Aylesford to Tunbridge Wells Great British Railway Journeys

'In 1840, one man transformed travel in Britain.

'His name was George Bradshaw, and his railway guides inspired the Victorians to take to the tracks.

'Stop by stop, he told them where to travel,

'what to see, and where to stay.

'Now, 170 years later, I'm making a series of journeys across the length

'and breadth of the country to see what of Bradshaw's Britain remains.'

My railway journey will now plunge me deep into the heart of Kent,

picking my destinations from Bradshaw's guide

just as Victorian tourists would've done.

Although one of the home counties, Bradshaw's notes that Kent is still very rural.

It strikes me that the same is true today.

'Kent's beautiful countryside was brought within easy reach of the capital when the railways arrived.

'The county became attractive to tourists and commuters alike.

'Rural businesses boomed, and I'll be visiting some of those

'that have survived since Bradshaw's time.

'On my route today, I'll be hopping with excitement, Victorian style...'

I just yank this, do I?

Give it a good pull.

'..discovering the secrets of paper from a leading expert.'

Would you like to know where this paper was made?

-Don't tell me you can tell that.

-I can.

'..and learning how the trains transported a very English game all over the country.'

If you look at a map of expansion of the rail network

around England and Scotland, cricket follows those lines.

'So far, I've travelled 30 miles from London to Chatham, and now I'm continuing through Kent.

'I'll follow the tracks as they snake across the county before heading east via Canterbury.

'Then I'll explore the seaside towns perched along our frontier

'with Europe on the way to my final stop, Hastings.

'Starting in Aylesford today, I'll pass through Maidstone,

'before ending at the historic spa town of Tunbridge Wells.'

Bradshaw's refers to the journey from Chatham to Aylesford.

He says, "We get glimpses of woody country, the land is

"studded with substantial homesteads

"and wealthy looking farms, rising in the midst

"of cornfields or orchards

"or surrounded by the British vineyards, the Kentish hop grounds."

In the Victorian era, when there were no grapes in Kent, that was George Bradshaw's idea of a joke.

Hops were an essential ingredient in beer, and Kent was a key supplier.

My guide says, "The ancient Aylesford has a population of 1,487 employed in the hop gardens.

"The hop was first cultivated in Kent about the middle of the 15th century."

By 1878, around 47,000 acres of hops were under cultivation in Kent.

Castle Farm, owned by William Alexander's family, stills grows hops today.

-Hello, William.

-Hello, Michael.

-How are you?

-Very well, thank you.

'Even hop growing was transformed by the arrival of the railways.'

There was a period where

the consumption of beer increased, not least because of railway construction.

The large teams of navvies were given up to

ten pints a day as part of wages, and so the hop industry grew on the back of this raised consumption of beer.

Judging by my Bradshaw's guide, in the middle of the 19th century,

there would've been extensive hop growing in Kent, much more than today.

How was that crop got in? It must have been very demanding.

Yes, to bring in the crop, you needed to do it in September, over quite a short period.

You needed a lot of labour.

This was drawn in from East London,

often coming down on the trains when they were available,

big groups would arrive on particular dates, often three generations in

a family, spending two, three weeks picking hops.

From 1865, dedicated trains known as hopping specials

left London Bridge each summer, packed with families bound for Kent.

For unemployed Londoners, it was a chance to earn some cash

and to escape the smoke of the city.

Up to 80,000 people came each year, and they needed places to stay.

These are the only two remaining examples of hopper huts

that families used to live in.

-You're not serious? People lived in these tiny huts?

-I know, haven't times changed?

They would have bunk beds built onto the walls and they made them

quite homely by putting paint or wallpaper stuck to the corrugated iron.

There was quite a community, with a whole row of these in the fields, and a central cooking area.

Every day they were given a bundle of sticks for the fires

from the farm called faggots, which were made up in the previous winter.

-I have to imagine five or six people stayed in here, and this was their holiday?

-Absolutely.

They made it a holiday time.

There was a great atmosphere.

A few weeks in the fresh air was seen as a benefit to the children.

But it was hard work, and picking began at daybreak.

William's taking me into the fields to see what's involved.

I can safely say I've never been in a hop garden before,

and this is what they mean by one, is it?

Yes, they grow 16 foot high up these strings, from ground level,

which they shoot from in April, they grow rapidly.

When they get to top, they branch out and you get all these lovely hops developing.

Paint for me a Victorian scene.

What would the picking have been like in Victorian times?

We've got all this family labour which has arrived.

They come out on a misty morning, they would spread up a long row like this in groups

of family. The farm staff would come out with

long hooks, or pullers, and pull the vines down, giving vines to each family to pick.

They would pick them into baskets.

Can we have a go at doing this?

Yes.

We don't have a traditional puller, so I thought you could act as one and bring this one down for us.

If you move over there, I'll cut this one off.

-Right.

-If you get her on to the end of that one, Michael, I'll hold your book.

That's Bradshaw, you hold him with great respect. I just yank this, do I?

Give it a good pull.

LAUGHTER

Very good.

Is that how it always goes?

You need to practise, I think.

Would you like to try another one?

No. One is enough for today, I think.

Pick the hop vine up

and lay it near a basket, and then rapidly pick off the hops.

You have to go at quite a speed if you want to get paid.

If you want to earn money, you've got to get moving.

How were they paid?

Payment was based on the amount picked every day and in order to keep your whole, large gang of pickers

here on the farm, and not to lose them before the crop was fully home and dry,

they were paid with tokens.

I have a hop token, which was only recognised locally in the pubs and the grocers of the village.

At the end of the season, the farmer would exchange it back for good

pounds, shillings and pence, as they left on the train back to East London.

-That device prevented them hopping off...

-Exactly!

..before the end of the season.

I'd better give you that token back, I don't feel I've quite earned it.

These days, the brewers import a lot of their hops, and William no longer supplies them.

The process of picking has been mechanised.

What we're seeing here is how it is harvested today.

They're cut at the bottom and held in the front of the trailer.

Then the man at the back is cutting them off at the wirework level,

rather than pulling them down to the ground by hand.

Having brought one down on my own head, I can see the advantages of this method.

Do you have any people coming in to do the picking?

We have a different use for hops, we're cutting them for decoration.

We're not actually picking them off. We're drying them on the vine.

That means we don't need vast numbers of people to do it. We do still,

even now, have seasonal labour, and have a couple with us at the moment from New Zealand.

They didn't come on the train!

They didn't come on the train, no.

'Victorian workers might have been rewarded with beer,

'but my clumsy efforts don't earn me a pint.

'Soberly, I now leave Aylesford and continue the next leg of my journey, three miles down the track.'

Maidstone is my next stop.

Bradshaw says that it's the capital of Kent.

In a tract of land of great fertility among the hop grounds.

It says that besides hops, paper is a staple production, especially at the Turkey and Pole mills.

I'm on my way to the Turkey Mill.

'There's a reason why Bradshaw's singles out the Turkey Mill.

'It was established by James Whatman, an 18th-century businessman who

'invented a revolutionary technique for making paper that's employed to this day.

'I'm meeting forensic paper historian, Peter Bower, to find out more.'

Peter.

Hello, Michael.

So this is Turkey Mill, and I gather it is quite a shrine because this is

where James Whatman lived and manufactured.

He's quite a name in paper, isn't he?

He is one of the great paper makers.

Might sound odd to talk about a great paper maker, but he really did know what he was doing.

He developed better and better papers.

His paper was forged by the Austrians, French, Germans,

because of his fame.

He was also very, very financially successful.

At the time, Whatman's Turkey Mill was the largest paper mill in Britain,

and one of 14 in Maidstone, where the industry was centred.

Why was paper made in Maidstone at all?

I think, initially, because there were a lot of streams like the Len, which this mill is on,

There was good, consistent supplies of water, both for power and for making the paper with.

And you need good, clean water to make paper.

'The clean water helped Whatman to make high quality, pure white paper.

'By the 1750s, he'd developed a new way to make paper which transformed the industry.

'Peter's brought me two samples so I can see the difference.

'First, the old paper.'

I'm seeing a lot of parallel lines, and I'm seeing a watermark in the centre, too.

The lines are the traces of the wire that the paper was made on.

-And now what's this other sheet?

-This was also made here.

And as you can see, it's completely different.

Yeah, it's much, much smoother, isn't it?

It allows you to smooth it much more.

This is a wove paper. It's actually made on a woven wire mesh so you

don't get the texture of the lines, and it was very deliberate.

A lot of people in the 18th century really wanted paper like this.

And by the 19th century, this was the norm.

'The new smooth paper took print much better.

'With the advent of the railways, business soared in response to demand from all over the country.

'Whatman's paper was used by Queen Victoria.

'British Acts of Parliament, and even Soviet five-year plans were printed on it..

One of the reasons why this mill was so successful, and why Bradshaw

mentions it, because it was famous, is because this mill provided paper for some of the greatest artists

-Britain's ever seen.

-Like who?

-Turner, Constable, William Blake.

All sorts of people used the paper over and over and over again.

-Pretty demanding clients.

-Yes.

Turner's amusing, because he quite often bought seconds.

-He saved his money!

-What a cheapskate!

'Peter's a forensic paper analyst who gives vital evidence in fraud cases,

'so I'm intrigued to know what he can tell me about my guidebook.'

Now, I know you've been looking at my Bradshaw's before.

What sort of paper is this?

Well, this is quite intriguing.

Three are three different papers in this book.

You've got the end paper, which is slightly heavier, a different tone as well.

They're both wove, these are both machine-made papers.

But there's another paper in here, which is the maps,

which is much smoother, again wove, of quite light weight,

again, a different tone.

And would you like to know where this paper was made?

-Don't tell me you can tell that?

-I can.

Where was it made, then?

It was made by a company called James Cropper, who still exist.

The mill is still there and very, very successful.

And we know this because William Blacklock, who was Bradshaw's partner,

was a one-third owner of James Cropper, the paper mill.

You are the real Professor Higgins of paper, aren't you?

You can find the origins of anything!

'Today, Whatman paper is still made in a factory a few miles from the original Turkey Mill,

'and I'm curious to see it.'

-Paul.

-Michael, hello.

How very good to see you.

Paul Highstead works at Springfield Mill, and will show me how the paper's made.

-What have we got in there?

-Essentially, this is the same as it has always been made,

where we're taking dilute fibres that have been treated and we're draining them through a screen.

What you're seeing there is just fibre and water.

Now, James Whatman wasn't using glass fibre. I guess he wasn't using cotton.

He was using a form of cotton.

He was using rags, which is second-hand cotton.

So it would have been boiled and prepared, until you end up with a solution like this.

Still using developments of Whatman's techniques,

the factory makes specialised paper for use in scientific analysis.

As in Bradshaw's day, the firm focuses on products of high quality.

It's beautiful stuff, actually. Where are these particular rolls destined for?

This particular product is made from glass microfibre.

And this will be destined for environmental monitoring applications.

So you have to be able to guarantee the purity of the product before it leaves the factory?

Yeah, both physically and chemically, we have to guarantee the quality.

I leave the mill knowing more about my guidebook than ever before.

And, as usual, it suggests where I should seek my bed for the night.

Since Bradshaw mentions hops several times,

and since there can be nothing more typical of Kent than oast house, I've picked one to stay in.

This one has been turned into a bed and breakfast by owner Katherine Morgan.

-Katherine.

-Good evening. Nice to meet you.

-Lovely to meet you, and what a beautiful oast. It's magnificent.

-Well, thank you very much.

I'm really looking forward to staying here. You know, all the time I've seen oast houses,

maybe when going by on the train, I've never really understood what they're for.

-How does it all work?

-Well, they were used for drying hops.

They would have a fire in this bottom room, your bedroom.

And where the ceiling is there were slats, and the hops would be put on the slats.

The fire would dry them, and the hot air from this fire would go out through the cowl at the top.

It would turn round in the wind so there was no backdraft.

And now, so often, the oast houses have been turned to living accommodation?

-Yes, but it's extremely difficult to get permission to do it!

-Is it?

-Yes.

Anyway, you've done it. Would you mind showing me inside?

-Not at all.

-It looks absolutely wonderful. Your garden is delightful.

The Kent you see through train windows is distinguished by oast houses,

so I can think of nowhere better to stay.

Having slept soundly in my oast,

or roundly in my oast, another dry morning smiles upon Maidstone.

And it's a very good day to visit picturesque Tunbridge Wells.

For the final leg of my route today, I'm travelling 20 miles down the

line to a place that my guidebook extols.

Bradshaw is almost breathlessly enthusiastic about Tunbridge Wells.

"The town is, with the exception of Bath, the most ancient of the inland watering places.

"Nature has eminently favoured it by the salubrity of its air, the potency of its mineral springs

"and the adjacent appendages for romantic and agreeable scenery."

Do you know, I never thought I would be so excited about going to Tunbridge Wells?

Like so many spa towns,

Tunbridge Wells was the preserve of the rich until 1845, when a new railway line

enabled bourgeois Victorians to travel quickly and cheaply to Kent.

The great thing about most of our old railway stations is

that they pop out in the middle of town, like here in Tunbridge Wells.

You can see how that gave rise to a lifestyle of commuting,

but equally, it was very convenient for the Victorian tourist.

Just a short walk away, my guidebook recommends some highlights for visitors.

Bradshaw comments that, "The town has been much modernised of late years,

"the parade alone evincing any symptoms of antiquity."

And he refers to this street, with a row of trees on one side and a colonade with shops on the other.

And it is a breathtaking street.

It's changed very little since Bradshaw's time, except in name.

Because now it's known as the Pantiles.

The Pantiles, or parade as it was known then, was an elegant 17th century shopping arcade

where visitors could stroll and be seen.

Today, many of the buildings have been beautifully restored.

-Hello there.

-How are you?

-I'm very well. How are you?

This was known as the Parade, and now it's called the Pantiles. Does anybody know why?

Yes, it was the slabs.

There are 15 down there, 15 pantiles.

-There are 15 of them still down there left.

-From when would that be?

-1600s, 1650?

I've been here 45 years, so it's definitely right.

-45 years in Tunbridge Wells?

-Yes.

-Were you by any chance a commuter?

-I was, unfortunately. This is your train journey thing!

No, I did it for 16 years.

-16 years on the train?

-And I loved it.

-You did?

-I did it for 10.

-And we had great fun.

It's better now, the trains are much better.

-Tunbridge Wells is famous for commuters.

-Yeah. It's about 45 minutes.

There was a buffet car, so you could have toast and tea in the morning and a drink on the way home.

When they stopped that I packed up going to London.

-You used to play cards, didn't you?

-Play cards, yeah.

-You had a group?

Six of us met and played cards in the evening.

-That's where you made your real money!

-Nothing to do with work!

-Well, you look like Contented of Tunbridge Wells!

-We love it.

-It's a lovely place.

-Lovely to talk to you. Thank you very much.

-Nice to meet you. You'll be a bit fishy now!

Tunbridge Wells became popular with commuters back in Bradshaw's time and the town began to expand.

My guide says,

"The houses are chiefly detached villas with lawns in front and large gardens in the rear."

Many of the grandest streets were laid out in the 19th Century.

This gorgeous crescent was by a architect with the wonderful Victorian name of Decimus Burton.

And he worked on the London parks and Kew Gardens.

And these houses were originally built as shops.

But by the late 19th century they were for the middle classes,

people commuting to the city, where, presumably, they made enough money to be able to afford them.

-Hello.

-Hello.

You're very lucky if you live here.

-Yes, we are, actually.

-You do live here?

-Yes, we live in this house here.

-Beautiful.

-And we're near everything, you know.

Trains, shops, the lot.

Well, yes, but just such an exceptional crescent.

Great view as well.

-Presumably they're very strict with what you can do to these houses.

-Very.

They're beautifully preserved, aren't they, I must say.

Yes, and English Heritage make sure that you don't do anything awful.

Are you a commuter? Any member of your family a commuter?

My husband was, my husband was.

-Was he taking the train from Tunbridge Wells?

-Yeah.

I must say, a train every quarter of an hour is a godsend.

It's like a village rather than a town.

I think it's really beautiful.

-It's got that flavour of Bath about it, hasn't it?

-It has, yes.

Bradshaw's praise of the town's pleasing architecture

is followed by a less obvious comment that I must pursue.

Writing of Tunbridge Wells, Bradshaw's says,

"A new cricket ground has been made where many great matches are held."

That was written in the 1860s and I last followed cricket in the 1960s.

But the ground to which Bradshaw refers is the Higher Ground.

This is it.

In the 19th century, cricket was central to the life of Tunbridge Wells.

I'm meeting cricket historian Glenys Williams to find out why.

-Hello Glenys.

-Hello!

-Good match so far?

-Yeah, looks good.

-Tunbridge Wells is really a kind of centre for cricket, isn't it, historically speaking?

-Very much so.

Kent was cradle of the game.

It was Kent and Hampshire, Sussex, where the game originated, we believe,

way back in the 12th, 13th century.

And because of all the willow being grown here, it was the perfect place for cricket bat making.

And so, certainly from the 17th, 18th century onwards,

we see the growth of the game here.

And also we get the development of the various cricket bat making firms

and ball making firms in this area as well.

Cricket balls have been made locally since the 1760s.

They were hand-stitched by workers at home.

Then, in the 1840s, Duke's opened a factory alongside the railway tracks.

Trains began carrying cricket balls and bats to the rest of the country,

and they also helped to transform the game.

The all-England 11 that travelled in 1849 travelled by stagecoach.

By 1852, they were using the rail network.

And if you look at map of the expansion of the rail network around England and Scotland,

cricket follows those lines.

The all-England 11s were particularly popular in some of the industrial cities of up North.

Sheffield, Manchester.

They played as far south as St Ives and they went as far north as Scotland.

So trains enabled players to get to more distant places.

-Do the railways also popularise the sport?

-Yes, they do.

With the rise of the mass media in the 1840s to 1860s, newspapers are travelling on trains,

match reports are being sent via the telegraph, which also goes via the rail network.

And people sitting in their homes, reading these newspapers,

were able to read about the exploits of players such as WG Grace.

And so when they heard that he was coming to play, there was, for the first time, a sense of anticipation.

By the mid 1800s, tens of thousand of Victorians would travel across the country to watch a fixture.

Cricket's increasing popularity with the masses would forever change the way it was played.

I think of cricket in its heyday as being

a game for aristocrats and the gifted amateur.

What we see in 1860s are two different games, if you like.

You have the professionals who are earning their living by playing games

around the country in front of big crowds, popularising the game.

At the same time, you have the aristocracy who have almost withdrawn back to their own county estates.

Once the game retreated, if you like, into the county scene,

it was much more refined.

And I think if you really wanted to get a feel of one of those matches

from the 1860s, you'd really have to go to India today,

to see these massive grounds where people just crowd in and are all so completely passionate about the game.

The more I follow my Bradshaw's along the tracks, the more I understand

how the railways changed the country.

They laid the foundations of Britain's Industrial Revolution,

and also of a quintessentially English identity.

Nothing conjures up old England more than the thwack

of willow on leather and long shadows across a cricket ground.

Except, perhaps, a pint of warm beer. And Kent,

aided by its railways, helped to create both those vital elements in our national nostalgia.

On my next journey, I'll be finding out how a railway

helped to save Canterbury's historic heart in World War Two...

The cathedral actually had railway lines laid into the knave to deliver sandbags to protect it.

..hearing how the Whitstable whelk industry has changed since Bradshaw's day...

In the old days, that's not what happened?

They used to go away in the shell.

But when the rail stopped taking perishable goods, we had to find another way of dealing with it.

..and exploring the history of a seaside swim.

Imagine you're staying in Margate.

You come out of your lodgings and wait for a bathing machine to be ready,

which apparently always smelt like rotting carpet, that kind of horrible sort of smell.

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