Brockenhurst to Poole 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.

I'm over halfway through my journey tracing the railway's impact on the South of England.

Today, I am continuing my route

towards what my Bradshaw's guide calls Dorsetshire.

Today's journey takes me through the beautiful landscape of the New Forest.

The railways enabled Victorian tourists, en masse,

to visit and experience this distant wilderness

and helped Victorian industry to exploit nature's gifts.

On this stage of the journey,

I'll be slithering in the tracks of a Victorian snake catcher.

Fantastic view. I never dreamt I'd get that close.

Uncovering a secret library described in my Bradshaw's guide.

-So, this is your oldest book?

-Yes, it is.

There are only two other copies of this in existence.

And taking one of my shortest ever railway journeys.

Whoa, off we go.

So far, I've discovered how royalty, industry and agriculture alike

were transformed by train travel.

Now, I'm exploring this region's stunning coastline,

as I approach my final stop on the Isle of Portland.

On this stretch, I will pass through the New Forest National Park,

stopping off at Bournemouth, on my way to the harbour town of Poole.

'We are now approaching Brockenhurst.'

The Victorians were fascinated by nature and the railway helped make the New Forest

a hotspot for botanists and insect collectors.

This is Brockenhurst.

My Bradshaw's guide says, "This station is most exquisitely situated

"amidst the charming scenery of the New Forest."

And so it is.

And the railway has transformed it from a very small village

into something of a resort

but, intriguingly, many Victorians came here not in search of wildlife,

but in search of a particulary charismatic individual.

Brockenhurst station opened in 1847 and was soon bringing visitors

eager to meet the New Forest's outstanding celebrity.

I've come to the village churchyard to hear the story from local historian Richard Reeves.

-Richard.

-How are you?

-What a wonderful place.

-Yeah.

And a very intriguing tombstone, why are we meeting by this one?

This tombstone here is that of Harry Mills

and he was a Victorian snake catcher.

A bit of an odd occupation,

but it made him one of the most famous Victorian characters in the New Forest.

He lived in a small charcoal burner's hut in the forest for 19 years.

As a hermit and a snake catcher, he certainly was not your standard human being.

As Britain became increasingly

urbanised in the 19th century,

there was a huge appetite for news of the natural world.

In the 1880s, a visitor who joined Harry Mills on a snake hunt

wrote it up in the national press.

Soon, people were arriving by train to see him for themselves.

What kind of things did he do that made him a character,

that made him kind of a tourist attraction?

One of the things he would do was as tourists arrived in the forest,

he'd walk up and surreptitiously drop a snake,

and everyone would panic and run around, and he would walk up,

catch the snake and doff his hat and safely stow the snake away.

As well as bringing tourists to gawp at this fearless snake catcher,

the new railway also enabled Harry Mills to set up a lucrative sideline,

sending live snakes by rail to the capital.

He then became supplier to the snake house in London Zoo,

where they required a good supply of live snakes to feed

the snake-eating snakes in their collections.

He was getting a shilling a head for every snake he caught.

In fact, on one particular occasion, he'd done a very good job catching adders.

He usually supplied grass snakes, which are nonvenomous,

but one month, he had 76 adders and he decided to pack them off.

They sent a note back saying, "We'd rather you didn't send those any more

"because they bite."

So, after that, he could only send grass snakes.

Was he bitten, do you know?

Yes, he was bitten a couple of times

and he does state that it was his own fault.

He used to boil the adders up and extract their fat, and he swore by that

as an effective remedy for snakebite, which he also sold locally as a cure-all.

One of those sort of classic Victorian lotions

which would sort anything from a black eye to adder bite.

Amazingly, Harry Mills killed around 30,000 snakes in his lifetime.

These days, mercifully, they're protected by law.

Richard's become a modern-day snake hunter.

He's interested in conserving, not destroying, the local adder population,

but uses the same skills to track them down.

When I come out here, I am actually taking photographs of them, identifying the individuals,

and thereby I'm able to monitor the population to make sure it's doing OK.

-And it is doing OK?

-This one is doing perfectly well, yeah.

In a lot of areas around the country, they are actually declining due to habitat loss.

Searching for adders can be hit and miss,

but Richard knows exactly where to look.

-You should be looking around the bottom edges of these bushes.

-Yes.

Do you see there, Michael? A nice ginger adder there. Beautiful, beautiful female.

-That is beautiful. It is very gingery, isn't it?

-Very gingery.

Really quite bright colours.

You can't says snakes aren't beautiful when you see that one.

Thanks to Richard, I am within five feet of a venomous viper.

I never dreamt I'd get that close.

You could get closer, but there's no point in disturbing her,

and we get a perfectly good view from here.

She's a lovely animal.

As I say goodbye, I'm glad that things have changed since Bradshaw's day,

and my snake hunt led me to appreciate nature, not destroy it.

Building this line through the New Forest was a real challenge

and some sections of the railway were even supported on wooden stilts

to stop the track from sinking into the bog below.

Thanks to that effort, we now have this superb view of a romantic wilderness.

-Mind if I join you for a second?

-Not at all.

I can't help noticing how beautiful this countryside is.

-Gorgeous, stunning.

-Do you go through it every day?

I don't, actually. This is the first and only journey I'll be making for work.

I'm a bit gutted I've got a company car, actually, now.

But I do come down to the New Forest quite a lot.

So, normally, you would drive, but today, you're on the train?

Today, I'm on the train, I'm picking up a new car.

It does make you think, "Why do we bother with cars?" It's lovely.

It's just wonderful, isn't it?

-When you're a passenger, you can enjoy it completely.

-Exactly.

I'm on my way to Bournemouth

and, to my surprise, I've had to switch guidebooks.

The Bradshaw's guide I normally use is from the mid-1860s.

I looked up Bournemouth in here and it's not there, which means

it didn't yet have a railway.

Isn't that incredible for a town which is now so big?

So, I'm using a more recent Bradshaw's from the 1880s and it says,

"Bournemouth is a fashionable, modern, watering place and winter residence.

"It's situated in a beautiful sheltered spot

"in the chine of low chalk cliffs.

"And it's much resorted to by invalids for its healthy situation in quiet retirement."

And I used to go there for a completely different reason.

For me, Bournemouth will forever be synonymous with party political conferences,

but coming as part of an invasion of politicians,

I've rarely had the chance to appreciate Bournemouth's charms.

With seven miles of sandy beaches and a Victorian pier,

it's easy to see why five million people visit this busy resort every year.

Remarkably, all this is only 200 years old.

To hear how this town popped up from nowhere,

I'm meeting historian Andrew Emery in the Pleasure Gardens.

-Andrew, very good to see you.

-Good to see you too.

It's surprising to me how late the railway gets to Bournemouth,

considering what a big place it is now.

Not until the 1870s.

So, what's happening during the 19th century, before the railway gets here?

If you go back to 250 years ago, this is nothing but barren heathland.

No trees, quite a few smugglers though.

This was a popular smuggling path down from the beach, just over there.

And then around about 1800, the landowners at the time

planted this whole area with pine trees.

Early in the 19th century,

a few wealthy families spotted Bournemouth's potential as a fine spot to relax.

They planted Scots and Mediterranean pines to enhance the scenery,

creating tranquillity and beauty that powerfully attracted tourists.

It's really down to this gentleman, Dr Granville,

who wrote a book about the famous spa towns of England.

He visits in the 1840s and he sees the opportunities to develop this into a fantastic resort.

He thinks this could be the best resort in the country

and also quotes that the emanations from the pines

have real fantastic health-giving qualities.

Dr Granville's guides did for health resorts

what Bradshaw's did for the railways and, within 40 years,

Bournemouth had mushroomed from a village of a few hundred people

to a town of around 17,000, and that wasn't the end of the story.

Up until the 1870s, the town was really just about an invalids' spa resort,

but from the late 1870s, 1880s onwards, the railway comes,

you get the middle classes, the working classes,

and the town starts to change

into a popular seaside resort, full of all the attractions that you see today.

Although Bournemouth has long lost its reputation as a health resort,

you can still take a stroll through the so-called Invalids' Walk.

Here, Victorians sought relief from the strain of living in smoke-filled cities.

I came here today on the train.

Let's suppose I'm a Victorian gentleman with poor lungs.

I take a walk along here, do I?

Absolutely, this was the place to promenade, to breathe in the pines,

nice and shady as well, in places, so you're not going to get sunburnt.

-This is the place to meet people, really.

-And did it do me any good?

Absolutely, this climate is fantastic for the health.

Possibly not breathing in the pines,

I think modern medicine would probably dispute the medicinal value of that but, nevertheless,

good for the health.

And hundreds of years later, the pines are still important to Bournemouth.

Absolutely, they feature on the crest of the town and

a lot of these pines are the original ones

that have been on this site for over 150 years.

-So the pines have really kept Bournemouth spruce?

-Absolutely.

Thanks to the railway, investment poured into Bournemouth.

By the mid-20th century, the empty heathland was a distant memory,

replaced by a highly-developed resort.

Paths zigzagged down the dramatic cliffs to the beach

and the droves of tourists could enjoy

all the trappings of a classic seaside holiday.

I can't wait to try out one of the first attractions enjoyed by visitors.

-Hello.

-Hiya.

-A single to the top, please.

-£1.20, please.

-Thank you very much.

In the 19th century, as tourism boomed, so began a fascination for funicular railways,

which let Victorian tourists admire the view, without breaking a sweat.

Whoa, off we go!

Bournemouth didn't get this one until 1908,

but it's still the best way to scale the 40-metre cliff.

It's simple, but effective technology.

Two cars move at once, balancing each other's weight.

The beach recedes incredibly quickly.

It's only a 30 or 40-second journey,

but that's not the point, really, it's the journey you avoid,

it's how long it would have taken you to walk to the top.

What a view, what a day.

Short, but very definitely sweet.

Well, from the top, I get the most fantastic view over Bournemouth's piers

and out towards the white cliffs of the Isle of Wight.

I call that a pretty good £1.20's-worth.

This clifftop walk holds a special place in my memory, for another reason.

In party conference days, when I was here,

the government stays at the hotel at the top of the hill,

and they have to go down to the conference centre every morning.

So, to-ing and fro-ing along here,

you've got all the members of the Cabinet walking backwards and forwards.

You've got Margaret Thatcher in her armour-plated car,

you've got John Major in his armour-plated car.

For the few days of the party conference, this is

THE corridor of power.

Bournemouth's sea air has done its job

and I'm ready to find my bed for tonight.

I've made a beeline for the grand Victorian buildings

up on Bournemouth's East Cliff.

As so often, I've turned to my Bradshaw's for a recommendation of where to stay,

The Bath, now known as The Royal Bath.

In fact, I didn't need Bradshaw, because I've been to many a good party here,

which I can just about remember.

This was Bournemouth's first hotel

and it opened on the very day that Queen Victoria was crowned.

Ever since then, it's been hosting the great and the good.

Very lovely room.

Oh, my goodness.

"In this room, Lord Beaconsfield, when Prime Minister,

"held three Cabinet Councils in the winter of 1874-75.

"Lord John Russell, Prime Minister, occupied this room."

Wow.

As a former-future Prime Minister, I feel really honoured to be staying in this room.

That's fantastic.

-Eggs Benedict with bacon for you.

-Thank you very much.

-There you go, enjoy your breakfast.

-Thank you, looks lovely.

For me, summer in England has really arrived

when you can have all your meals - breakfast, lunch and dinner - outside,

and what better place to try that than Bournemouth?

And what better light in which to read

the small print of my Bradshaw's guide?

Following my guide book,

I'm now continuing my journey into Bradshaw's Dorsetshire.

I'm heading five miles up the track towards my next stop.

I'm on my way to Wimborne,

but it doesn't have a railway station any more.

I'm only going as far as Poole, I'm afraid, sir.

Unfortunately, I can't go all the way by rail.

Well, this is not Wimborne, but Parkstone.

There used to be a Wimborne station, it's in my Bradshaw's guide,

but unfortunately, it was a victim of the Beeching cuts in the 1960s.

So, this is as far as the train will take me.

The Beeching Report into the profitability of Britain's railways

was published in 1963 and, in the decade that followed,

over 4,000 miles of track and thousands of stations were closed.

Wimborne Minster station was a victim.

In Bradshaw's time, it was a busy junction on the mainland to London,

but as nearby Bournemouth grew, more direct routes to the coast

were built and its importance declined.

Today, this small market town is famous for its 900-year-old church,

and its impressive model village, but I'm here to see the real thing.

I've never been to Wimborne before and this minster is absolutely glorious.

It's so ancient and perfect

and I love the way that it sits in this green.

So that you can get a real view of it. It's perfect.

My guidebook writes, "The Minster is a most interesting relic of antiquity,

"said to have been erected between the years 705 and 723.

"The whole building has a cathedral-like appearance."

And the interior is just as beautiful.

It dates back to Norman times because the Saxon building,

referred to in my guide, was destroyed.

And, as Bradshaw's says, "It's cathedral-like."

Absolutely.

I'm intrigued by another line in my 19th-century guide,

"In the vestry are some curious chained books."

To find out more, I'm climbing a 600-year-old staircase to meet librarian Frank Tandy.

-Frank, hello.

-Hello.

-My Bradshaw's talks about,

-"curious old chained books".

-Yes.

-I see some of them are chained.

-Yes.

-Why was the book chained?

They are chained to ensure they are always here.

In the 15th, 16th century, books were rather expensive

and universities and cathedrals couldn't afford to allow the books to be taken away,

for they may not come back.

I mean, to buy a small book like that, The Gentleman's Companion, for instance,

-was in today's money about £350.

-No?

-Yes.

So, every time you bought a book, it was like buying, I don't know, a widescreen television?

-Yes.

-Amazing.

This library was founded during the religious upheavals of the 17th century.

An Oxford scholar, the Reverend Stone, after being condemned as a Catholic,

donated his library of religious works to the church.

-So these were regarded as dangerous Catholic texts?

-Yes.

The Reverend Stone sent them here because he knew they would be safe.

Nobody in Wimborne could read.

They wouldn't know whether they were seditious or not?

They wouldn't know, and they're all in Greek, Hebrew and Latin, anyway.

These books are here purely by chance.

After ten years, they were still being described in this town as a musty divinity.

The collection grew from that initial bequest

and today includes extraordinarily rare works,

including this 14th-century priests' handbook.

-So, this is your oldest book?

-Yes, it is.

This book was written in 1343.

-It's written on 80 calf skins.

-Calf skins?

-Calf skin.

-But not paper?

No, paper wasn't invented. This is vellum.

There are only two other copies of this in existence.

What else can you show me?

Well, this book was bound by King Henry VIII's bookbinder.

-King Henry VIII?

-Yes, this is a binding showing the Passion.

-It's difficult to see.

-It's exquisite though, isn't it?

And of your more recent books, what should I see?

Probably Sir Walter Raleigh's History Of The World in five books.

-Here it is.

-It's literally priceless?

It is...beyond price.

From early days, anyone was free to come here and read the works,

making this one of Britain's first public libraries.

I can see why my Bradshaw's guide singled out this remarkable collection,

but I can't help noticing there's something unusual about the way it's arranged.

It's interesting that the chained books appear to be put in,

as I would think of it, the wrong way round.

No, no, this is the right way round.

A library like this, that's the correct way for the books to be,

because what you did was you wrote the number on the book,

or you wrote the title on the book on the fore edge.

And all children will tell you Hogwart Hall library,

Harry Potter, that's how the books are.

The books are the wrong way round. Well...

-They're the right way round.

-The right way round.

For once, my 19th-century Bradshaw's guide seems very young.

After my literary adventure, I'm picking up the train again at Parkstone.

-It's all right.

-Thank you.

-All yours.

Lots of bicycles today.

-Yes, always lots of bikes.

-Have fun.

I'm on my way to my last stop on this leg of the journey.

I'm approaching Poole.

My Bradshaw's says, rather half-heartedly,

"A comparatively modern town that has always preserved a respectable position

"as a third or fourth-class port."

At one time, Poole Harbour was an important trading post,

but by the 19th century, it had begun to decline.

The railway, which reached Poole in 1847,

accelerated the harbour's downfall by offering a faster, cheaper alternative to coastal shipping.

Luckily for Poole, though, the trains also brought new opportunities.

Bradshaw's comments that,

"One of the chief exports from Poole is potters' clay from Purbeck.

"Of so good quality that it's proposed to establish potteries here

"on a great scale, especially as the transit of coal is now easy and direct."

So, Bradshaw's foreseeing that with the railways bringing coal,

Poole could have a big new industry.

Bradshaw's was right.

Around the time the railways arrived here, potteries were springing up all around Poole.

They specialised in bricks, tiles and pipes,

and even produced some of the first modern loos.

As Victorian Britain boomed, demand surged

and the town was soon criss-crossed by private sidings.

Trains brought in coal to fire the kilns

and helped to export Poole's ceramics across the globe.

Unfortunately, by the second half of the 20th century,

most of the potteries had closed due to foreign competition.

I've come to see one of the few that remain.

-Hello, Alan.

-Hello, Michael...

Alan White is the head potter.

I see you are making a lovely pot there.

-Yes, hopefully.

-What is it that's special about Poole pottery?

Basically, the unique quality of the clay that's within the area,

mostly in the Purbecks and in and around Poole.

We shipped all over the world.

It was always brought to the boats by rail.

There are two jetties on the far side of the harbour

which brought the clay to the jetties

and then it would have been put into boats and gone all over the world.

Especially to Stoke, of course, which is the home of pottery in England.

So, it was vastly important.

What brought you into making pots?

Women.

Girls. I'm afraid it was girls.

I went to a segregated school

and you weren't allowed to cross the line onto the girls' side without getting detention.

But the ceramic block was on the girls' side, behind the domestic science block.

So, all the boys volunteered to go to pottery because they wanted to ogle the girls.

But I happened to fall in love with pottery and none of the girls at the time.

This pottery began as a tile manufacturer in 1873,

but by the 20th century, had moved into hand-thrown pots.

Its heyday was the 1920s and '30s, when its Art Deco designs were sold in every town in Britain.

Watching you with your clay here on the potter's wheel, I'm just speechless.

I'm like a person watching a magic trick. It's just unbelievable, what you do.

I've been doing it nearly 45 years now, so it's not really magic.

It's a combination of quite a lot of hard work, really.

It is lovely, I mean, I thoroughly enjoy, I've always enjoyed getting on the wheel and just making pots.

It's something I shall never stop doing, I don't think.

In fact, I will probably end up making my own urn

and putting my cinders in the furnace to get rid of me at the end of it. So, we'll see.

In Victorian times, as the spending power of the middle classes grew,

decorative pottery in Britain became hugely fashionable

and potters created evermore colourful glazes.

Painter Nicky Massarella carries on the tradition.

And what's the technique? I see here things in various stages of preparation.

Yes. This one, what's happened here is I've carved in the veins of the dragonfly, as you can see,

and then I've got to paint the blue on, which is what I was going to do next,

and when it's fired, it will come out like that one.

So, this pink you can see here is actually the red glaze.

So, if I didn't paint anything on it, it would just come out red, like that.

-Really?

-Yeah. So, I paint all the other colours on top

and when that's fired, it will change to that.

How long does it take you to produce one pot?

Probably takes about ten, 15 minutes.

How could you possibly do a thing like that in ten minutes?

When you do lots, you kind of go into what's called piecework mode.

So, you do all the leaves, then you go over and do all the wings,

so it just makes it a lot quicker, really.

Nicky's letting me loose with a paintbrush, but I'm not sure I'll match her speed.

-I've drawn them in for you.

-Yes, yes. That's nice and easy.

This is just like a child filling in the gaps.

-Then what colour will that come out?

-This'll come out blue.

This is not easy.

Oh, horrid crooked line there.

-I think I might hand back to you there.

-OK.

I've done two little leaves. Over to you.

Thank you.

-Thanks for nothing!

-I'll fill it in.

Such things are best left to professionals.

Thank goodness that the skills of the Poole potters are not extinct.

My guide book has often led me to discover how, in Victorian times,

the combination of railways and coal led to the development of new industries,

as it did with the potteries here in Poole.

But it also led me to the colourful character of Brusher Mills

and my own encounter with poisonous snakes.

Really, Bradshaw's never ceases to amaze me.

On the final stretch of this journey,

I'll be uncovering a hidden industry with Victorian roots.

-That is an oil field?

-Yeah.

Stretching all the way past Poole, beneath Bournemouth, under the sea.

Admiring a historic castle catapulted to fame by the railways.

Wow, that is fantastic.

The most romantic ruins.

And discovering Weymouth's role in the D-Day landings.

And they would let us have a go at the gun, me and my mate.

-How old were you?

-I was about ten years old when that happened.

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