Ely to King's Lynn 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.

Using my 19th century guidebook, I am continuing my journey from

Brighton to North Norfolk,

crossing the flat planes of Cambridgeshire.

These broad lands would have been remote before the arrival of the railways.

Possibly the best access would have been by boat.

On this stretch of the route, I'm following railway tracks

which opened up previously inaccessible parts of England.

Each day, I'll explore the places recommended to me by my Bradshaw's guide.

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

Today is very special for me

because of this bit of card.

This his called a driving cab pass,

and this means between Downham Market and King's Lynn,

I get to ride in the cab with the driver.

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

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

If you imagine that five metres heading up towards Ely, Cambridge,

it would cause catastrophic events in that populated area.

And I'll be uncovering an ambitious Victorian plan to drain the Norfolk Wash.

The Wash is the estuary in the UK which had the largest amount of land claimed from it.

Now it's a three-mile boat ride

up the river Great Ouse before you get to the Wash.

So far, I've travelled over 140 miles from Brighton,

through London and Suffolk to Cambridge.

Now I'm heading north, tracing a major commuter line through the Fens

en route to the Wash.

Then, I'll pass through East Dereham and Norwich

on the way to my final stop, Cromer.

Today, I'm starting in Ely

before continuing to Downham Market and the port of King's Lynn.

This length of track slices across some of Britain's most fertile landscape

and it's a route I've reason to remember.

Many years ago,

I tried to become the MP for the Isle of Ely.

And the name was a little puzzling because no island is evident.

But as my Bradshaw's guide points out -

and this was written in the 1860s -

"this fertile district, less than a century ago was covered with water".

The fens were a waterlogged marsh until they were drained by

a complex system of ditches, locks and pumps in the 17th century.

My guide says, "The whole of this extensive county

"is penetrated by artificial drains to redeem as much ground as possible from its former swampy conditions".

Long before the waters were held at bay, a magnificent city arose at Ely.

But prior to enjoying its magnificence,

I'd like to chat to the area's station manager, Allen Neville.

Morning, Allen.

-Good morning.

-Good to see you.

-Thank you very much.

It's quite an interesting station.

I've noticed it's a kind of backwater, but you're jolly busy?

It's a very, very busy station, it's nicknamed the Crewe of the Fens.

We've got, throughout the year, 1.5 million customers.

You might assume it would be a backwater, but over 170 trains pass through Ely each day.

And being provincial and particular, it maintains an important tradition.

What's going on here?

This is the announcing equipment,

we pride ourselves on the announcing at Ely station.

It's all done verbally and we get a lot of praise for the human voice element.

-Would you like a go?

-I'd love a go, I'd love a go.

"The train now arrived at platform one".

-LOUD SPEAKER:

-The train now standing at platform one

is the 0915 Cross Country service to Birmingham New Street...

calling at March, Peterborough, Stamford, Oakham, Melton Mowbray, Leicester, Nuneaton,

Coleshill Parkway and Birmingham New Street.

Due to arrive at Birmingham New Street at 11:38am.

-Was that more or less right?

-Absolutely fine.

Great, haven't misled too many people.

THEY LAUGH

My announcements might lure people away from Ely to the exotic towns

of England, but there's good reason to stay here and explore.

Here's a curiosity, a little pipe

shaped like an eel.

Ely, eels, this place is very famous for eels anyway.

For centuries the prosperity of this wetland has been founded on the eel trade.

Some say eels were even exchanged for the stone employed to build

the glorious cathedral, which is extolled in my Bradshaw's guide.

From Ely station you have a wonderful view

of what Bradshaw described as the principal object of interest,

the venerable cathedral founded in 1070.

And typically Bradshaw gives statistics - 500 ft long,

it's Norman nave, 270 ft high.

It is for me, one of my very favourite cathedrals in England.

In Bradshaw's time, fast rail transport

allowed eels to be packed on ice and sent all over the country.

But in truth, with the land drained, the Fenland's aquatic trades were in decline.

-Peter.

-Hello.

-Michael.

I really believe this is the most fascinating shop I've ever been in.

Thank you very much.

'Eel trapper Peter Carter and his family

'have made their living on the Fens for hundreds of years.'

What does an eel trap look like?

This is a fenland trap,

and inside you've got spikes pointing inwards. The idea is, the eel can push his way in,

-but can't turn to come back again.

-It's like a valve?

-Yeah.

And that's known as a chair, an old Fen word meaning narrow gap.

The advantage of these traps is, the eels like them cos they chew the willow - aspirin comes from willow.

Your traditional way of life, how common is that today?

I'm the last one known doing it on the Fen. The old-fashioned ways, anyway.

Peter hand-makes his traps using local willow, which can withstand long submersion in water.

To help me understand the Fens and a lost way of life,

'he's taking me out on his boat.'

It's a very beautiful country Peter, what was this like

a few hundred years ago?

It was mainly water then, was it?

Yeah, it was very shallow water, more like mud and silt than anything.

The landscape's changed massively since it's been drained.

Imagine it was all reeds before - reeds, rushes, willows,

must have been an impressive site.

A man could make a living in that environment?

Yeah, you couldn't go hungry, the amount of food you could eat - pike,

eel, duck, goose, swan, whatever you got your hands on, they'd eat them.

And the people lived on some islands, there were some islands?

Yeah, they were all islands.

That existence was ended when in the 17th century, Dutch engineer

Cornelius Vermuyden was employed by rich landowners to construct a network of enormous drains.

They aspired to turn the watery Fens into productive farmland.

But they met resistance from local families who formed a guerrilla group called the Fen Tigers.

These Fen Tigers, what did they do?

They were the ones who protested and started fighting.

They used to damage the banks - as quick as they were digging them out,

they were blowing them up and re-flooding the areas, they didn't want it drained.

They knew once the land was drained...that was it,

wild fouling would go, eel fishing would go, the big landowners would

come in and start farming it and people would earn less wages.

But in the end the landowners had their way?

Yeah, the landowners won in the end.

Agriculture flourished on this sediment-rich earth, especially when

the railways opened its produce to the markets of the Kingdom.

But Peter's ancestors' way of life was all but lost.

I recognise that technique from university days?

What? The old punting? Yeah.

Was the only way of getting round on the Fen at one time.

Most of the land was so shallow, it was the easiest way to move.

Most of the work you do is stood up.

Got first trap just here.

This is a Victorian-style trap.

This is a wire one.

It's been a quiet day.

They're all going to be like... That's disappointing.

So, have you caught any today?

Yeah, you're actually sat on them at the moment.

MICHAEL LAUGHS

-What? Under here?

-Yeah.

Whoa! Look at those beauties.

Just a few small ones in there, they grow a lot bigger than that -

four foot in length sometimes.

These are better for cooking, though, this sort of size.

Slimy!

The slime is what helps them survive out of water, they can come out of water

and travel from one dyke to another by using the slime to keep themselves wet.

They draw the water through the wet grass.

-I think they're a beautiful-looking creature.

-Lovely.

It's time to leave Ely and continue on the next leg of my journey

and discover more about how the Fens were transformed in Bradshaw's day.

I'm now on the line that runs from Ely to King's Lynn.

Bradshaw says of this, "It's the most important section of the East Anglian line as it

"brings a very valuable district of the eastern part of the country

"in to railway communication.

"Not only with the Metropolis, but with the northern and western parts of the Kingdom".

As I run along here, I can see the line is built up on banks

and I'm thinking about what a major achievement it was

to build this heavy railway across such boggy country.

Once the Fens were drained, rural towns could be connected by railway.

But given the lie of the land, it's still prone to flooding

and each generation has improved the engineering that keeps the sea at bay.

-TRAIN ANNOUNCEMENT:

-The next station is Downham Market.

I'm on my way to the Denver Sluice,

first built in the 17th century strengthened in 1834.

It's a strategic point in the defence of the Fens.

-Hello, are you Dan?

-Hi...

'Dan Pollard is the lock keeper here.'

What we've got here is a lock and then three sluices.

-What is a sluice?

-Well, a sluice is a way of controlling the river

upstream of the gates,

so we can either open up the gates to discharge water or keep them closed to maintain levels upstream.

So, river that way, sea that way.

Yes, down towards King's Lynn.

The 18th century drainage schemes were brilliant, but they lacked machinery.

By the 1800s, steam technology was beginning revolutionise the water management of the Fens.

Bradshaw makes an interesting reference to the country

really being saved or designed by steam.

I imagine what he's talking about are huge pumping engines, would that be right?

Yes, what happened when Vermuyden started the Fen drainage,

they put wind pumps on to drain the water off the land

to transfer water into the drains and rivers.

Eventually they went over to steam power. There was a large engine at Stretham

and that was the steam power to pump water off the land.

I would guess the arrival of the steam engine with all that power, must have been a turning point?

It was a turning point in the watershed,

in the fact they could drain the water off a lot quicker

and more efficiently than the wind pumps could.

-Yeah, not so much a turning point as a watershed?

-Yes.

With the introduction of steam pumps, the sluice was redesigned by Sir John Rennie.

He added three new gates and widened the lock,

creating a system that to this day safely controls the water levels.

Supposing all this paraphernalia weren't here?

What would the consequence be?

The Fens would be the Fens as they were before Vermuyden was here,

the land would be saturated, flooded for good portions of the year.

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

So if you imagine that five metres heading up towards Ely and Cambridge,

it would cause catastrophic events in populated areas.

So in your hands lies the survival of

Ely Cathedral and Cambridge University - not much pressure?!

Obviously, there's a fair amount of pressure if huge amounts of rainfall fall in that area.

If...

What we do is keep people's feet dry in Ely and Cambridge.

Once the danger of flooding was removed, the value of land shot up and Norfolk grandees became rich.

My Bradshaw's says, "The productive and remunerative farming of the Fens

"of Norfolk is one of the greatest triumphs of steam.

"Lands have been enhanced in value, not only 100% but even 100 fold".

As wheat spread across its acres, Norfolk became known as

the breadbasket of England and over 400 windmills were in use.

I'm spending the night in the county's only commercial, working mill.

In its day, its proximity to the railway made it very profitable.

-Hello.

-Hello, Michael.

-Lovely to see you.

-And you.

-You're Mark, aren't you?

-Yes indeed.

Congratulations on having a working windmill, it's amazing.

It's the last one in Norfolk and we are very proud of it.

Mark Abel has leased The Denver Windmill for two years.

-Fantastic!

-I get a thrill every time I come here, still.

Formidable power to think the wind is driving that wheel

and driving this and that's all connected to stones beneath.

Basically, that is a sailing ship,

it's the technology, trapping the energy of the wind

with canvas, transferring it through the structure.

Built like a ship.

My Bradshaw's guide is very keen on steam,

was this ever converted to steam?

This wasn't, it's quite interesting in that

within 25 years of this being built in 1835, a separate mill was added, steam powered.

It had three sets of horizontal stones, the same as the windmill did,

but it was completely independent, just powered by steam.

Beautiful, I'm staying close by in the miller's cottage?

In the miller's cottage, just down the yard, yeah.

-I expect there will be bread for breakfast?

-There will indeed!

The next morning I head straight to Downham Market station.

I've left myself time to enjoy

this very special stop on the Norfolk line.

-Good morning.

-Good morning.

I was hoping for a coffee, please.

I'm sure we can get one sorted for you.

What a charming station.

Downham Market station is Grade Two Listed but the service to passengers is definitely Grade One.

-I've never seen anything like that.

-This is the station waiting room.

Is it a lending library?!

No, we sell the books in here, they're all second hand books,

we've got a 50p corner, and slightly dearer ones.

But if you come in here with a coffee

-are you entitled to settle down with a book?

-Absolutely,

we have people stay in here for several hours sometimes.

May I just feel if it seems comfortable to...

read my Bradshaw in, what's really the perfect setting?

An armchair in a railway station in deepest Norfolk.

The hospitality to be enjoyed here is clearly well known to local people.

-Good morning.

-Good morning.

-I've just been enjoying the waiting room, isn't it fantastic?

It's wonderful. We think it's the best station there is.

-You know it well, do you?

-Yes, we live just down the road.

Sometimes we use it to come on the train,

sometimes we just come and have a coffee or toast.

People get off and have a beer.

What about the books? Do you ever make use of the book shop?

Oh yes, bought quite a few books.

-I daren't buy any more, I've got too many!

-Filling up your house?

Yes, definitely, yes, I like books.

-Where are you off to today?

-Well, we're not going anywhere today.

Just coming to look at the train and be at the station.

How marvellous!

I'll now be covering the last 11 miles of the line to the terminus

at King's Lynn, and there's a thrill in store for me.

Today is a very special day for me, because of this bit of card.

This is called a driving cab pass, and this means that between

Downham Market and King's Lynn, I get to ride in the cab with the driver.

Which way to the cab?!

-This way, sir.

-I guessed that.

'I'm looking forward to seeing the line stretch out ahead,

'so much better than the view from the passenger seat.'

-Hello, there.

-Hello, there.

-Are you expecting visitors?

-Yes.

Allen Walner has worked on the railways for over 30 years.

-What speed can we go in this train?

-This will do 100 mile an hour.

But obviously the line speed is 75 here.

One of the reason you get good speeds through Fenland I guess, is it is so flat

and they built the railways dead straight?

Dead straight, yeah, it is pretty straight.

Since trains began operating with a single driver, passenger safety

has been heavily dependent on one ingenious piece of equipment.

I don't want to raise a morbid subject, but what's the dead man's handle or peddle...?

-BLEEPING

-Oh, that thing there?

When that bleeps I have to lift it...

..acknowledge it, you get five seconds to acknowledge it,

otherwise the brakes go on.

So periodically, that little noise comes on and you have to lift and depress the peddle again?

-Yes.

-Shows you're in good health?

-Shows I'm still alive.

-End of the line, Allen?

-Yeah, end of the line.

Pretty station. If you went any further, we'd get wet!

Yes, we definitely would.

And thank you so much for letting me ride with you today.

-It's OK.

-Bye-bye, Allen.

I feel really good about that, that was such fun.

I rode in the cab!

Bye-bye.

Still buzzing after my journey, I'm heading into King's Lynn, a town I've recently discovered.

In the centuries before the railways, it was a major international port.

Recently, I took part in festival to celebrate King's Lynn's membership of the Hanseatic League.

This was a group of towns round the Baltic and North Sea that joined

together in a trading association, a sort of common market.

And this was the warehouse of the Hanseatic Traders.

Now, because King's Lynn was an important port with these continental links,

it probably had stronger connections with Hamburg than it did with London.

And even today, going around King's Lynn you get the feeling of a continental town.

The Hanseatic League, formed in the 13th century,

was an alliance which dominated trade for centuries.

Members were known as Hansa towns and had guaranteed protection for their trade.

At any one time there were up to 80 members of the alliance, which survived until 1669.

The League was revived in the 1980s to enable original Hansa towns

to exchange ideas on business, culture and tourism.

-You've got some lovely buildings?

-Yes, we have.

How important was King's Lynn as a port?

Very important. It was the third most important port in the country.

Norfolk was the wealthiest county in the country,

so we had something in those days.

Was King's Lynn was influenced by...

It had this connection with other North Sea towns.

Yes, it was a Hansa town so we had connections with entire...Europe,

right up to Russia and Denmark and everywhere like that.

So yes, we were always a trading port, until fairly recently.

King's Lynn had flourished because of its access to the Wash,

a great tidal estuary through which four rivers flow into the sea.

But in Bradshaw's time, the town felt threatened.

It worried that the railways would take the port's trade.

And then engineers devised a plan to reclaim 32,000 acres of land.

My guide says, "Here since 1850,

"works on a large scale have been carried out for reclaiming parts of the Wash".

King's Lynn feared losing its access to the sea.

-Good morning. Fantastic view today, isn't it?

-It is, yes.

'I'm meeting RSPB area manager, Rob Lucking.'

The Wash is the estuary in the UK which had largest amount of land claimed from it.

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

All of this land we can see in front of us here, has been claimed since the mid-1800s.

Now, has a stop been put to that process? Are they still claiming it?

No, the last land claims were completed in the early 1980s.

Since then, there has been no further land claim in the Wash

because the Wash is so important for wildlife.

So they've left us a bit of water to go out on?

Exactly, there's still 250 square miles of the Wash for us to go and explore today.

Oh, that'll do. Great.

Fortunately, the plans to reclaim land were never fully realised

and a narrow channel still connects King's Lynn to this vast basin of water.

You have to put yourself in a different mind-set

to understand the importance of King's Lynn historically, don't you?

Before the railways, the ports were the places that had the good communications.

Yes, and King's Lynn was a massively important port,

part of Hanseatic League, and King's Lynn was where it all happened.

A lot of the wealth of King's Lynn was built on the back of maritime trade and the wool industry,

and it's grown from there.

The people of King's Lynn discovered advantages in the railway

since fish and shellfish harvested from the Wash could be sent to market quickly by train.

The town's fear of the future receded.

Although the port's not quite as important now as it was then,

you still get a lot of timber coming in through King's Lynn, a lot of cereals.

It's still a real busy hub just on the outskirts of King's Lynn now.

The port's not the only survivor.

The Wash is the most important estuary for wildlife

in the United Kingdom and is home to the largest single colony of common seals in England.

It's getting a bit choppier now. We're out in the Wash, are we, now?

That's right, we've left King's Lynn behind, three miles behind us,

and we're now just out of the mouth of the River Ouse and into the Wash proper.

I'm getting the impression this is a very important place for wildlife.

Yes, without a doubt, it's the most important estuary in the UK for wildlife.

We reckon over two million individual birds use the Wash every year.

We've got very important breeding populations of birds here.

But probably most importantly is, the Wash is like a motorway feeding station for birds.

From a conservationist point of view, I would love to travel back 500 years

and see the Wash and the Fens, how they used to be, as one massive delta full of wildlife.

But on the other hand, I think the Wash and the Fens does represent

man's ingenuity and his capacity to solve problems like land drainage and land claim.

In fact, it is pretty well protected now, isn't it?

It is, the Wash has got just about every conservation designation going.

It's a Site of Special Scientific Interest,

a Special Protection Area, a Special Area of Conservation, and it's a Ramsar site.

So it should be protected for the generations to come.

Travelling around this country with my Bradshaw's guide,

I'm awestruck by the self-confidence of our engineers

as they attempted the impossible and re-arranged the British landscape -

an ambition that reached its peak in the Victorian epoch.

My journey through the Fens has made me think that development and growth

can be seen as both good things and bad things.

The draining of the Fens has created some of the most fertile land in England,

and the arrival of the railways brought many extra changes.

But it also destroyed an old way of life,

and while I've been here in the Fens,

I've been aware of a certain nostalgia for old times, for old days

when the waters held sway.

On the next leg of my journey, I'll be finding out why a rare breed of turkey is making a comeback...

We start hatching here in April.

That's a long time to Christmas, and it takes a long time to finish them,

so therefore, you're getting more of a moist meat.

Roll on Christmas!

..sitting shakily in the driving seat...

I think I do need further lessons, Peter.

I don't think that was a complete success, but it was very exciting indeed.

..and tasting one Victorian delicacy which still draws crowds.

It saves the person doing the eating a lot of work.

Of course. Not everybody knows how to dress a crab.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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