the front which says,
0:23:29 > 0:23:31"Whose singular praise it is,
0:23:31 > 0:23:33"to have done the best things in the worst times."
0:23:34 > 0:23:36They're sort of spitting in Cromwell's eye.
0:23:36 > 0:23:40Well, Cromwell spat back because he said,
0:23:40 > 0:23:42"All right, if you've got enough money to build this church,
0:23:42 > 0:23:45"you've got enough money to raise a regiment."
0:23:45 > 0:23:50The owner naturally wouldn't, so he went to the Tower and died there, 27.
0:23:50 > 0:23:53What a memorial, though.
0:23:53 > 0:23:58And this marvellous thing almost disappeared
0:23:58 > 0:24:02because the house was within an ace of being pulled down in the 1950s.
0:24:03 > 0:24:06Well, happily, the house wasn't demolished, it's now a Cheshire home.
0:24:06 > 0:24:09The church is owned by the National Trust
0:24:09 > 0:24:12and at the moment, they're just about to put up the marquees for that most
0:24:12 > 0:24:15innocent of English sports, an annual fete.
0:24:15 > 0:24:19The man who built this was named Shirley, Sir Robert Shirley,
0:24:19 > 0:24:23and it was another Shirley, the 17th-century dramatist who said,
0:24:23 > 0:24:25"Only the actions of the just
0:24:25 > 0:24:27"Smell sweet and blossom in their dust."
0:24:28 > 0:24:32This is exactly what has happened here, the dust has blossomed.
0:24:32 > 0:24:36And although we now don't build country houses like this,
0:24:36 > 0:24:39we still have the same obligation to make our dust blossom.
0:24:39 > 0:24:41We can't take it with us -
0:24:41 > 0:24:44we do have the chance of leaving a bit of it behind,
0:24:44 > 0:24:48whether in buildings like this or in factories and power stations.
0:25:02 > 0:25:04Willington power station in Derbyshire.
0:25:04 > 0:25:07It's quite a historic design, it's about 15 years old now
0:25:07 > 0:25:10and the architects, Farmer and Dark, made a deliberate decision
0:25:10 > 0:25:13to reveal as much of the equipment as they could,
0:25:13 > 0:25:17rather than wrapping it around with a brick skin,
0:25:17 > 0:25:20as was done in Battersea and in so many other places.
0:25:20 > 0:25:24It's almost there, I don't think it's quite successful,
0:25:24 > 0:25:28but it's nearly there and there's certainly,
0:25:28 > 0:25:32in the variety of the equipment, just as many shapes as there were
0:25:32 > 0:25:35in the pinnacles and crockets at Staunton Harold.
0:25:36 > 0:25:40What's missing to transform it, I think, is colour.
0:25:40 > 0:25:44They've tried in a few ways there to paint things,
0:25:44 > 0:25:49but the painting is too pallid, it's not strong enough.
0:25:51 > 0:25:55It's useless trying to harmonise this with the landscape,
0:25:55 > 0:25:57it just doesn't work,
0:25:57 > 0:26:01it's like trying to camouflage an elephant, you won't do it.
0:26:01 > 0:26:04You could have a marvellous time with this,
0:26:04 > 0:26:08painting it up as a colour symphony, and why the hell not?
0:26:08 > 0:26:11Because as I say, you are just not going to camouflage this,
0:26:11 > 0:26:15this is a great big piece of electrical equipment.
0:26:15 > 0:26:21Express it, don't be ashamed of it and don't just leave it ordinary.
0:26:21 > 0:26:25They could have built Staunton Harold without pediments on the house
0:26:25 > 0:26:27or without pinnacles on the church, you know,
0:26:27 > 0:26:29it wouldn't have been the same.
0:26:29 > 0:26:32This Willington, Derbyshire is Willington-on-Trent
0:26:32 > 0:26:37and that's the last big landscape division before we get to Manchester.
0:26:37 > 0:26:41You're leaving the Midlands here, you're crossing a big river
0:26:41 > 0:26:44and ahead, all the way to the edge of Manchester,
0:26:44 > 0:26:46is the Peak District, the hills.
0:27:14 > 0:27:16There's some pretty grand scenery
0:27:16 > 0:27:18on this bit of the journey from London to Manchester -
0:27:18 > 0:27:20I think, myself, some of the grandest in Britain.
0:27:20 > 0:27:24But what really hits me is when man and nature manage to act together -
0:27:24 > 0:27:26Not just...
0:27:27 > 0:27:31..landscape, landscape and buildings like this one.
0:27:31 > 0:27:35Jenkin Chapel, built 1733 for the hill farmers
0:27:35 > 0:27:38because the parish church was too far away
0:27:38 > 0:27:42and this is absolutely the essence of necessity.
0:27:42 > 0:27:46Nothing is unnecessary at all here and it adds to the landscape.
0:27:47 > 0:27:53The church, like a little cottage, so humble, yet so tough.
0:27:55 > 0:27:59Circular graveyard enclosure, the trees around it.
0:27:59 > 0:28:01"Built for the worship of Almighty God,"
0:28:01 > 0:28:05it says on the front there, and it certainly is meet.
0:28:05 > 0:28:08This is Cheshire, though it doesn't look like most peoples'
0:28:08 > 0:28:10idea of Cheshire.
0:28:10 > 0:28:14Just over there, beyond the hills, the Cheshire Plain.
0:28:14 > 0:28:17In fact, just over there, beyond those two hills,
0:28:17 > 0:28:19is Stockport,
0:28:19 > 0:28:20outer Manchester.
0:28:40 > 0:28:44Stockport's modern shopping precinct is a precinct with a difference.
0:28:44 > 0:28:46It's got an air of bustle and purpose about it
0:28:46 > 0:28:48that very few of these things have.
0:28:48 > 0:28:52And the reason it has is that it's been planned really intelligently.
0:28:53 > 0:28:56It's built over a bit of dual carriageway that nobody wanted,
0:28:56 > 0:28:58which is a pleasant idea to start with!
0:28:58 > 0:29:00On either side there are old shopping streets
0:29:00 > 0:29:03and instead of raising the whole lot,
0:29:03 > 0:29:05they kept a lot of the shops on the old streets,
0:29:05 > 0:29:07multiple stores and so on,
0:29:07 > 0:29:10which simply turn back to front, so that you can now...
0:29:10 > 0:29:16walk right through them, out of old Stockport into new Stockport.
0:29:16 > 0:29:17Everything is plugged in,
0:29:17 > 0:29:19it's the exact opposite of the Elephant and Castle,
0:29:19 > 0:29:21where nothing is plugged in.
0:29:21 > 0:29:24Even the multilevel system works because at the top level,
0:29:24 > 0:29:28you run off onto the hilly bit of old Stockport
0:29:28 > 0:29:30and from that top level,
0:29:30 > 0:29:33you feel that you're bang in the middle of the industrial north -
0:29:33 > 0:29:38the skyline of viaducts, cooling towers, chimneys.
0:29:38 > 0:29:43It's a complete change from the peace of Jenkin Chapel.
0:29:43 > 0:29:46From here to Manchester, in fact, it's completely built-up
0:29:46 > 0:29:49and some of those buildings are in a pretty sad state.
0:29:53 > 0:29:57Not only are the slums being cleared, but all the buildings -
0:29:57 > 0:30:00the shops along the Stockport Road - are being cleared too.
0:30:04 > 0:30:07And they are being cleared, not progressively, but...
0:30:08 > 0:30:09..all at one...
0:30:11 > 0:30:14..swoop, on both sides of the road.
0:30:14 > 0:30:17The Germans couldn't have done it, the town planners have.
0:30:18 > 0:30:20Now was this necessary in this way?
0:30:21 > 0:30:24Assuming the clearance of the slums was necessary,
0:30:24 > 0:30:26did they have to clear them all at once
0:30:26 > 0:30:30instead of a rolling programme whereby you could demolish
0:30:30 > 0:30:33one street at a time and replace one street at a time?
0:30:33 > 0:30:38If you did it carefully enough, you need only ever have one street empty
0:30:38 > 0:30:39and the people who are being rehoused
0:30:39 > 0:30:42could simply move one street up the road,
0:30:42 > 0:30:43which is not too much of a wrench.
0:30:43 > 0:30:46Here, they are dispersed all over Manchester.
0:30:46 > 0:30:49And did it have to be done in this way?
0:30:49 > 0:30:54And especially, did all the shops along the main road have to go?
0:30:54 > 0:30:55This one here is...
0:30:57 > 0:31:00There's nothing specially wrong with that, it would last a few more years.
0:31:00 > 0:31:02When its time came, all right, replace it,
0:31:02 > 0:31:07but don't sweep the whole lot away in one great act of demolition.
0:31:36 > 0:31:38The end of the journey, early evening,
0:31:38 > 0:31:39Piccadilly Gardens, Manchester.
0:31:41 > 0:31:43It's a weird old place, really.
0:31:43 > 0:31:46The gardens themselves are vital to Manchester
0:31:46 > 0:31:48cos it's the only place in the whole centre of the city
0:31:48 > 0:31:51where you can...sit and relax
0:31:51 > 0:31:54and take a breather from what is often rather a grim place.
0:31:54 > 0:31:58But it's not plugged in in the Stockport sense.
0:31:58 > 0:32:00There's all the elements of a city centre here,
0:32:00 > 0:32:02but they don't really relate.
0:32:02 > 0:32:04There's a bus station here,
0:32:04 > 0:32:07so you've got to nip through the buses to get to the gardens.
0:32:07 > 0:32:10The shops over there, again, you've got to cross the road to get to them.
0:32:10 > 0:32:12It's isolated elements.
0:32:14 > 0:32:16Just as isolated as the weird way
0:32:16 > 0:32:18the blocks on top of this Piccadilly Plaza
0:32:18 > 0:32:21seem to have been designed for five other places
0:32:21 > 0:32:23and brought together in a hurry.
0:32:23 > 0:32:25It could be plugged in, I think.
0:32:26 > 0:32:28It needs to be related more.
0:32:28 > 0:32:31Say there was an extension of the plaza level
0:32:31 > 0:32:33over the roofs of the buses,
0:32:33 > 0:32:37open-air cafes, then steps down into the gardens.
0:32:37 > 0:32:39And then, on the other side, steps underneath the gardens
0:32:39 > 0:32:43to connect to the basement level of the shops.
0:32:44 > 0:32:47It had bad luck in that...
0:32:47 > 0:32:50what was basically a small country town
0:32:50 > 0:32:52was really choked by a ring of warehouses,
0:32:52 > 0:32:54right round the centre almost,
0:32:54 > 0:32:57which prevented any kind of natural expansion of Manchester.
0:32:59 > 0:33:01Well, the warehouses are going now, but the question is -
0:33:01 > 0:33:04what's going to be put up in its place?
0:33:04 > 0:33:08Could it be, for once, an actual marriage of commercial,
0:33:08 > 0:33:12residential and places just to sit around and have fun in?
0:33:12 > 0:33:14Because Manchester needs that.
0:33:14 > 0:33:16On this whole journey up,
0:33:16 > 0:33:19you've seen places like that Leicestershire village
0:33:19 > 0:33:22with the quarry that have totally missed their destiny.
0:33:22 > 0:33:27Places like Stockport and Dunstable Downs where the 20th century is
0:33:27 > 0:33:31actually improving on what was there before.
0:33:33 > 0:33:36And places like Staunton Harold, which the 20th century,
0:33:36 > 0:33:39thank God, has simply left alone in its own glory...
0:33:40 > 0:33:43..all places on this direct line,
0:33:43 > 0:33:46all places you would never see from a motorway journey.