Enfield to Cambridge Great British Railway Journeys


Enfield to Cambridge

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In 1840, one man transformed travel in Britain.

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

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Stop by stop, he told them where to travel,

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what to see, and where to stay.

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

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to see what of Bradshaw's Britain remains.

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The next train to depart from Platform 8

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will be the 0930 National Express service to Norwich.

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I'm continuing my journey from Brighton to north Norfolk.

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150 years ago, businessmen, commuters, even politicians,

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realised that the railways, with their power and speed, were transforming lives.

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You could bathe in the sea at Brighton in the morning,

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you could have lunch in London, and you could be in Newmarket for a race meeting in the afternoon.

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And, luckily, George Bradshaw was on hand, with his handbooks and his timetables,

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to enable Victorians to maximise their social opportunities.

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All along this route, I'm gliding over the tracks that got the Victorian bourgeoisie on the move,

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whether for business, sport or sightseeing.

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'Each day, I'll depend on my Bradshaw's to be my guide.

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'Today I'll be seeing how trains changed the fortunes of Newmarket's famous races...'

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It's a sign of a very smart town, isn't it, to have one station for people from the North,

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-one for people from the South and one for the horses?

-Oh, absolutely.

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'..following my tracks back to my student days...'

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And that's where my all-important cocktail bar was.

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I probably had a desk as well, but I don't remember.

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'..and finding out that Cambridge has

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'a rather surprising claim to fame.'

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Football really started to blossom as clubs could be formed,

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competitions could be organised, and teams could travel some distance.

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So far, I've journeyed 68 miles from Brighton through London.

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Now I'll head north out of the capital,

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following a major commuter line into Cambridgeshire.

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I'll explore the Fens en route to King's Lynn,

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then pass through East Dereham and Norwich,

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on the way to my final stop - Cromer.

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Starting in Enfield today,

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I'll travel via Newmarket to my old university town.

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My first train takes me north out of London through the suburbs of the capital.

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One of the things that fascinates me about suburban railways

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is that you can see into people's windows and into their back gardens.

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The railways didn't just change life for people travelling by train,

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they changed the lives of the people living by railway tracks.

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And how many movie plots and novels have been based on some incident glimpsed from a fast-moving train?

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London's suburbs snaked out along the railway lines.

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Once distant places were, by the mid-19th century, only minutes from the city.

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But I'm surprised to find one that's very familiar to me recommended to tourists -

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Enfield.

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Bradshaw says, "The environs of Enfield are exceedingly pretty, and the scenery quite picturesque."

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Having been an MP in this borough, of course I agree with that,

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and returning stirs cheerful memories.

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It's not principally the scenery

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that makes Enfield score highly in Bradshaw's Guide.

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It says, "A visit should be made to the government arms factory,

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"an order for which must be previously obtained

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"from the Ordnance Office in London."

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Now, you probably wouldn't think of visiting a weapons plant,

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but Victorian tourists sought self-improvement through knowledge,

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and they took pride in Britain's superior technology.

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The machine shop at Enfield was the biggest in Europe,

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and attracted trainloads of admiring visitors.

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-Hello, Ray.

-Hello, Michael.

-Very good to see you.

-Yes, a pleasure to meet you.

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Ray Tuthill worked here in the 1950s.

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This is a magnificent building, Ray. What was it?

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It was the machine shop that was built in 1856

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to house machinery brought from Springfield in America.

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It went in here, and mass production, as we know it today, started in this machine shop.

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At the Great Exhibition, the Americans brought some rifles across

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and amazed everybody with this wonderful process, where you could take a random selection of components

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from a number of rifles, put them together in any order, and get a number of complete rifles.

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Prior to that, all engineering components were made by hand.

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This new American method of constructing guns from machine-made parts was revolutionary,

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and it's often seen as the beginning of modern-day mass production.

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The Enfield factory was the first in this country to adopt the system.

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Since the mid-1800s, every major type of rifle for the British armed services has been made here.

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Now, I imagine the weapon that most people would have heard of is the Lee Enfield.

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It was first produced in this machine shop at the beginning of the 1900s

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as a service weapon.

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The short-magazine Lee Enfield, or the Lee Enfield No. 1,

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that saw Great Britain through the First World War and up into the Second, and indeed through it.

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The factory was so large that, from 1855, it had its own railway station on the main line.

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Later, special trains were ferrying workers to Enfield in time for the 7am shift.

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Now, my Bradshaw's Guide from the 1860s refers to a railway station here called Ordnance Factory.

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-Was that used for bringing materials in and taking them out?

-Not at that stage.

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As the factory expanded and the population of workers expanded,

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all the housing around here grew up and also workers started coming in from further afield,

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so it would have been transport for people, but not actually for materials until the 20th century.

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From Bradshaw's day until the factory closed in the 1980s, the Enfield munition workers

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were admired for being amongst the most skilled in the world, and Ray was one of them.

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I first crossed this bridge in September, 1952,

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when I started my apprenticeship, and it was a wonderful apprenticeship.

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It was not just about teaching you engineering, it taught you about life,

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and in many ways it paralleled a modern university education.

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And if you'd done an apprenticeship at Enfield Lock it was recognised worldwide.

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It was often called a ticket to a job anywhere in the world.

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Much though I've enjoyed returning to familiar Enfield,

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it's time to continue on the next leg of my journey.

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It'll take me 58 miles along the tracks.

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After two changes of train, I'm now heading across the open plains of Cambridgeshire towards Newmarket,

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and Bradshaw says, "long celebrated in the annals of horsemanship for its extensive heath,

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"in the immediate vicinity of which has been formed one of the finest racecourses in the kingdom".

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And even someone as ignorant as I am of thoroughbreds knows that that remains true even today.

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Newmarket was the first course to organise official horse races,

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and, since the railways arrived in 1848,

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trainloads of optimistic punters

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have threaded their way to the town for a flutter.

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Tickets, please.

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-Hello.

-Hi.

-Are you...

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Are you often on the train on race days?

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I am, yes. Last year I remember a lot of race days, it gets very busy.

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I bet it does. And are they celebrating already when they get on?

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Er...yes.

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The majority of the time, yes. But they're normally pretty good.

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Well, I'm off to see the gee-gees myself now.

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-Oh, OK, just at Newmarket?

-At Newmarket.

-OK, well, good luck.

-Thank you very much indeed.

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-Thank you.

-Bye-bye.

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In Victorian times, Race Special trains from around the country brought racegoers to Newmarket.

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The meets are as popular as ever, but nowadays fewer people come by rail.

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-Bye-bye.

-Thanks a lot.

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Oh!

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Well...I was expecting something rather grand at Newmarket,

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because I know the station plays quite an important part in the town's history, but it's such...

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well, it's just a little halt.

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When the first trains arrived in Newmarket,

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it was a town for the gentry,

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and the races were the preserve of the rich.

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My guide says, "Most of the houses are modern and well built,

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"and have been erected as residences

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"for the nobility and private gentlemen who attend the races."

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Newmarket's pre-eminent position in racing originated with a group of London gentlemen

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whose passion for horses led them to form the Jockey Club.

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I'm looking to historian Sandra Easom to tell me more.

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Sandra.

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-Hello, Michael.

-Hello, very good to see you.

-Nice to meet you.

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Now, I understand that you can't really comprehend Newmarket unless you know about the Jockey Club.

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-What's the Jockey Club?

-Well, racing started with royalty here.

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Then, in 1752, a group of young bucks from London were interested in the racing on the heath.

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They thought it would provide good sport,

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and so the Jockey Club moved up from London to have its headquarters here,

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and they've been here ever since.

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'The Jockey Club appreciated the commercial and sporting potential

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'of racing at Newmarket, and devised the first official rules.

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'Soon, these were adopted by courses across the country,

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'but when the railways reached Newmarket,

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'bringing a new type of race-goer,

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'the elitist Jockey Club was less than thrilled.'

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They were very much against the idea of the lower orders coming here for racing.

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They saw it as a gentleman's sport and a gentleman's preserve, and they didn't want

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the hoi polloi being able to come along and spoil their day's racing.

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Basically, they made sure that racing was held at times that wasn't convenient to the masses.

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They made sure that the railway journeys were quite expensive.

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Most of the trains that came here came at times that were convenient to them rather than to the working man.

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'Eventually, the Jockey Club realised that it was missing out on a money spinner,

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'so ceased its obstructionism and began to work WITH the railways.'

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The Jockey Club actually thought, well, they might give this a go,

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and they negotiated for cheap day excursions from Liverpool Street in London

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for the princely sum of six shillings and sixpence,

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which was still, you know, quite pricey for your average working man.

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So, the trade opened up and it proved very popular indeed.

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'Newmarket became so popular that extra stations had to be built.'

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-Now, evidently we are meeting at a FORMER railway station.

-Yes, indeed.

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I was rather disappointed to come into a tiny little station.

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I know, it's very disappointing these days, isn't it?

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You come in and it's just a little halt, a remnant of its former glory.

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It was built in 1902 and it was one of three stations,

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which shows you how important the railway was to Newmarket.

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So, in great contrast to today,

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-Newmarket used to be a bit of a railway hub?

-Oh, indeed, yes.

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I mean, it was very popular for excursions from all over the country, not just the South and London,

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which of course was the main place they came from, but from the North.

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All the horses came into the old station, the 1848 station.

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'The railways revolutionised racing.

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'For the first time, horses caught the train to race meetings,

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'instead of walking, and so arrived in better condition to compete.

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'On a good day, 75 special railway horseboxes and 6,000 people

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'passed through Newmarket stations en route to the course.'

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The railway had a tremendous effect on Newmarket's prosperity, because

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the population actually doubled in the 40 years from the time that the railway started.

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The number of trainers, who of course were the primary employers, doubled, and the town prospered.

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It's a sign of a very smart town, isn't it, to have one station

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-for people from the North, one for people from the South, and another one for the horses?

-Oh, absolutely.

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Of course, it was the ultimate technology in Victorian times,

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it was a new technology, and every town worth its salt wanted a railway.

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-Or several.

-Oh, yes.

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First thing in the morning, I'll be up to see the horses train,

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so I plan to stay in Newmarket and go to bed early.

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Thinking about where to stay the night, my Bradshaw's Guide mentions two hotels, and this is one of them.

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This has been one of the most popular stopovers in Newmarket since the races began.

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-Hello, Michael Portillo checking in.

-Checking in. If I could just ask for a signature there, sir.

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Thank you. I love your courtyard, it has a very historic feeling to it.

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Originally the hotel was a coaching inn, so lots of horse-and-carriages used to come through.

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It was built in the 17th century.

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I thought it had the feel of horses about it.

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That's fantastic. Thank you, sir.

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Thank you, I've got a very early morning so I'm going to hit the hay.

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-OK, have a good night, sir.

-Thank you, bye-bye.

-Enjoy your stay.

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The next morning, I'm out long before breakfast

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to witness a centuries-old routine.

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The horses begin their day by stretching their legs

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on the Newmarket gallops.

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It's a beautiful morning, just before seven o'clock.

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This is the Newmarket Heath, these are the famous gallops.

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I'm meeting one of Newmarket's most experienced trainers, Sir Mark Prescott.

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He's been responsible for over 1,500 winners and is out on the heath every day.

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-Mr Portillo, how are you?

-Very nice to see you.

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So, this heath, for how long has it seen this sort of activity?

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The grass you're standing on here was sown in 1660,

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and it's not been ploughed, fertilised, watered since,

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so it's exactly the same grass that they were on then.

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What makes Newmarket famous isn't really the racecourse. There are 57 other towns with a racecourse.

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But the heath here, the training facilities,

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that's what brought, in the end, now, 2,500 horses, 82 trainers,

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and, during the covering season, when the stallions and mares are being bred,

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there are 10,000 horses in a ten-square-mile area.

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The well-drained, chalky terrain

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makes the heath ideal for training horses.

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Mark works with around 50 animals at a time.

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It can take anything from six months to two years

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to prepare a young horse to race.

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What about your relationship with the horses?

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Well, that's the most important, really. I suppose the trainer equates really to the headmaster.

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The horses equate to the children, the owners are the parents, and the racecourse is the exam.

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My job is to get as many of the...pupils through their exams at the best level that I can.

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Heath House, where Mark keeps his horses,

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has stood here for hundreds of years,

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but he draws my attention to a relatively recent Victorian relic.

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What do you think that is?

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I think it's a bit of old horse.

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It's a bit of very famous old horse called St Simon.

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He is, according to the millennium poll, the greatest racehorse in history.

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He was owned by the Duke of Portland,

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and he sired a Classic winner every crop he had,

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and he stood at 500 guineas.

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500 guineas in those days, half a million in our money.

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And the next most expensive horse in the world covered at 75 Guineas.

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He earned £296,000 at stud, 296 million in our terms.

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-Are we meant to kneel down before him?

-I think we should.

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'In Bradshaw's time, there was less technology involved in training horses.

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'Now a top stable must invest in five-star luxury.'

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-A beautiful blue pool for your horses.

-Yes, well, by lunchtime it looks like the River Thames.

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And they're actually going to swim,

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-they're not just going to walk through?

-No, it's ten foot six deep.

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The idea is to cool them off, stretch their...stretch them again,

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and so, rather like you, if you went and sat down in the office sweating,

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you stiffen up, whereas, if you'd had a swim and put your dressing gown on,

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you stay a lot looser.

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They look magnificent, don't they, as they emerge with the water streaming off them, refreshed?

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And hopefully contented, and hopefully feeling like eating a major breakfast.

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Funny you should mention that.

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I do, too.

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I have it all planned -

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not far from Heath House I shall sample the town's other speciality.

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If there's one thing that Newmarket is famous for apart from racehorses

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it is Newmarket sausages,

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and, indeed, the sausages still form part of the prize

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that's given to the winner of the annual horseracing town,

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the so-called Town Plate, which was initiated by Charles II.

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So, here goes,

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my first tasting of a Newmarket sausage.

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Hm, wonderful.

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Full of beans, and sausage,

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it's time to leave Newmarket for the final leg of my journey.

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In railway terms, at least, Newmarket's glory days are gone, and it's now just a single track

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which will enable me to shuttle towards the city where I was at university - towards Cambridge.

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It's 15 miles away, and it's a city that in my Bradshaw's

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scores a superlative commendation.

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"The University of Cambridge is second to no other in Europe."

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The last stop on my journey today leads me down memory lane.

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Arriving in Cambridge is always like a bit of a homecoming for me,

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having spent three years here.

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And not just any three years, those formative three years,

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the first three years of being an independent adult.

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In Bradshaw's day, and in mine,

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students were known to get up to all sorts of mischief.

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One legend claims that the station was built out of town

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to make it harder for the all-male students to get to the races

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or to the racy ladies in London.

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True or not, there's one thing that Cambridge gents have come to rely on

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for wooing the women.

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-Hello.

-Hi there.

-What are you selling?

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It's called punting, a sightseeing tour on the river, just like the gondola ride in Venice.

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Basically, a chauffeur is going to punt the boat with a pole.

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There's a slight difference, do you mind if I tell you, between punting and gondolas.

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-Gondola is with an oar, and punting is with a pole.

-No, gondola is with a pole as well.

-No.

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No, gondola riding is with a pole as well, in Venice.

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-It's with a pole.

-OK, I'm not going to argue with you.

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-Are you from Venice?

-No.

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-Are you?

-No!

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That's a good point.

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Well, even your average Venetian

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might associate punting with Cambridge.

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But he might be surprised to learn of a more global sport that has its roots here.

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-Hello, John.

-Hello, Michael. Nice to see you.

-Very good to see you.

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'I've come to meet Dr John Little, president of Cambridge University Football Club.'

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-Now, this is Parker's Piece.

-This is Parker's Piece, yes.

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I believe it's very important in the history of football.

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It's extremely important in the history of football.

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What, in fact, this was

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was the site where the undergraduates would congregate

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to play their many, varied forms of football that existed at the time.

0:21:240:21:28

Some could handle the ball, some couldn't. Some could go offside, some couldn't.

0:21:280:21:33

So, when they came to Cambridge, they all continued to play to their own rules.

0:21:330:21:38

This was obviously rather difficult, and when they set up on Parker's Piece,

0:21:380:21:43

each school would pin its own rules into one of the trees that surrounded the pitch,

0:21:430:21:49

and so, if you were a passing undergraduate and wished to join in, you knew which rules to play to.

0:21:490:21:54

These common rules were so widely taken up by other teams that, from 1863 onwards,

0:21:570:22:03

the Football Association adapted them for the national game.

0:22:030:22:08

Twinned with the arrival of the trains, football was entering a new era.

0:22:090:22:15

Finally, teams could travel, play a game and get home,

0:22:170:22:21

and indeed Oxford and Cambridge themselves could finally play Varsity matches, travel on the day,

0:22:210:22:26

and then get back to their respective universities, probably with some supporters.

0:22:260:22:30

And, in the wider game of football, football really started to blossom

0:22:300:22:35

as clubs could be formed, competitions could be organised, and teams could travel some distance.

0:22:350:22:40

'Just as the trains transformed horse racing in Newmarket,

0:22:410:22:45

'so they also revolutionised the Beautiful Game.

0:22:450:22:48

'Leagues grew because teams were able to get to fixtures anywhere in the country.'

0:22:480:22:52

-So would it be fair to say that football was born on Parker's Piece?

-I think it would.

0:22:520:22:57

I think those young men playing to different rules and being exasperated at not being able to play together,

0:22:570:23:03

it made them write these new set of rules, they were adopted,

0:23:030:23:07

and so one could say it was the birthplace of the modern game of football.

0:23:070:23:11

Cambridge's connection with football is largely unknown,

0:23:160:23:19

but its university is world-renowned.

0:23:190:23:23

My Bradshaw's devotes pages to extolling its virtues.

0:23:240:23:29

But this time I don't need the guide to find my way around.

0:23:290:23:34

Well, this is the college when I was an undergraduate, Peterhouse.

0:23:340:23:37

It's mentioned in Bradshaw's, of course. He says it's the oldest college of all, founded in 1257.

0:23:370:23:44

Actually, I think it was founded in 1284.

0:23:440:23:46

Now, I must confess that when I was here there was quite a lot of student misbehaviour.

0:23:530:23:59

For example, if a guy was out for the evening maybe with a girlfriend and was hoping to bring her back,

0:23:590:24:05

while he was out, we would go into his room and take away all his furniture and then, with some style,

0:24:050:24:11

we would lay it out on the old Court lawn, the carpet, the bed, the bedside lamps and everything.

0:24:110:24:17

And then the man would come back and find his bedroom in the middle here.

0:24:170:24:21

Now, if HE was really stylish, he would simply clamber into bed

0:24:210:24:25

and go to sleep for the night and be found there next morning.

0:24:250:24:28

While I'm here, I must revisit an old haunt.

0:24:300:24:35

Now, this is a moment of nostalgia, because I'm going back to

0:24:370:24:41

one of the rooms I had here as an undergraduate.

0:24:410:24:44

And I haven't set foot in here for...35 years.

0:24:440:24:49

Mind your head.

0:24:520:24:53

Well...here are lots of memories.

0:25:000:25:03

They've changed the furniture completely, but...

0:25:030:25:07

the room feels the same.

0:25:070:25:09

I think I may have had this table,

0:25:090:25:11

and that's where my all-important cocktail bar was.

0:25:110:25:15

I probably had a desk as well, but I don't remember.

0:25:150:25:17

My room-mate had that bedroom, and this one was mine.

0:25:170:25:22

With...a rather spooky view over the graveyard.

0:25:250:25:30

Indeed, we used to think this room was probably haunted.

0:25:300:25:34

And, famously, there's almost no high ground between Cambridge and the Ural mountains,

0:25:340:25:39

and in winter the cold in this bedroom was intense.

0:25:390:25:44

In Bradshaw's day, students out in public would have worn cap and gown.

0:25:450:25:51

And women weren't admitted to the university.

0:25:510:25:54

There were women's colleges when I was here, but none that was mixed.

0:25:560:26:00

And not until 2009 did Cambridge employ the first female head porter,

0:26:000:26:05

at Selwyn College.

0:26:050:26:07

-Helen, mistress of all you survey, because you are the head porter, aren't you?

-Yes, I am.

0:26:070:26:12

So part of what you do is discipline, isn't it?

0:26:120:26:15

Definitely. Security, discipline.

0:26:150:26:17

I'm the bad person of the college. I'm probably the most hated person in the college.

0:26:170:26:22

Oh, no, I don't believe that. I think it's a complex relationship.

0:26:220:26:26

Because you are the authority figure, but you're very friendly with the undergraduates, aren't you?

0:26:260:26:31

It's a very fine line, yes. Firm but fair, that's our mantra.

0:26:310:26:35

Friendly, firm and fair.

0:26:350:26:37

-How many porters are they here?

-Including me, there's 10.

0:26:370:26:42

Including two night porters.

0:26:420:26:44

Yes. So they're on the gatehouse at night, letting in latecomers?

0:26:440:26:49

-Most students nowadays have keys...

-Oh.

-..so they let themselves in.

0:26:490:26:53

We allow them that privilege.

0:26:530:26:56

But for anybody locked out or, like me, forget my keys, we allow them in.

0:26:560:27:01

'Over the generations - Bradshaw's, mine, and today's, I feel sure -

0:27:010:27:05

'students have always challenged authority.'

0:27:050:27:08

Are the ladies as badly behaved as the men?

0:27:080:27:11

No, of course not.

0:27:110:27:13

I'd never admit to it if they were!

0:27:130:27:16

Following Bradshaw's to locations that I already knew has proved very illuminating.

0:27:180:27:22

We take the familiar for granted.

0:27:220:27:25

My ancient guidebook opens my eyes to how exceptional those familiar haunts really are.

0:27:250:27:32

The places I visited on this leg of my journey have all been shaped

0:27:320:27:36

by a single activity which was established long before Bradshaw's.

0:27:360:27:40

Rifles in Enfield, and horse racing in Newmarket, and the university here in Cambridge.

0:27:400:27:46

And these institutions shape not only the towns, but everyone who passes through them.

0:27:460:27:51

And although I only spent three years in Cambridge, I'm very aware

0:27:510:27:55

that I carry a little bit of the city with me wherever I go.

0:27:550:28:00

On my next journey, I'll be in for a rare rail treat.

0:28:010:28:06

This bit of card means that between Downham Market and King's Lynn

0:28:060:28:11

I get to ride in the cab with the driver.

0:28:110:28:14

I'll be hearing how Victorian technology is still responsible for the safety of two counties.

0:28:140:28:20

The structure we've got here can hold back up to five metres worth of tidal water,

0:28:200:28:25

so if you imagine that's heading up towards Ely and Cambridge, it would cause catastrophic events.

0:28:250:28:30

And I'm covering an ambitious Victorian plan to reclaim the Norfolk Wash.

0:28:300:28:35

The Wash had the largest amount of land claimed from it.

0:28:350:28:40

Now it's a three-mile boat ride up the River Great Ouse before you actually get to the Wash.

0:28:400:28:45

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