Ipswich to Chelmsford 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.

And 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.

My journey continues through Suffolk.

This flat terrain produces a big, beautiful dome of sky

and beneath it the green land

and the rivers that run between it are rich in food.

'On this leg, I discover that 19th century engineering was pretty sharp.'

And there it goes.

The extraordinary thing is a Victorian would recognise that

-because it was made in much the same way.

-Absolutely.

'Shell out for seafood near Mersey Island.'

Enormous. So this is the sort of oyster that once cleaned up,

-could appear on my plate.

-Certainly is, yeah.

'And I'm tainted in an Essex orchard.'

That's where the phrase "caught red-handed" came from.

Indelible stain of crime.

My journey, which began in Norwich,

now continues south-west through Suffolk,

past Chelmsford in Essex,

then across the Thames at Tilbury,

through the Medway towns of Kent and its largest port, Dover,

before moving west to Tunbridge, down to the Sussex coast

and ending in the cathedral city of Chichester.

Today's leg begins in Ipswich,

moves south-west to crack open the Essex delights of Colchester

and Witham, and picks up radio waves in Chelmsford.

Bradshaw's tells me that Suffolk is one of the best cultivated districts in England,

almost exclusively a farming county,

being conducted upon the most improved principles.

There was innovation in agriculture

long before the industrial revolution

and East Anglia was in the forefront.

Set on the bank of the Orwell estuary,

Ipswich - one of England's oldest towns -

has been an important trading centre since the Saxons settled here.

It became one of the richest ports in medieval England

and thrived on shipbuilding.

When the railways arrived in Ipswich in 1846,

they ran to the new docks, from where the town's iron goods

and farm machinery could be moved easily

to customers around the country.

Here I am at Ipswich, which Bradshaw's tells me is a port,

borough town and capital of Suffolk.

Then it tells me that Ransomes & Sims

machine and implement works cover 14 acres.

Could that be instrumental in the agricultural improvement

that Bradshaw's tells me about?

Founded in 1785 by Robert Ransome during the agrarian revolution,

Ransomes of Ipswich has been making agricultural equipment ever since.

The company was originally situated at the docks,

where it also built its own railway sidings.

I'm keen to find out just how important Ransomes was

to the economy of Ipswich in Bradshaw's day.

Richard Comely is the company's marketing director.

-Hello Michael, welcome.

-Very good to see you.

-Thank you.

Bradshaw's tells me that Ransomes & Sims covered an area of 14 acres.

That's in 1864 - it must have been enormous.

Some 3,500 people were employed here,

making ploughs, mowing machinery, all kinds of agricultural equipment.

In 1832, Ransomes won the licence to manufacture a brand new product.

Engineer Edwin Budding's invention,

based on the napping of cloth in cotton mills,

would revolutionise 19th century gardening.

Until such time as the mower came along,

people were cutting grass with scythes,

and obviously, that had limitations, especially with short grass.

What's the breakthrough about the lawn mower?

The principle is we have these rotating blades that are in a spiral

and we have this bed knife, which is the stationary part

that the rotating blades rotate against.

The reason they're in a spiral is to feed the power in more evenly

and to eliminate the kind of chopping motion

you would get if the blades were all in straight lines.

This is fundamentally what Budding invented.

Actually, that's a fantastic thought isn't it?

That a fellow came up with this idea 180 years ago

-and really, it's recognisable to this day.

-Exactly.

In 1867 the company produced more than 1,000 lawn mowers

and Royal recognition followed when Queen Victoria acquired one

to tend the lawns of her beloved Balmoral.

-Might I have a go at that?

-Absolutely.

Give it a whirl. Thank you very much.

Let it catch the second roller as you go through,

-press the button there.

-Look at that! Curving away.

That's basically what you've got.

-Isn't that beautiful?

-It's formed a spiral.

And there is goes.

And the extraordinary thing is that a Victorian would recognize that

-because it was made in much the same way.

-Absolutely.

In the 21st century, Budding's blades are fitted to mowers

that cut sports fields all over the world.

The factory is unexpectedly surrounded by top quality grass

and each model has to meet green keeper Jamie Hughes' standards.

-This is a golf course attached to a factory.

-It is.

It's unusual to come onto an industrial estate

and see a golf course.

Gosh, you've got machinery old and new here. This is what?

We've got the Budding here, the original.

-This is the original? Can I have a go at it?

-You can.

Do you mind holding my book for a while?

Oh, look at that, it actually works.

-It does. It takes a push.

-A Budding patent.

It really was a budding patent, wasn't it?

Never was a truer word said.

Now, this one I guess is a little bit easier is it?

This one is far easier, yes. And we will have a go on this.

-Oh, good. Does that mean me?

-That means you, exactly.

ENGINE STARTS There we go. These are your arms.

You know, this invention is really cutting edge.

Resuming my journey,

I'm heading south-west on the Great Eastern mainline

out of East Anglia and into Essex.

My next stop will be Colchester, which my Bradshaw's tells me

is formerly an important town of the Romans on the River Colne.

"Silk from umbrellas is made here, and velvet.

"Excellent oysters at Pyefleet.

"I sense there's important history to be prised open here."

Replete with its vast Victorian brick water tower

Colchester, once the Roman capital of Britain,

is a bustling market town,

world-famous for the oysters harvested

from its nearby waters since 48AD.

To find out why its oysters are so renowned,

I'm meeting Graham Larkin on nearby Mersey Island at the confluence

of the Pyefleet Channel and the River Colne.

Why is it that these waters give us such good oysters?

It's a very high salinity area, which means water is very salty,

and we've got all this marvellous agricultural land around us

that's giving us all the nutrients

and all the food being washed into the creek by the rain

and it's being filtered through by the oysters and fattening them up.

Give me an idea of how many oysters you are dredging up?

On a weekly basis between 60,000 and 65,000 rock oysters per week.

That's like a small town's worth of rock oysters every week.

Yeah, it's quite a lot.

Colchester oysters were sought-after delicacies in Roman times.

Archaeological excavations have found evidence that they were

even exported to Rome in nets trailing in the water from the boat.

But by the 19th century, the coming of the railways

made oysters a plentiful and cheap food for the urban poor.

In 1864, more than 700 million oysters were eaten in London alone.

During the Victorian times, the oysters would have been taken

from where they were gathered by boat to Brightlingsea

in barrels and then they would have been transported from Brightlingsea

by rail into London, where they would have been sold

on street corners and in restaurants.

Oysters are in demand again today.

Although no longer cheap, they are harvested in much the same way

as in Bradshaw's day - by dredger.

We're going to tow this dredger just over a walking pace

for about 100 yards, 150 yards,

and then you can haul it up and you can see what we've got.

Here it is.

Oh, we've got some stuff in there, that's great.

-We've got some nice oysters here.

-Enormous.

So this is the sort of oyster that once cleaned up,

-could appear on my plate.

-Certainly is, yeah.

I'd be extremely pleased to find him in a restaurant.

OK, Michael, shall we head back with your haul?

Yes, let's get underway.

'The oyster fishery was granted to the people of Colchester

'by King Richard I.'

Now owned by the council, the fishery is leased to Graham,

which ensures that every one of its rock oysters

is made fit for human consumption by placing it in fresh sea water

for at least 42 hours to flush out impurities.

Is it possible to have one of these lovely fellows?

-Of course it is, yeah.

-So, down the hatch.

Mm, talk about the taste of the sea.

-Wonderful burst of flavour.

-Don't get any fresher than that.

Today you can enjoy one type of oyster or another

throughout the year, but historically

it was thought safest to avoid oysters in the heat of summer

so they were eaten only in months whose name contains the letter "R".

On this balmy Colchester evening,

I want to find out whether such caution persists.

-Good evening.

-Evening.

-Evening.

-I see that you're enjoying a lovely glass of champagne.

-Very, very civilised.

-Lovely summer evening isn't it?

-Are you celebrating?

-No, not really.

-Just a daily occurrence.

-No! Just going out for a drink.

Well, I wondered whether you would have oysters to go with it?

Because Colchester is famous for oysters.

-Yeah, but no R in the month, is there?

-No, no R in the month.

So you don't like having an oyster when there's no R in the month?

You don't eat them then.

-You like to have your oysters?

-I love oysters yes, yes.

So are you longing for there to be an R in the month?

-November, October, November, December.

-Yes, I am.

-Tell me, are you a chewer or a swallower?

-A swallower.

-Really? No chewing?

-No.

-Oh. I like to give them a good chew.

-Oh, no!

-Anyway, cheers to you both. Bye-bye.

-Bye.

Bradshaw's promised me fragments of the ancient town walls.

In fact, they seem to be pretty well preserved.

The pub is called The Hole In The Wall, which a seems a strange way

to refer to such a beautifully formed Roman gate

but anyway, I feel thirsty.

'I'm meeting local historian Patrick Denney

'to find out how a pub came to sit on an ancient ruin.'

Welcome to Colchester.

Thank you very much. The Hole In The Wall pub.

I assume it's a reference to that rather lovely gate out there, is it?

Well, not actually, no.

The name Hole In The Wall dates first

to when the railways arrived in Colchester in 1843.

This pub, and it was called the King's Head in those days,

commanded the best view of the railway in the whole town, really.

So the landlord in this pub smashed a big hole in the Roman wall,

which is just behind us here, extended his pub,

put a window in so his customers could come and have a lovely view of the railway.

He smashed a hole in the Roman wall!

Yeah. Today he would probably be thrown in prison

for picking up a little bit that fell off,

but he got away with it at the time.

And the town's cabbies did a roaring trade.

They'd see a train come in,

they'd leave their pint and off they'd go down to the station.

Well, I have found it a wholly appropriate place

-to end the day, cheers.

-Cheers, Michael.

Looking forward to the day ahead,

this morning I'm travelling west into the Essex countryside.

This first train of the day will take me to Witham.

Bradshaw's draws my attention to Tiptree Heath,

on which is Alderman Mechi's

celebrated model farming establishment.

There is a corner of an English field

that is forever linked to an Italian name.

The station at Witham, a fashionable 18th century spa town,

is close to Tiptree Heath,

a once infertile, marshy corner of Essex.

I'm hoping Ian Thurgood,

joint managing director for the farm's current owners,

will know how a London alderman

turned it into a successful 19th century farm.

-Hello, Ian.

-Hello, Michael. Welcome to Tiptree Hall.

Thank you very much indeed. Who was Alderman Mechi?

Alderman Mechi was the son of an Italian immigrant

who made his fortune in London.

He was a cutler, a silversmith

and very good in commerce, but turned his attention finally

to Tiptree Hall and experimental farming,

trying lots of different things to see if he could make sense

of farming anywhere in the country.

He had a couple of particularly revolutionary ideas at the time.

One was that he would irrigate and drain the soil

across the whole farm and it's said that he laid some 80 to 90 miles

of drains just on Tiptree Hall farm.

The second was he decided that his cattle would stand on grids.

They wouldn't stand in a courtyard in the mud,

so the grids were used and then he was able to collect the manure,

return the manure to the fields and thus improve the soil.

I'm guessing that he was successful

because Bradshaw's refers to it as a model farm establishment,

so people were coming to learn from this, were they?

Mechi was successful, there's no doubt about that.

In fact, it's said that at one point, here at Tiptree Hall,

he was bringing in 600 people from Witham station

coming in for Mechi's Agricultural Day,

where they could look at the wonderful things he was trying.

The first place they'd see steam ploughing, for many of them,

was here at Tiptree Hall.

Mechi's annual agricultural shows

and his modern techniques became so renowned that in 1852

Charles Dickens reported on Tiptree in his weekly journal.

Did his ideas spread far and wide?

Yes they did, through the publication of his book,

How To Farm Profitably.

Bradshaw's calls him Alderman Mechi. Alderman of what?

Mechi was Alderman of the City of London.

He was actually in line to become Lord Mayor of London.

Sadly, Alderman Mechi failed to become Lord Mayor

because he lost his fortune

in the collapse of the Unity Joint Stock Bank,

of which he was a governor.

12 days after being forced to liquidate his affairs,

Mechi died here at Tiptree -

some say of diabetes, others, of a broken heart.

It's a sad story, but not, I think, the end of farming at Tiptree.

That's not the end of the farming story

because eventually Tiptree Hall was bought by the Wilkin family.

Local jam makers Wilkin & Sons bought the Tiptree estate in 1913.

It now covers a square acreage

equivalent to around 300 cricket fields.

We're in the mulberry orchard now.

This is the oldest orchard in the estate,

-planted in Victorian times, in fact.

-Not planted by Alderman Mechi?

Not planted by Alderman Mechi, no.

In fact, just a little while after he'd departed Tiptree.

-Hello.

-Hello.

-Is it difficult to pick mulberries?

A little bit because you need to be on the ladder and a bit high.

-Could I try one, please?

-Sure.

-Thank you very much indeed.

Wow, look at you! You're absolutely covered in juice.

Look at these red hands, I look like a scene out of Macbeth.

They say that that's where the phrase "caught red-handed" comes from.

If you come in the mulberry orchard and scrump some mulberries,

you're not really going to get away with it

cos that's going to stay there for three or four days.

The indelible stain of crime.

In 1885, fruit grower Arthur Charles Wilkin had become so frustrated

with the damage his immaculate fruit suffered on the train journey

to market that he turned his attention instead to making jam.

Wilkin & Sons factory now supplies conserves

of many flavours to 60 countries.

But the mulberry, a fruit which, according to Greek mythology,

was turned deep red by the blood of Pyramus and Thisbe,

is the queen of the Tiptree crop and requires special attention.

What is it that you're doing to the fruit?

We're taking out the stalk in the mulberry.

-I guess you don't want that in the jam.

-No, no.

Wow. And this happens to every mulberry that goes into the jam?

Every single one that's picked, the stalk's taken out.

-That must make it a really special jam, I think.

-Yes.

From its humble Victorian beginnings,

the company's 21st century turnover has hit £35 million -

a thoroughly modern sounding revenue

married to an age-old production process.

Like any good kitchen, jam needs a bit of a stir.

The mulberries are being boiled up here.

Do you want to have a go at stirring the mulberries?

-May I take your paddle for a moment?

-Mind your hands.

-Mind my hands.

-Keep your hands as high as possible up there.

-That's a good tip.

-Backwards and forwards.

-What temperature is that boiling at?

-104.

-104?

So you don't want to get too close to that.

Think I'll let you take over, I don't want to spoil the broth.

-Thank you.

-Thank you.

What's happening here, Ian?

The fruit comes up on the conveyor system,

just fruit sugar and some pectin,

if we're going to need to make it set,

close the lid, 15 minutes later we've got some jam ready.

How long before that ends up in a jar?

That will end up in a jar in about 20 or 25 minutes from now.

Amazing.

-Come and try some mulberry jam.

-Mulberry jam, I'd love to.

A lovely scone to put it on.

Lay it on thick.

-A little clotted cream.

-Perfect.

Ideally, I won't get it all over my nose.

Mm. It's exquisite.

You know, I'm so lucky to get to sample things like this

doing the Railway Journeys.

Some people think I'm really jammy.

Fortified by that cream tea, I'll continue my journey south-west

toward this leg's final destination.

For many places in the United Kingdom,

Bradshaw's lists a telegraph station.

In those days, towns were linked by wires

down which people could send telegrams or cables.

The idea of communication without wire

would have seemed extraordinary.

But since, as the book says,

"Essex composes part of the largest connected space of level ground

"with not one lofty eminence or rocky ridge,

"this was a good place to test wireless communication."

Wireless technology has assumed a new importance in the 21st century.

Chelmsford, the county town of Essex,

benefited from the first wireless revolution

when in 1912 an Italian named Guglielmo Marconi

established the world's first purpose-built

radio equipment factory in New Street,

on the site of the town's old cricket ground.

Much of the old works has been demolished, but to find out more,

I'm meeting Chelmsford Museum science curator Dr Geoff Bowles

in one of the surviving factory buildings.

-Hello, Geoff!

-Hello, Michael.

Did Marconi actually invent wireless technology?

His fundamental breakthrough really was to erect an aerial

and an earth connection.

Whereas others were trying it without those two things

and they could make wireless waves go across the laboratory.

With an aerial and earth,

Marconi was suddenly sending it hundreds of metres.

And that's what he was after.

Frustrated by Italy's lacklustre attitude

to technological innovation, Marconi settled in Chelmsford,

beyond the area of the General Post Office monopoly

on telegraphic communication.

In 1901, the immigrant scientist

sent the first wireless signal across the Atlantic.

His high quality Morse code transmitters and receivers

were sold to maritime fleets, governments

and radio hams across the world.

And, in 1920, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist

achieved another communication milestone -

a voice broadcast with edifying content by George.

One of the things they did was actually read Bradshaw's timetable

very, very slowly and clearly over the air.

A great deal more interesting than many broadcasts that we get today!

And when did we actually move to broadcasting in the fullest sense?

Really as a result of a very famous concert.

Dame Nelly Melba, the Australian prima donna,

her voice went out from the enormous 450-foot mast which had been set up

above the factory and she was heard all over the world.

And suddenly it became clear that

you could also broadcast entertainment to people.

That was a totally new idea.

The early factory studios no longer exist,

but three miles east of the city centre

at Chelmsford's Sandford Mill Museum, I'm meeting Peter Watkins

who has first-hand experience of using early Marconi equipment.

-Hello, Peter.

-Hello, Michael.

A bit of personal nostalgia for you.

-Yes. I was doing this about 55 years ago.

-You were on ships?

Yes, I joined a ship in London docks

and from there we went out to the Far East.

-You were employed by whom?

-I was employed by Marconi Marine.

I realised Marconi put equipment for radio signals onto ships,

-but they put the people on as well, did they?

-Yes, it was a package.

I imagine putting the equipment onto ships improved safety at sea.

Oh, yes. The Titanic, for instance,

would have had a range, with its transmitters,

of at least 1,000 miles.

So when they collided with the iceberg,

the radio officer would have sent a distress signal,

and without that message, many of the people who survived

just wouldn't have done.

And that was totally down to Marconi operators.

Would you like to have a go at sending some Morse?

-I would love to but I don't know the signals.

-Well, we have this here.

Oh, I see. I just follow that, do I?

-OK, what would you like me to send?

-How about Marconi?

Dash. Dash, dash is M.

Dot, dash is A.

Dot, dash, dot.

C.

Dash, dot, dash, dot. O.

-MACHINE BEEPS

-Three dashes. Very simple.

N...I've lost. N is dash, dot.

-And I. Dot, dot.

-MACHINE BEEPS

-Well done!

-A bit slow, wasn't it?

-THEY LAUGH

Some industries that I've seen on this journey

are as old as the Romans, like oyster dredging,

but others, like lawn mowers and wireless,

required Victorian breakthroughs in technology.

John Mechi and Guillermo Marconi showed that people

with foreign-sounding names could make useful British citizens.

But then Michael Portillo would say that, wouldn't he?

On the next leg, I'll try my hand at lowering a massive container

onto a freight train.

Now, the moment of truth.

Discover the work of a renowned Victorian philanthropist.

Each of the images has a before and after photograph.

'And ask myself who the Dickens are these characters?'

No doubt about who you are,

because you've got the iron on your leg and the rag around your head.

You're the convict, Magwitch, from Great Expectations, aren't you?