Dundee to Aberdeen Great British Railway Journeys

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

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 these isles

'to see what of Bradshaw's Britain remains.'

I'm continuing my journey across Scotland.

I've left behind the cities of Stirling and Perth.

This train will now take me towards the east coast,

where I shall look for traces

of the region's Victorian industrial heritage.

On today's leg, I learn how Queen Victoria

'used trackside trees to screen her from her subjects.'

They were planted at Queen Victoria's request,

because when she was going to Balmoral,

the royal train would stop here for her breakfast,

and she didn't like the locals seeing her eating.

I lend an ear to the history of a textile mill.

Everybody in the factory went deaf eventually, did they?

Oh yes, they were all deaf.

Awful!

'And I go out with a bang in Aberdeenshire.'

EXPLOSION

Lord! Look at that!

It has changed the shape of the quarry!

Using my 1880s Bradshaw's,

my northward journey started in Stirling,

headed to Perthshire, moves on to the oil rich city of Aberdeen,

and then west,

through Inverness-shire and the classic lochs of the Highlands,

before finishing at John O'Groats.

Today's leg begins in Dundee,

gets smoky in Arbroath,

steamy in Montrose,

and hits some granite in Aberdeen.

My first destination will be Dundee,

which my Bradshaw's tells me is the capital of Forfarshire.

"Seat of the Scottish linen trade. A port situated on the Tay.

"The factories for spinning and weaving flax

"exceed a hundred in number, employing as many as 20,000 hands,

"three fourths of whom are women."

I'm intrigued that the workforce was mainly female

at a time when men dominated employment nationally.

Originally a small 11th century port,

Dundee grew to become a medieval exporter of wool

and importer of wine, but it was in the 19th century

that weaving, whaling and shipbuilding combined

to make the port one of the most important economic hubs in Scotland.

To find out more,

I'm meeting heritage and exhibitions director, Gill Poulter,

'at Verdant Works, a mill that's become a museum.'

-Gill, Hello.

-Hello, Michael. Welcome to Verdant Works.

It's lovely to be here.

My Bradshaw's says, "Coarse linens, osland bergs,

"diapers, sail cloth rope, canvas,

"are the chief goods made up in Dundee."

I don't understand all of those words,

but a lot of them lead me to believe

that it must have been connected to shipping in the early days.

Would that be right?

Well, Dundee was the centre of the coarse linen trade

in the 19th century, and was making all those goods

and shipping them around the world.

And they weren't your fine Damask tablecloths for fine dining -

they were very much materials used for transportation -

for bags, for sacking, for bailing materials.

And what was the raw material that they used?

Well, coarse linen is made from the flax plant,

and it's a bast fibre.

And the majority of the flax used in Dundee

was imported from the Baltic states.

But when the supply of flax from the Baltic area was interrupted,

Dundee needed an alternative.

Jute is a natural vegetable fibre

first introduced to Britain in the late 18th century from India.

By the 1820s, Dundee had begun to import it,

but its brittle fibres made jute difficult to process

until the Dundonians discovered that soaking it in whale oil and water

rendered it pliable and easy to spin,

and the city was on its way to being nicknamed "Juteopolis."

Why did the industry spring up in Dundee of all places, anyway?

It had a skilled workforce, used to the textile industry,

but one of the key things was Dundee was one of the biggest whaling ports

in the UK at that time, so had a ready supply of raw whale oil

that could be used in the jute industry,

so it was a very good synergy.

And which is this, flax or jute?

This is raw jute, which arrives from India

and has to go through a factory before it ends up as hessian,

which is what people will be familiar with.

Your supermarket eco-friendly shopping bags today made from jute.

Very familiar.

And in the 19th century, which is what I'm mainly interested in,

what would the scene have been like in a mill like this?

They would have been very dirty, very noisy, very chaotic.

The workforce was predominantly women.

They outnumbered men by three to one.

There would have been young children working as pickers,

cleaning underneath the machines,

and a pretty dangerous place to work, as well.

People regularly lost fingertips,

and obviously there were fatal accidents as well.

We know of at least two fatal accidents that took place here.

Such a dangerous and noisy place - why women and children?

It's cheaper to employ.

So there was a real role reversal in the city and the men stayed at home.

So Dundee became known as She Town. MICHAEL LAUGHS

And the mill girls were called bold, you know, wide eyed, loud girls,

lording it up in the streets, you know,

and it really did, sort of, have a social impact on the city.

Now I don't want to sound like a Marxist,

but somebody must have been making money out of this stuff.

The jute barons,

which is the very grand aristocratic title for the mill owners.

And they were making fortunes. They were making millions.

Multi-millionaires, they were,

and they built very grand estates in the countryside of Angus,

or in the seaside suburb of Broughtyferry just a few miles away,

so they could get away from the grime of the population here

and the industrial life.

And at one time,

Broughtyferry was thought to have more millionaires per square mile

than any other part of the country,

so quite a concentration of wealth in one small little place.

Astute entrepreneurs,

the jute barons built their fortunes on the skills of their weavers.

Their techniques were passed from generation to generation.

An example was Lily Thomson's family.

She started working the looms aged 15.

-Lily, hello, I'm Michael.

-How do you do?

Now, this is a very ancient loom here.

-Mm-hmm.

-How different was this one from the one you used to use?

The one I used was like this as well,

but the other one was much, much bigger.

-May we start the machine, please?

-Yes, we can.

Would you like to stand back so you don't get hurt?

-For my safety, yes?

-For your safety.

MACHINE CLATTERS LOUDLY

That is an amazing noise!

-SHOUTS ABOVE MACHINE:

-Is it because of the shuttle going backwards and forwards,

-is that where the noise is coming from?

-Yes, that's it.

Now, when you were working here or in a mill,

how many of these machines were there in the room?

About 300.

300? That must have been an incredible noise.

Some factories had 400.

And everybody in the factory went deaf eventually, did they?

Oh yes, they were all deaf.

Awful!

I think I've had enough.

MACHINE STOPS

And tell me, in your day,

what did you make in a very good week?

Towards the end of my career, my ambition was to make £20 a week,

and I did it once.

So looking back on your life, struggling to make £20 a week,

do you think it was a hard life, do you think you were dealt a bad deal?

Oh, yes. But it was just where you were born.

If you were born into a jute family,

you're going to the mills, and you didn't say no.

Lily, it's been a pleasure and a privilege

to meet such a skilful and charming Dundee weaver.

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you. Bye-bye.

-Bye-bye.

Visiting this mill has been poignant for me,

because my own grandfather, John Blyth,

was a Scottish Victorian gentleman

who had a linen factory full of noisy looms like these.

WHISTLE BLOWS

Waves are battering Scotland's east coast

as I make my way up towards Arbroath,

where my Bradshaw's tells me,

"In 1807 to 1811, a noble lighthouse was built by Stevenson

"on the model of the Eddystone,

"which is shaped like the trunk of a tree.

"It's of solid stone for 30 feet upwards,

"the total height being 115 feet.

"Four men live here, each of whom, every six weeks, for a change,

"takes a fortnight's turn ashore."

I wonder why such a major structure was built,

and what impact it had on local people and the economy?

In the year 1320,

the Declaration of Scottish Independence was signed in Arbroath.

But after 1811, the fishing port became famous for a building -

its lighthouse.

The Bell Rock, situated 11 miles from Arbroath on Inchcape,

a notorious reef in the North Sea.

It's the oldest existing sea-washed lighthouse in the British Isles.

'On this stormy afternoon, I can't get out to sea.

'Instead, I'm climbing a lighthouse-like building,

'in fact the signal tower museum, to meet Bob Spink, a local councillor.'

-Bob, I assume!

-MICHAEL LAUGHS Hello, Michael!

Was it a very important decision to build Bell Rock lighthouse?

It had been a threat for a long, long time,

-and goodness knows how many ships had been wrecked on it.

-Yeah.

I mean, one that comes to mind right was the HMS York,

which was a 64-gun ship of the line, which was wrecked in 1804,

which was obviously before the lighthouse was built

and easy to live in.

491 of a crew, and all perished.

It was based on the 18th century design

of John Smeaton's Eddystone lighthouse off Cornwall.

The Bell Rock's engineer, Robert Stevenson,

was Robert Louis Stevenson's grandfather.

A gifted engineer,

as part of the project, he built a railway on cast-iron props,

running to the western tip of the reef,

to carry material for the lighthouse.

Almost 3,000 precisely cut slabs of rock were dovetailed in 90 layers

to create a structure which for two centuries

has been untroubled by the raging seas.

It takes a special breed to man it.

My Bradshaw's talks about the Bell Rock lighthouse,

about men being out there six weeks with two weeks back on shore.

I mean, the idea of men living in such a confined space...

And today, you get a bit of a feeling

of what it must be like to be battered by the weather,

but we're, you know, we're on solid terra firma here, but out there -

it must have taken a bit of courage, mustn't it?

It must have been awful.

I mean, I think it's not a job I could have done.

I think it would take a particular type of person,

someone who is more or less happy with himself.

I knew some of the keepers that were on the lighthouse,

and they spent so long - so much time on there

and so much time ashore,

and they all usually had hobbies of some kind to keep them busy,

but it wouldn't be the life for me.

I mean, it's not...

If you enjoy a walk, you don't want to be on the Bell Rock.

-Fearsome indeed.

-Fearsome, yes.

But on days like those, of course,

that's when they were saving men's lives.

Exactly.

It's easy to see the function of the lighthouse and why it's there.

Robert Stevenson did very well.

Whilst the mighty lighthouse

protects Arbroath's fleet from the dangers of the ocean,

'the town also benefits from the bounty that the North Sea provides.

'One fish is synonymous with the town.

'It's the haddock, or rather the way it's cooked here -'

the Arbroath smoky.

The fish is so important to the local economy

that in 2004 it was granted Protected Geographical Indication

by the European Commission

to forbid non-Arbroath imitations using its name.

Fishmonger and fish smoker Stuart Scott

has agreed to show me how they're made.

Oh, hello, Michael.

-It's good to see you.

-Pleased to meet you.

I find you in your smoky den. It really is smoky in here, isn't it?

-Yeah.

-How are you producing that stuff?

Well, it's a hardwood fire.

Any type of hardwood does, at the moment we're using oak,

and it's kind of like a barbecue effect,

where I've jumped in there this morning

and created quite a big fire,

and then just brought the lid down

and slowly cooked these fresh haddocks on the bone

for about one hour.

Not to be confused with a kippered herring,

the exact origins of Arbroath smoked haddock aren't clear,

but it's thought to have originated

from a nearby fishing village called Auchmithie,

where Robert Burns himself breakfasted on smoked fish.

In the 19th century, the fishermen were lured to Arbroath

after the harbour was renovated.

-Shall we take a look?

-Yeah, let's see if they're ready.

Whoa! That is smoky!

Yeah, initially there's quite a bit of smoke,

but once the air clears,

you'll see a roaring hardwood fire underneath there.

And then these are by now Arbroath smokies, are they?

Yes, they've moved from being a fresh ingredient,

of the humble haddock, to a fully cooked ingredient ready to eat.

Very tasty. What do you do next?

Right, I'm going to take them off.

-Can I help you with one of those?

-Yeah, get stuck in, Michael.

Stuart, the Arbroath smoky - pretty well-known now, pretty far and wide.

Yeah, very much so.

Did the railways help in their day?

Oh, definitely.

If it wasn't for the railways,

I don't think there would have been an Arbroath smoky -

it would have still been an Auchmithie smoky.

But because we had the rail link,

we commercialised on what was a very good recipe,

and we managed to make a little bit more of it.

Again, the rail came in very handy where wives of the fish merchants

would go on the train and go to their nearest city which is Dundee.

They would just have wicker baskets strapped across their shoulders,

full of Arbroath smokies,

and they would sell them to the housewives of Dundee.

I have a funny feeling you're leaving all this to me now, Stuart,

-are you?

-It's for the best.

You're welcome to give a hand any time you like, you know!

Arbroath's fame for its smokies and its pretty harbour

attract day-trippers and holidaymakers

who can reach here by train.

Having helped produce and stack them,

'it's now time for me to taste the smokies.'

I've heard that Marco Macari,

the owner and chef at a local restaurant,

'has some innovative recipes.'

-Marco!

-Hello!

-Hi, I'm Michael.

-Hello.

I have been hearing about Arbroath smokies,

I've seen Arbroath smokies, I've smoked Arbroath smokies,

so I've come actually to taste some Arbroath smokies.

Sure, yes we certainly can help you out there.

I think you can.

-How many different ways could I have them?

-Well, we...

On the menu currently, we have about four or five different ways,

but it really is a very versatile ingredient.

The most popular way is to have it traditionally,

just warmed up as it is, "from the barrel," as they call it.

So that's what...

Especially tourists, they come to have it in the traditional manner.

And if I wanted to be less traditional, what would I do then?

-Well, we could give you some pate...

-OK.

we could do some dauphinoise with a chowder through it.

We could give you some linguine with crayfish and smoky.

-I'll tell you what, how would it be if I leave it to you?

-Excellent.

Thank you very much.

'Marco's described four of the smoky recipes on offer.

'I wonder what his fifth might be?'

That looks lovely. What is it?

This is Arbroath smoky ice cream.

Arbroath smoky ice cream?

What have you been smoking?

That's amazing. That is amazing.

I'll tell you, anyone who didn't like that would be a real cold fish.

I'm glad to hear it.

'Arbroath smoky ice cream is surprisingly delicious,

'but I'll leave smoked fish off my breakfast menu tomorrow.'

Fumigated and ready for a new day,

I'm beginning the next leg of my Scottish journey.

This crowded train is taking me towards Montrose.

My Bradshaw's says,

"The appearance of Montrose is peculiarly striking -

"the basin in all the beauty of a circular lake,

"the fertile and finely cultivated fields

rising gently from its banks.

"The town, harbour and bay stretching further,

"and the lofty summit of the Grampians

"closing the scene towards the North West

"present to the traveller one of the most magnificent

"and diversified amphitheatres found in the United Kingdom."

Now there's something to look forward to on this sunny morn.

These days, the train brings commuters to the town,

but in the 19th century, Montrose was home to wealthy merchants

who were attracted by the rich agricultural hinterland

that enabled the natural harbour to flourish.

Today, the port of Montrose is modern and bustling,

and I'm prepared to bet that its transformation

since Victorian times owes something to...

the railways.

And one in particular transformed the local economy.

In 1848,

opened by the Aberdeen Railway, and later bought by the Caledonian,

it ran to Montrose from nearby Brechin,

carrying produce between the Vale of Strathmore and Montrose.

The line closed to goods traffic in 1981, but I'm driving to Brechin,

where a section of the railway has been restored

by steam enthusiast, Steve Pegg and his colleagues,

who've kindly invited me to take the controls of their locomotive.

Steve.

-Michael!

-I find you up close and dirty with the locomotive.

-What are you actually doing?

-We're oiling it.

There's a multitude of oiling points on these things,

and every one has to be filled up before we can go anywhere.

-Have you done that one already?

-I've done that one. Would you like to have a go?

-Yeah.

So if you want to take the lid off that one there, Michael. Give it a twirl.

Now, when you're oiling, you always have an oily rag in your hand in case of any spillages.

-Right, OK. Thank you.

-There we are. And if you just want to fill that up with that...

How much is it going to take?

Oh, not a lot.

A couple of fluid ounces.

-Just showing at the top there, is that right?

-That's fine, excellent.

The Victorians, what kind of oils were they using in the early days?

In the very early days, oils were often animal oils or vegetable oils,

which were OK for the smaller locos that were originally built,

but weren't particularly good

for higher speeds and higher temperatures.

It was only really later on that mineral oils came in in a big way,

which allowed engines to improve in size and performance at that stage.

With the loco oiled and steam up,

it's time to take to the tracks.

Brake off!

Toot the whistle to let them know we're coming.

WHISTLE BLOWS

Excellent.

-Now, gently open the regulator.

-There we are.

-There we go.

-Whoa!

-We're off!

-We're off. We're going backwards!

-We're going backwards.

A little bit fast, Michael.

If we could slow down, that would be marvellous.

That's it. Coming to a gentle stand now, just ideal.

That is fun.

That gives you such a feeling of satisfaction,

being able to stop a great powerful machine like this in its tracks.

-This was the railway line down to Montrose, yes?

-Yes, indeed.

What sort of cargoes were going in and out of Montrose?

Oh, there would be all kinds of things.

There would be timber from the Baltic states,

coal and lime going to Brechin...

There was quite a flow of guano, which was a phosphate fertiliser.

Coming the other way, there'd be agricultural produce...

There was a manure works in Brechin that collected it all together,

and loaded it into wagons, which went off to farmers,

where it would be put back in the field.

Everything was recycled.

Bird poo and, er...horse... dropping.

MICHAEL LAUGHS The things they had to use before agrochemicals came in.

It's called organic these days.

The Caledonian was an eclectic railway,

transporting agricultural fertilisers,

and with its proximity to the castle at Balmoral,

also the most precious passenger of Bradshaw's day.

Now...

If you look...

-You see that row of trees down the left hand side, Michael?

-Yes.

They were planted at Queen Victoria's request,

because when she was going to Balmoral,

the Royal Train would stop here for her breakfast

and she didn't like the locals seeing her eating.

So they were planted on her request and they're still here to this day.

That's wonderful. You know...

She usually, I think, stopped her train when she was going to eat.

She did not like particularly to eat on the move.

Whereas I love it.

I've returned to Montrose Station

to catch a train northbound to my next destination.

I'm now in Aberdeenshire, and Bradshaw's tells me,

"It forms the north east corner of the island

"to the easternmost point of a triangle

"which juts out far into the German Ocean."

Because of the conflicts of the 20th century,

that was renamed the North Sea,

but the name of the city where I'm going now, Aberdeen,

is as durable as granite.

And Bradshaw's tells me that,

"It is white granite which gives the city a handsome appearance.

"The almost inexhaustible supplies of this stone are close at hand."

Well, almost a century and a half later

is a good time to find out just how inexhaustible they've been.

During the Middle Ages, the people of Aberdeen lived from fishing,

weaving, wool and leather.

Recently, the oil and gas found under the North Sea

has made the city a sort of Houston of Europe.

But in Bradshaw's day,

because of the unfailing supply of another expensive mineral,

Aberdeen was known as the Granite City.

'The town's Victorian buildings are resplendent in it.'

In a nearby quarry, production manager Andy Henderson

will show me how the stone is extracted.

Andy, it would be difficult to describe the scale of this thing.

Absolutely massive.

-Stretches hundreds of yards.

-Mm-hmm.

Amazing sight.

How many tonnes of rock are you going to move today?

23,000.

And we have five tonnes' worth of explosives to do that.

-ANDY LAUGHS

-That is an enormous explosion.

-RADIO:

-'Firing in 10 seconds.'

10 seconds - I must say, my heart is racing.

ANDY LAUGHS

Prepare to have the earth moved.

EXPLOSION

Lord! Look at that!

It has changed the shape of the quarry!

It's brought down an unbelievable amount of stuff.

Wow!

That's all there is to it.

-Just 23,000 tonnes that have moved from one place to another.

-Mmmm.

-You could sell tickets to that, couldn't you?

-ANDY LAUGHS

It's maybe a thought!

-Is the method similar to the Victorian, then?

-Very similar.

I think the explosives are probably better,

more efficient than they were back then.

We'll be boring larger holes, if you like, than they would have,

because in Victorian times, they'd have been doing

maybe inch-and-a-half holes,

something approximately that size, probably by hand.

Now we're using a big drilling rig

and putting in higher quality explosives.

-Different sorts of explosives from the Victorians?

-Definitely, yeah.

Much more efficient. We'll get more yield, if you like,

for less explosives than they would have had to use.

And considerably safer now, as well.

They'd have been transporting explosives into the site

as explosives, if you like.

Here, we'll actually mix them prior to them being necessary.

Sounds a bit safer.

Definitely.

Aberdeen's granite industry developed from the 18th century,

with stone first sent to London for paving in 1764.

It formed the base of Trafalgar Square's original fountains.

As the industry expanded, materials and skills were so plentiful

that much of the city of Aberdeen was constructed from the rock.

Quarries were deep, so retrieving the stone was a challenge.

Before the steam-powered derrick cranes of the 1880s,

the industry relied upon the invention

of a local quarry owner, John Fyfe.

His "Blondin," named after a famous tightrope walker,

consisted of steel cables strung across the quarry

which carried a trolley.

From that, an enormous bucket was lowered into the hole.

The process is now mechanised.

I wonder how much more stone is left?

Andy, my Bradshaw's guide written more than a century ago

predicts that these reserves of granite are inexhaustible.

Would you agree with that?

Pretty much, to be quite honest with you.

I mean, here, the current extraction rates at this quarry,

you've got in excess of 150, probably closer to double that -

-probably about 300 years.

-That's a lot, isn't it?

And then this is not the only quarry, let's face it.

It isn't, no, it isn't.

It's probably one of the major ones left in this area,

but certainly not the only one.

Many of the great buildings of Aberdeen,

and even many of the houses are made of this sort of granite.

It gives the city a very distinctive look, doesn't it?

Well, It's what it's called - the Granite City, the Silver City -

the one that sparkles back at you.

This leg of my journey has reminded me

how much 19th century Scotland depended on hard physical work -

to heave the cargoes onto ships, to weave the hessian in the mills,

to quarry the granite and to land the fish,

and even as I discovered today, to drive a locomotive.

Our modern world owes a heavy debt

to what the Victorians called "the horny hands of toil."

On the next leg of this journey,

I ride the most northerly heritage line in Britain.

And I learn how Victorian whisky trains were raided by robbers.

-Do you think anyone's spotted us yet?

-I don't think so. I'll keep an eye out, OK?

I traverse one of Scotland's most impressive viaducts.

Really is a spectacular piece of architecture and engineering.

And I discover that life isn't always sweet

on a shortbread production line.

Stop the conveyor belt, I want to get off!

SHE LAUGHS

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd