Wokingham to Bradford-on-Avon 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 go, what to see and where to stay.

Now, 170 years later, I'm aboard for a series of rail adventures across the United Kingdom

to see what of Bradshaw's Britain remains.

I'm continuing my journey through from the fresh, sea-air breezes of England's South Coast

towards the industrial heartland of the West Midlands.

I'm travelling now on a line northwards that helped to give life

to the commuter towns to the west of London.

And on this leg of my journey,

I shall move from suburban Surrey into rural Wiltshire.

'On today's leg, I create headlines in Reading...'

-You now beat the back of your flong.

-Like that?

-No, with the hairy side.

-Oh, with the hairy side

'..discover a Tudor entrepreneur in Newbury...'

Victorian historians used to label this as England's first factory,

mainly because of the scale of production.

'..and test a bicycle with Victorian origins.'

-A lovely smooth ride over the cobbles. Thank you very much.

-You're welcome.

-Bye!

Starting on the South Coast, my journey took in Hampshire

and now heads north-west to Newbury,

onward to Bristol

and an engineering feat under the Severn

and then via the Cotswolds

to finish in Wolverhampton,

in the West Midlands.

Today's leg begins in Wokingham,

calls at Reading, heads west to Newbury,

takes a note in Trowbridge and ends in Bradford on Avon.

My first stop will be Wokingham.

Bradshaw's reports that, "The railways have given considerable

"impetus to trade here and house property has become valuable."

Also, "A new church is being built by J Walter, Esquire,

"proprietor of the Times."

Well, whatever the impact that the trains had on house prices,

they had an even bigger one on newspapers.

Known in the Middle Ages for its bell foundry,

Wokingham first received trains in 1849

and they were used to transport bricks manufactured in the town.

The station's footbridge was built in 1886,

using old rails and sleepers,

and replaced a level-crossing where there had been a number of accidents.

I've alighted here to learn more about the town's most influential Victorian.

In 1785, John Walter founded a newspaper,

which, three years later, he named the Times.

His grandson was an innovator in print.

I'm hoping to learn more about John Walter III's philanthropy

and his impact on the newspaper industry,

from the senior typography lecturer at Reading University,

Martin Andrews.

Bradshaw's mentions a J Walter, Esquire, proprietor of the Times

and mentions that he built a church here. Would this lovely church be it?

It is, indeed, and, in fact, he also built a school and a vicarage

that went with the church and he was a benefactor in many ways.

He was very good to the local people.

My Bradshaw's is from the 1860s.

Was that an important time in development of newspapers?

It was, particularly in '61, when the stamp duty on paper got repealed,

which meant, of course, there was much more opportunity

to increase circulation.

There was a huge demand for an increase in circulation

because, with the improvement of literacy, education

and, also, leisure time.

If you think, the railways was an opportunity. It was captured time.

This was all a huge new market for the newspapers

and that, of course, demanded new technology,

new machines that could go faster and quicker.

But to answer some of those questions, I think we need to go

to Reading to have a look at some of the presses that Walter developed.

As the railways flourished,

J Walter III wanted his daily print run to keep pace with a circulation boom,

which was being fuelled in part by rail travel.

Before we get to Reading University to find out how the Times was modernised,

Martin has more on the periodicals of the day.

In the 1840s, WH Smith's opened the first kiosk on a railway station,

selling literature for leisure, for recreation, for enjoyment.

A bit like some of the magazines that we have today with human interest.

One famous one was Tit-Bits. Here is an amazing strapline,

which talks about, "£400 insurance money has been paid."

So such was the fear of the possibility of a railway accident,

that you could get free insurance with your Tit-Bits?

Indeed, you could.

So, clearly, this newspaper was aimed at the commuter.

Well, if you'll excuse me, between here and Reading,

I'm going to look for some titbits.

ANNOUNCER: 'Now arriving at Reading, our final destination.'

Martin wants to show me how the proprietor of the Times

stole a march on his competitors.

What did J Walter III, the one mentioned in Bradshaw,

what did he achieve?

The Times was developing so rapidly they needed to get quicker

and speedier and more efficient.

So, instead of just having a circular cylinder to print from,

the idea of having a rotary press, where everything works on cylinders,

working automatically, was the way they cracked it.

From the beginning of the 19th century, they had been finding ways

of duplicating pages of type by a system called stereotyping,

which was taking a sheet of papier-mache.

You lay this piece of papier-mache on top of the type

and then you pick up this amazing brush.

Now, this is not a giant's toothbrush, or a back scratcher,

this is a flong brush.

Somebody in the industry had a job of a flong beater.

And I give you that privilege.

-So you now beat the back of your flong.

-Like that?

-No, no with the hairy side.

Oh, with the hairy side.

And that is pushing the papier-mache into the type.

And when you can pull that off, we have a perfect impression

of every single part of the type, all the detail.

Then you could cast that page of type

as a complete cylinder, which looks like this.

Now, that means we can now have fully rotary systems.

-And that is the breakthrough?

-That's the breakthrough.

By 1869, they were working in the Times.

And this is really the way that presses were going to develop.

This is the beginning of the modern printing press for newspapers.

Obviously, this is too big for everyday jobbing printing.

'Before I continue my journey,

'Martin wants me to experience the rather simpler press

'that a Victorian jobbing printer would have used...while wearing his printers' hat.'

And it's made out of a sheet of newspaper, as you can see.

I am a man of letters.

Here we have some ink.

We're now going to roll this up.

-So here we go, we've got a nice, even set of ink now.

-Let me have a go at that.

You need to take over.

Hm. I can feel it's sticking there. It's lovely stuff, isn't it?

Now, I think we're ready to apply that to the type.

So, if we come over here,

you can ink up the form that we prepared for you earlier.

Right. That looks perfect, beautifully even and ready to print.

The press we're going to use today is, in fact, an iron press,

made in 1860s, the time of Walter III.

Take the paper, place it with confidence on top of the type.

Now you can lower the tin-pan - that protects the type.

Press that handle down, the rotary action,

it will push the bed underneath the platen, as we call it.

That's perfect.

Now, grab the handle and pull it towards you

and you will have made a print in true traditional style.

Roll it out again.

Don't forget, you've got to do this 250 times an hour.

If you now peel the paper off,

hopefully, we've got a nice souvenir of your day in the department.

I have to say, for a beginner, that is perfect.

-It's a lovely souvenir, thank you very much.

-A pleasure.

Reading Station is being transformed.

The most enormous extension has been built in striking modern architecture.

But, in all that's going on here, somehow,

the old clock tower has been preserved.

This new bridge, 110 metres long,

is just part of the rebuilding of Reading Station.

They've also put in new platforms and new lines to ease congestion.

There's going to be electrification of the line from London to South Wales.

And, shortly, they'll be building a flyover, again to ease congestion.

Reading has been given a station on an international scale.

I'm on the old Great Western Railway and my next stop is Newbury.

Bradshaw's tells me that the town was, "Formerly celebrated

"for its extensive manufactories of woollen cloth,

"especially when Jack of Newbury led his company of stout tailors,

"all proper men, to the famous battle of Flodden Field."

That's an interesting swatch of history

and, in Newbury, I'll pick up the thread.

Once an important and thriving textile town,

Newbury was connected by waterway to Reading in the 18th century.

I'm meeting local historian David Peacock at a church

built by the most successful cloth producer of Tudor times -

John Winchcombe, also known as Jack of Newbury,

who manufactured textiles in unprecedented volumes.

Jack of Newbury,

important enough to make his way into my Bradshaw's. Who was he?

He was a cloth producer producing a vast amount of cloth.

Most of the cloth went from here up to London,

from London exported to the continent and, from there,

went throughout Europe into Hungary,

around to Venice and even as far as the Middle East.

Wow! In those days we knew how to export.

I'm intrigued by this reference in Bradshaw's.

"He led his company of stout tailors, all proper men, to the famous battle of Flodden Field."

This is the wrong battle, basically, that Bradshaw has.

They went to the Siege of Boulogne in the 1540s.

Was this usual - that a businessman took

a troop of his workers off to war?

It was not unusual for the gentry to provide some of the army.

It was unusual for a businessman, for a clothier,

but, particularly for John Winchcombe, the scale of this.

He wasn't just taking five or ten men to war,

he was leading 100, or 150, men to war.

Jack used fulling mills along the River Kennet

and legend has it his proto-industrial cloth empire

included 200 looms in his town-centre property,

producing three quarters of Newbury's considerable textile output in Tudor times.

It was a massive establishment.

He was producing cloth on an industrial scale long before the Industrial Revolution.

I thought factories originated in the late 18th century.

I mean, would we be right to think this is a factory?

Victorian historians used to label this as England's first factory,

mainly because of the scale of production that was going on here.

He was producing over 6,000 cloths a year.

-And a cloth was what?

-A cloth would be 17 or 18 yards long,

woven by one man, so the width of a one-man loom.

It stretched all the way from the other side of the department store,

right the way along to the gable end at the corner here,

and back further towards what was then the marsh, Newbury Marsh.

David has brought me to the town hall,

where a portrait of this Tudor captain of industry still hangs.

So how should we remember Jack of Newbury?

He was tremendously important in England's economic history

at a time that is usually remembered for the six wives of Henry VIII

and, really, relatively little else.

What does he mean to you personally, David?

I feel that he was a major figure in English history.

A tremendously important contributor to the development of this country

and he ought not have been written out of the history of the country.

Well, at least he's remembered in Bradshaw's.

After a long day, I'm ready to feel the soft fabric of my pillow.

This is the busy Bath Road and, long before the railways,

Newbury had almost innumerable coaching inns -

the Angel, the Bear, the Cross Keys,

the George and Pelican -

all serving the landed gentry on their to fashionable Bath to take the waters.

But I've decided to stay at the Hare and Hounds.

-Good evening, landlord.

-Good evening, sir.

-A splendid coaching inn you've got here.

-Thank you.

Just before I turn in, could I have a pint of your finest West Berkshire ale?

There we go. You'll enjoy that. Thank you.

-That has the makings of a sound sleep. Thank you.

-Thank you very much.

Set for the day ahead,

I'm continuing my journey along the old Great Western railway

towards Westbury, where I shall change trains and head north.

My next destination is Trowbridge, which Bradshaw's tells me

has a population of 9,626 and is situated on the River Ware.

It's one of the largest clothing towns in the west of England.

"The church is large and highly decorated,"

which makes it sound a bit like a stout and gallant military officer.

Anyway, I will go there and make notes.

Wiltshire's county town of Trowbridge is mentioned as far back as the Domesday Book.

And its most celebrated resident was another man of letters.

His name was Isaac Pitman.

I'm hoping that Trowbridge Museum curator Clare Lyall knows more.

-Hello, Clare.

-Hello, Michael.

A large and decorated church, as promised by my Bradshaw's,

but why have you asked to meet here?

Well, the inventor of shorthand, Sir Isaac Pitman,

and Trowbridge's most famous son, was actually educated in the grounds here.

What led him to devise a system of shorthand?

He saw there was a need for key events in history and society

to be disseminated very quickly and effectively.

Hence he came up with the Pitman stenograph system.

I think of shorthand now as being a secretarial device,

but I'm getting the impression that Isaac Pitman had broader uses for it.

That was the key. He saw it as a crucial communication tool

and he ensured that it received the wide notoriety that it did

by publicising and marketing it incredibly effectively.

He went on lecture tours.

So he was very good at raising the profile of it

and ensuring that people saw it as a very useful communication tool.

Isaac Pitman was the son of a manual worker.

In 1837, he published Stenographic Sound-Hand -

a classification of language into basic abbreviations,

which allowed men to quickly record important events

and later revolutionised the role of women in the workplace.

If you had the shorthand qualification it gave you that extra kudos,

that extra status, and it meant you could justify a higher salary.

So, in terms of that, I think it's had a real impact

in enabling women to be independent, financially,

from a quite a relatively young age.

What's the legacy?

I think the fact that Pitman shorthand is still being learnt today,

176 years after Pitman was born. That's quite an achievement.

Clare's introducing me to Anne Bishop, a retired council secretary,

who started learning Pitman's shorthand when she was just 13.

Hello, Anne. The system worked for you, you found it was effective?

-Yes, very much so.

-How many words do you do a minute?

At County Hall, to become a senior secretary, you needed 120.

Was that sufficient for everything you needed to do?

The news on the television is mainly read at about that speed

and I used to use that as a guide.

Did you ever have anyone really unreasonable,

who spoke, or dictated, much faster?

Well, you'd ask them to slow down!

Anne, would you like to demonstrate your skills?

If I hand Bradshaw over to Clare, she can read something to us.

You can put it down with pinpoint accuracy in your shorthand

and I'll struggle along in my longhand.

"Trowbridge. This town is the largest in the county,

"with the exception of Salisbury.

"It has a population of 9,626 and is situated on the River Ware."

So this is what I got, "Trowbridge. This is the largest..."

-Ha! But I missed out quite a lot. What have you got?

-You did miss quite a lot.

"Trowbridge. This town is the largest in the county,

"with the exception of Salisbury.

"It has a population of 9,626 and is situated on the River Ware."

That's brilliant!

-I missed out about 50%, didn't I?

-Probably, yes.

-Wow.

-Well done, Anne, and well done, Pitman.

-Thank you.

Bradford on Avon next.

Bradshaw says, " 'A town that standeth by cloth making,' said Leland three centuries ago,

"and the same may be said of it now." That's a reference

to John Leland, who catalogued much of England for Henry VIII.

"The Avon is crossed by two bridges,

one very ancient one with a chapel over one of the piers."

I wonder why there's a place of worship over the river.

I'm in suspense.

The company funding Bradford on Avon's original line went bust

and it was a decade before tracks were laid through the town's Victorian station.

But it looks well looked after today.

-Hello, gentlemen.

-Hello, Michael.

-Nice to see you.

-Very good to see you. Hello.

You're doing a beautiful job, keeping the station looking lovely.

-All volunteers are you?

-All volunteers, that's right.

What's your planting plan here? What do you do around the year?

We don't have a great plan. It just evolves as we go along week by week.

We don't profess to be professionals at it.

We just put it in and it works.

-Where are you getting your plants from?

-Many, many sources. Many donations of plants.

Ladies will turn up and say, "Can you put this in?"

"What is it?" "Don't know." In it goes.

We've even got some strawberries across there.

That's our treat for the summer, if they grow.

That'll be for the workers, or will you hand them out to the passengers?

-Oh, no, workers!

-LAUGHTER

Thanks very much, bye-bye.

Having seen a station as flowery as a church on a wedding day,

I'm meeting local historian Margaret Dobson,

to hear about the chapel on the bridge.

Margaret, Bradshaw's refers to an ancient bridge across the Avon. How old is it?

Probably 13th or 14th century.

Bradshaw's talks about a chapel on one of the piers. That would be the chapel?

No, this would not be the chapel. There was a mediaeval chapel there,

but, by Bradshaw's day, it was a blind house,

a new building that went up - many of them in this area - in the 18th century.

-What was a blind house?

-A blind house was a lock-up.

You put people in that if they were misbehaving,

quite probably drunk and disorderly and they couldn't get home,

so you shoved them in there.

The whole town is so pretty

and the weather vane on the lock-up is beautiful.

We think that's a 16th-century fish. It's been there a very long time,

because if somebody was put in there for the night, they were "under the fish and over the water".

-That expression survives to today.

-It does, indeed.

Not that many people are locked up in it these days!

Though you might be!

Hopeful that Margaret won't leave me under the fish and over the water,

I'm keen to have a look inside.

Oh, this is pretty grim.

Well, actually, it's a great improvement on what it was up to about 1826,

when it was simply one large cell.

And the man who was kept in here in 1757

wrote an indignant letter afterwards,

saying that he just had a stone to sit on

and straw on the floor.

So what did these great improvements consist of?

-Making it into two separate cells.

-Ah, yes.

And you do have a bed here and, even more modern,

you have a lavatory, which discharges, of course, straight into the river.

Well, let's face it, the bed is not exactly highly sprung

and the lavatory, of course, lacks a flush.

For 1827, I should think this was a delight.

Surprisingly, tranquil Bradford on Avon was the birthplace

of the Victorian vulcanised rubber industry.

And by the look of the family pile,

it brought Shaun Moulton's forebear a great fortune.

-Shaun, what a marvellous house.

-Hello, Michael, how do you do?

-Gorgeous.

So, what's the story of your family and rubber and Bradford on Avon?

It's a long story,

but a very quick way of explaining it would be to say,

1848, Stephen Moulton came back from America

with a licence from Charles Goodyear to vulcanise rubber.

To stop it from being brittle in the winter, in the cold, and sticky in the summer, in the heat.

And it was Charles Goodyear, back in 1839, who found a way, by adding sulphur.

And he gave that licence to Stephen Moulton,

who sailed back to England with it to try and find a backer.

These early pioneers, these Victorians -

what opportunities did they see for rubber?

First of all, it was the Crimean War.

Waterproof capes, blankets, groundsheets, tents et cetera.

But, after that, it was very much the locomotive industry -

springs, buffers, hoses, you name it. It was a vast business.

Moulton's vulcanised rubber could be useful beyond the railways.

Great engineers like Isambard Kingdom Brunel saw wider potential.

This is a fascinating letter from Brunel to Stephen Moulton, 1859,

requiring a staff for his mast aboard the Great Eastern.

You can see from his lovely diagram that what he's trying to do

is enable the mast to actually move on the deck,

so they don't get snapped off in heavy weather.

-It's signed beautifully.

-This is a real treasure, isn't it?

And these are little Brunel sketches!

Yeah, he's actually seen the possibilities

for the application of rubber.

In 1956, Shaun's great uncle, Dr Alex Moulton, sold the rubber company

and, shortly after, began manufacturing luxury, handmade small-wheeled bicycles,

which are fitted with rubber suspension systems.

-Here's Joel, one of our apprentices.

-Nice to meet you.

-Good to see you.

He's learnt how to mould here in the factory.

What component is being made here?

The four painted parts here are all filled with rubber,

giving the suspension of the front wheel.

So, Joel, what is it that you have to do here?

My task here is to take the vulcanised rubber

and to press it in the press, under heat and 18 tonnes of pressure,

and form the end product, which is our Flexitor piece.

-OK, where do we start?

-So, if I give you those.

-I'm trusting you that these are heatproof!

-They are. To an extent, yes.

-LAUGHTER

-I guess we start with that piece, yes?

-We do.

-We pop it in there?

-Yep.

-There we go.

And we take the wooden wedge and tap it down

-into the base of the mould.

-This is hi-tech.

-It is!

Shaun, this is a highly manual process.

I can imagine Victorians doing similar things.

Our customers love the fact that it is manual and that we're making these by hand.

Don't apply the pressure while I've got my fingers in there!

-Now I'm going to put apply pressure and heat? Is that right?

-Yes, that's correct.

And now, I sit back and wait for 15 minutes?

Yes, 15 minutes' securing time and then it's ready to come out.

What is so special about this suspension?

I think you should try it, Michael, and see.

So what will I notice as I go along?

When you come down through the archway over those cobbles, you'll feel totally isolated.

Ha ha! Here I go.

Whoa!

Yeah, a lovely smooth ride over the cobbles.

-Thank you very much.

-You're welcome.

-Bye!

The Victorian age witnessed a revolution in communications.

Men like J Walter developed mass-circulation, mass-production newspapers,

while Isaac Pitman gave his name to a faster way of recording speech.

But the most remarkable advance in communications

was the growth of the railways

and the shorthand for timetables and guide books was Bradshaw's.

'Next time, I discover the origins of Victorian photography...'

Talbot made the first photographic negative.

-A shot of this window.

-Wow, that is a feeling of history.

'..I visit Britain's longest rail tunnel and its worrying water feature...'

Torrents of water. That is unbelievable!

'..and I receive Bristol Zoo's SEAL of approval.'

OK, Michael, if you just want to raise your right hand.

And your left hand.

Hey! Well done!