Spalding to Grimsby Great British Railway Journeys

In 1840, one man transformed travel in the British Isles.

His name is George Bradshaw.

And his railway guides inspired 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 these isles

to see what of Bradshaw's Britain remains.

I'm on the last leg of my journey from the Solent to the Humber.

Before the mid-19th century, the quickest way to do that journey

would have been by boat around the coast.

In Bradshaw's day, railways provided a rapid overland connection.

Today, I see how Lincolnshire farmers

utilise rails to improve their harvests.

That was fun!

I visit one of Britain's most ancient and impressive cathedrals.

The tower is like fingers

of honey-coloured stone against the blue sky.

Absolutely breathtaking.

And I look to the future of rail freight.

It gives me the most enormous pleasure

to be able to name this locomotive

Immingham 100.

APPLAUSE

Using my Bradshaw's Guide, I began my journey in Portsmouth,

travelled through Hampshire, on to Surrey,

then London, Bedfordshire and Peterborough,

finishing today on the Humber Estuary.

The last leg of my journey starts in Spalding, heads north to Lincoln,

on to Market Rasen and finally, the ports of Grimsby and Immingham.

I'm in the county of Lincolnshire, which my Bradshaw's found,

to put it mildly, underwhelming.

It admits the numerous churches in the county

are objects of admiration, but says,

"the most splendid were erected chiefly in its lowest and most fennish situations.

"And we are at a loss to assign a reason.

"The beauties of nature

"are scattered with a very sparing hand over Lincolnshire."

Oh, dear!

On my railway journeys, I sometimes have the privilege

of travelling up front in the driver's cab.

But I'm hoping this morning

that my conductor might allow me a new perspective.

-Morning.

-How are you?

-Not too bad. Yourself?

-Good view out the back?

-Yes. This is my little office

and this is the best office view in the world.

-May I share it with you?

-You may, yes.

-Thank you very much.

I've never done that. I've often been in the cab,

I've never been at the back. That's a really nice view.

It's strange to see where you've been,

rather than being a driver and seeing where you're going.

It may be boggy and flat, but judging from the vast acreage

of rapeseed yellow,

agriculture seems to have tamed this land.

My first stop on this leg of my journey is Spalding.

-Bye-bye. Thank you.

-Thank you.

Bradshaw's goes on, "the fruitfulness and richness of Lincolnshire's soil

"makes ample recompense for the deficiency of beauty.

"Its trade consists almost entirely in produce for manufactured grocery

"and other consumable commodities."

And included in those is the humble spud.

Set around the picturesque River Welland,

I'm in the bustling Georgian market town of Spalding

to visit Nicholas Watts,

a farmer whose family has been growing potatoes in this boggy soil

since the 19th Century.

And whose predecessors and neighbours used farm railways

to improve the efficiency of their harvests.

-Nicholas, how good to see you.

-Good morning. Nice to see you, too.

-Are you going to come down the farm?

-Yes, please.

-OK. Jump in, then.

-Nicholas, I understand you're a bit of a railway enthusiast.

-Yes, I am.

And in actual fact, we used to have a railway down the farm.

There were nine railways in the village

and this is the only bit of any of those nine that's left.

What a lovely sight.

The railways in this village were used to bring potatoes down the farm

up and to near the main road.

And then they were put onto a horse and cart to go to the station,

where they were loaded onto the London and North Eastern Railway.

My Bradshaw's Guide talks about the low and fenny ground.

What made the Lincolnshire farmers think of putting railways across their land?

In a wet winter, it would take three horses

to pull a tonne of potatoes in a cart up the mud track.

But when they got the railway, one horse could pull three tonnes.

Out of the nine railways in the village,

there was one that had a locomotive.

Quite a big railway system.

So, shall we give it a push?

Yes, yes. Yes, OK, yes.

That was fun!

Farmers weren't alone in employing light rail technology.

The military did, too.

During the First World War, tracks were used to move heavy goods

across the often hideously muddy ground of the frontline.

And after the armistice, much of the surplus of rail, sleepers and carts

found its way to the potato fields of Lincolnshire.

It's quite a thought that some of these tracks

-had first done service on the Western Front.

-That is true, yes.

And, of course, I looked at that

when I went to see the war graves in northern France recently.

Back to Spalding station for the short trip to Lincoln.

Any Spalding tickets?

-Thank you.

-Thank you.

I'm looking forward to the view of Lincoln Cathedral.

You'll enjoy it when you see it.

It looms over the city.

Which side will I see it?

You'll see it on the right-hand side as we come into Lincoln itself.

You can't miss it.

It doesn't matter which direction you're coming from, actually,

it's just a beautiful view.

Originally an important Roman town, replete with public baths,

in 1072, the town acquired a cathedral,

thanks to William the Conqueror, who relocated the bishopric

of one of the largest dioceses in mediaeval England to the city.

Lincoln Cathedral always astonishes me. I never get used to it.

It absolutely dominates the city.

And with those slender towers and tall roof,

it's so wonderfully elegant.

Completed in 1092, the cathedral was built of Lincolnshire limestone.

Over the centuries, earthquake, fire, high winds and war

have wrought havoc on the building.

And its regular repair explains the building's mix

of Norman and Gothic influences.

It was once deemed the tallest structure in the world,

thanks to its 14th-Century spire.

And although there are no spires today,

the building itself is visible 50 miles away.

This cathedral is absolutely spellbinding.

At the lower level, we have these rounded arches,

which are Romanesque,

and then just above, the pointed arches, which are Gothic.

And then the tower is like fingers

of honey-coloured stone against the blue sky.

Absolutely breathtaking!

I'm meeting cathedral librarian Doctor Nicholas Bennett

to find out how the Victorians regarded this jewel of East England.

-Thanks for seeing me today. May we go inside?

-Indeed, yes.

Bradshaw's is very keen on Lincoln Cathedral.

-Was that a common Victorian view?

-It was.

Gothic architecture to the Victorians

was the perfect form of ecclesiastical architecture.

The great Victorian critic John Ruskin said of Lincoln Cathedral

that it was the best, in fact, it was worth any two of the others.

He put it so high on its pedestal.

That really sums up what Victorians thought of Lincoln Cathedral.

These windows date from the mid 1850s.

They were put in this transept

as part of a memorial to the Bishop of Lincoln, John Kaye.

The Victorians dared to alter the cathedral, to tamper with it?

Absolutely. They had supreme confidence in what they were doing.

And they didn't hesitate to put in new windows

where they felt they belonged.

Should we regard this as an artistic success?

Some liked it, others were quite savage about it.

And there is a late Victorian guide to the cathedral

that's slightly after Bradshaw's,

Murray's Handbook of the County of Lincolnshire,

which is very critical about the glass in the cathedral.

And it says the glass in the nave is badly designed, badly executed.

It describes these windows as an unhappy memorial to Bishop Kaye.

So they didn't mince their words.

I enjoyed my rail journey here enormously.

I imagine the Victorians used the railway

to indulge their passion for things Gothic.

Exactly. The railways brought crowds of people to the cathedral,

but it enabled the cathedral to make use of these vast spaces

in the nave and the chapterhouse

in a way they hadn't been used since the Middle Ages.

For example, the 1889 music festival

where they performed Mendelssohn's Elijah,

they put on trains from all over Lincolnshire

to bring those massed choirs into the cathedral.

Down the centuries, many have undertaken repairs

and reconstruction work in the cathedral.

In 1676, Sir Christopher Wren designed the baroque-style library.

The building has 700 historic windows

which need a lot of careful restoration.

Currently being provided by glazier Dan Beal.

So, what period was this clear glass used?

The original glass that was in here was quite recent, from the 1920s.

Major restoration works went on within the cathedral around then.

And then these panels, how are you going to put those in position?

Well, I'll show you now, actually.

The bottom one will just drop in quite neatly

and then this is the nature of this method,

the top ones also have to go in first

and the middle panel will just kind of slot in

and lap over, in theory.

I believe you, I believe you.

-We'll have a go at it.

-Shall we see whether it works?

It simply sits in a groove.

-So that one was pretty easy.

-Yeah. The bottom ones are the best ones.

This middle one has got to kind of slot in

in between the other two panels, which is...

That's the trickier bit, but it's OK. It should go in straightaway.

-And this is where it gets kind of tight. Are we on there?

-Yeah.

That's what I mean about being tricky.

It's kind of...there's no space for fingers involved.

This top panel has been jacked up. That's why all this lead's folded down.

To give us the space to push this panel in

and then you sort of take the little packers out and that drops down.

And hopefully stays there.

The last panel to go in is always the trickiest panel to go in

because you've only got a set size for it to slot into.

But hopefully, fingers crossed, this one will be OK.

That window's a bit of a pain.

Well...excuse the pun.

In Victorian Britain, led by philosophers and social critics

keen on mediaeval craftsmanship, artistry and spiritual beauty,

stained glass in the Gothic style was in vogue.

So much so that it decorated fashionable homes

and graced the largest ecclesiastical buildings.

At Dan's restoration studio, I'm hoping to find out

whether the Victorian artists who painted glass for Lincoln Cathedral

are easy to identify.

One of the problems we have with 19th-Century glass is a lot aren't signed.

They were churned out ten a penny, really.

A lot of the windows aren't signed.

It's quite difficult to decipher who made the windows.

So because we struggle with that at the moment,

then for the future generations, we sign and date the windows.

So this stained glass has already been worked on and restored, has it?

Yeah. This is a panel, um...

the panels were donated to the cathedral in the '70s.

What would it have looked like then?

Originally, they're in this state, which is a lot of broken leads,

a lot of broken pieces of glass. There's cracks in various areas,

across that area, it seems to have folded at some point.

-And filthy.

-And very, very dirty, yes.

One of the problems that crops up is just cleaning stained glass.

I mean, many people will really quite destroy some of the paintwork

-by over cleaning them.

-What do you use, these brushes?

It's a very gentle approach.

-I mean, initially it's like a soft bristle brush.

-Yes.

And you just kind of go around and you pull a bit of the dirt away.

Do you feel unfulfilled that you're restoring somebody else's work?

No. You get to work on different artists' work

and every one you work on, you learn from it

because it's a different style, different painting techniques.

So it's all a process of learning, continually learning, really.

As I say, I thoroughly enjoy it. It's great.

Having seen Lincoln cathedral,

I feel positively Victorian in my enthusiasm for it

and could happily linger all day, but my next destination awaits.

My next stop is Market Rasen

and I'm drawn there by this entry in my Bradshaw's.

It says that, "there's a curious embattled town church

"whose vicar takes tithe of ale."

Now, I understand why churches took tithes for their upkeep,

but a tithe of ale suggests a pretty tipsy vicar.

Charles Dickens described Market Rasen

as the sleepiest town in England.

But when its station opened in 1848,

enabling trains to link the Humber to the Midlands,

its place in railway history was cemented.

Documents suggest that just 100 years earlier,

the Vicar of Rasen was taxing his parishioners

through a tithe of ale.

I wonder whether the present incumbent,

Reverend Michael Cartwright's tankard still overflows.

Hello, Michael. How lovely to be in your church.

-It's really nice to meet you. Welcome.

-Thank you so much.

Um...what were tithes?

Well, tithes go back to the 8th Century, really.

It was a way of giving the parson a living.

And so he was given some land,

he was given either a cow or a bull

and he had the right to claim one tenth from his flock

to support him in his life.

And then in the 10th...that was voluntary.

In the 10th Century, the church got wise to it and made it compulsory.

-One tenth of a person's income?

-Yes. Yes.

It's a biblical precept. It goes back to biblical times.

My Bradshaw's refers to the vicar of this church taking a tithe of ale.

-Yes.

-Explain, please.

Well, the history of it is that before the reformation,

there was a priory at a small village up the road called Sixhills.

It was said, actually, that the prior of Sixhills

laid a tithe of ale on the parishes round about

for the grandium of his table.

In other words, he wanted some booze on his table, really.

Apparently, it did die out long after the prior was dead and gone.

By the time of my Bradshaw's Guide, actually, the custom had ailed.

I think, in effect, the custom had died out, yes.

Do you receive a tithe of ale today?

Good heavens, no. Not at all. I'm still waiting for it.

When I first came to Lincolnshire, somebody said,

"It's a country area, you'll get a sack of potatoes every week."

I've never had a sack of potatoes in my life!

I hope you're not too proud to take a half pint with me.

Not at all. That would be absolutely brilliant.

Good evening. Two halves of ale, please.

'It's been a fascinating, but taxing day.

'And with an early start tomorrow, it's just a nightcap for me.'

Cheers, Michael.

Cheers and thank you.

I'm so sorry about the loss of your tithe.

HE LAUGHS

Well, this compensates.

First time in 25 years.

THEY LAUGH

-Morning.

-Morning. Are you all right?

After a good night's sleep,

I'm ready for some bracing sea air this morning.

During my journeys, I've become used to the idea

that many towns and cities were transformed

by the coming of the railways.

But speaking of my next destination, my Bradshaw's says,

"They commenced planting in defiance of all natural obstacles

"a new commercial city to become the great entropy of the trade

"between western, northern and eastern Europe."

In the case of Grimsby,

the port wasn't transformed by the railways, it was created by them.

I'm on my way to Grimsby Town station

to change onto the Northern Railway for the docks.

Founded in the 9th Century,

Grimsby was a small port with a natural harbour,

whose development was blighted by siltation.

Huge improvements to the problem were made around 1800

with the building of a dock.

But the biggest change was in the 1840s,

when the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway

arrived in Grimsby.

The company's visionary general manager Edward Watkin

transformed the existing facilities

and financed the building of a new dock

and oversaw the construction of what may be

the most incongruous 300-foot quayside structure

of Bradshaw's day,

which I'm hoping local historian Garry Crossland can explain.

Why do Grimsby docks have what appears to be an Italian bell tower?

It was built specifically to house the hydraulic mechanism

for the operation of the quayside cranes,

the lock gates and the sluices.

It was designed by James Wild in this Renaissance style.

He wanted a high tower with a constant supply of water

that can be contained within a tank

and that will get him his hydraulic pressure.

And so, that water pressing down,

what, then lifts the gate and lowers the gate?

It opens the gate, because they're pivoted and they act like doors.

So they open and close for the lock.

-Was it successful?

-Oh, it was very successful.

I find it very endearing that Victorians,

who had these wonderful engineering solutions,

felt they wanted to disguise them in buildings

from a different century completely.

Well, that's right. But it's a marvellous building.

It means a lot to Grimsby.

The original hydraulic tower

was based on Sienna's Palazzo Pubblico bell tower.

But it wasn't Edward Watkin's only legacy here.

His fish dock became active in 1857.

And when fishermen from as far away as London and Devon

heard about the new rail distribution system,

they landed their catch here,

turning Grimsby into one of the busiest fishing ports on the planet.

Reductions in fish stocks and in what fishermen are allowed to catch

have caused the industry to decline.

But John Vincent, a trawler guide at the Fishing Heritage Centre,

sustains our understanding of the town's fishing history.

My first ever trip on a trawler

was when I was nine year old with my father.

My father was a trawler skipper and it was a tradition

for the eldest son of a fishing family in Grimsby

to go with Dad during the summer holidays.

And I was the eldest of five lads and he took us all to sea,

between the ages of eight and nine and we all ended up going to sea.

-All at sea?

-All went to sea.

How old were you when you started working on trawlers?

Just before my 15th birthday, 1960.

-When I started, we used to have 700 trawlers down at Grimsby.

-700?

Yep. You could walk from one side of Grimsby fish docks to the other

without getting your feet wet on trawlers.

Today, you'd be lucky if you can find four ships.

Now, famously, the trawlers operated in pretty savage conditions.

-Was it very tough?

-It could be, could be.

What was the most dangerous moment you faced?

The most dangerous moment I ever faced on a trawler was when we got hit by two big seas.

All you could see was two big waves coming aboard the trawler on the starboard side.

And one of the lads who was stood near the winch barrel, Tommy Fisher,

the sea hit him and it dropped him into the washer.

And you couldn't see anything on the front end of the ship.

She shuddered, up she come and picked us up.

The skipper hung his head out the window, counted us and asked if we was all right.

And we said, "Yeah, carry on fishing."

You were bobbing in the sea and the trawler came up underneath you and swept you up?

That's right. Picked us up.

Amazing!

It was great.

THEY LAUGH

It's part of fishing. It's the life.

Now you're in the wheelhouse.

This is the nerve centre of the trawler.

You've spent many a long hour here?

-Yeah.

-When it's running a rough sea, you have to really hold onto this?

Fishermen used to think if they held onto the wheel

and lean back when the sea's coming towards them,

it would help to lift the bow of the trawler over the top.

The bows of the trawler come up natural.

Fishermen used to get hold of these and say, "Come up,"

and up she'd come over the top.

These are the best white-knuckle rides you can be on.

These beat Alton Towers into a top hat,

to go over the top of a big sea.

The fishing industry may have declined,

but its demise is by no means the end of Humber's maritime story.

Just along the estuary, the port of Immingham, which opened in 1912,

has equally strong links to rail

and handles a massive 50-million tonnes of cargo each year.

John Fitzgerald is port director.

They tell me Immingham is quite a busy port,

that you do quite a volume of cargo. Is that right?

We have a lot of bulk products.

We have petroleum products with two refineries.

A lot of coal, a lot of iron ore,

but we're also exporting grain from the Lincolnshire bread basket.

We're importing fertiliser,

we're handling new cars, paper, a whole range of cargos.

We handle business from elsewhere, right the way round the world.

Indonesia, South Africa, Russia. So it's very much a global gateway.

It's fundamentally a combination of location and the facilities.

We have natural deep water here and we're in the centre of the country.

It's also the largest rail freight hub in the country,

with 25% of all rail freight being based on the port of Immingham.

25% of the UK's rail freight?

Of the UK's rail freight either comes in or goes out of Immingham.

-25% in one port?

-Absolutely right.

-That is impressive.

Do you see railways being an important part of Immingham's future?

It was a rail company that built this port.

We're heavily involved in rail freight

and all our new developments are focussed on rail.

We're building new terminals here at Humber International Terminal

to handle the cargo of the future by rail.

I can't tell you how happy that would make George Bradshaw.

In May 1970, the first vessel loaded coal

in Immingham's new deep-water coal jetty.

It was for export by the National Coal Board.

But as British coalmining waned,

Immingham's main business has become the import of coal

on an industrial scale to supply power stations.

-Hello, I'm Michael.

-Hello, I'm Paul.

So, what's going on here?

Today, we're loading a train for GB rail freight going to Eggborough.

-To the power station?

-To the power station, yes.

We do roughly one train an hour, about 12 trains in a 12-hour shift.

-How many wagons in each train?

-There's 24 on this one,

but they have different variations of number for different power stations.

And so each train can carry away what kind of weight of coal?

Just about 1,700 tonnes.

You're sitting here, looking at a computer screen.

It is computerised, this process, is it?

It's an automated system and it takes over once you've set it up.

I can't see there's anything to do.

-There are no levers to push or anything, are there?

-No.

If you'd like to come and sit down, you're welcome.

Come and sit down(!)

So this is just showing me on the computer each wagon moving through.

Yes. We've got different-numbered lasers on the side.

That basically picks up the beginning of the wagon, the end of the wagon.

It tells the system when to open the chute and close it.

-Completely, beautifully automated, isn't it?

-Yep.

It's Immingham's centenary year.

It seems entirely apt to name a new locomotive to commemorate it.

And I'm honoured to be asked to perform a small ceremony

to launch it on its way.

Well, thank you. It gives me the most enormous pleasure

to be able to name this locomotive.

And again, I congratulate you all

on choosing to name this locomotive Immingham 100.

APPLAUSE

APPLAUSE

This journey has taken me from the great naval dockyard of Portsmouth

to this bustling industrial port of Immingham.

Along the way, my Bradshaw's Guide

has steered me along the route of Victorian history.

But now, with the commissioning of HMS Dragon on the Solent

and the naming of this locomotive on the Humber,

I turn my eyes down the tracks towards the future.

My next journey snakes along Scotland's east coast,

then passes through dramatic highland landscapes

en route to Britain's most far north coastline.

Along the way, I'll see how 19th-century railway builders

conquered the wilderness.

It really is a spectacular piece of architecture and engineering.

Learn how industrialisation gave the world a taste of Scotland.

Stop the conveyor belt, I want to get off!

And visit where Victorian prospectors hit on hidden riches.

Gold! We've found gold!

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd