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In 1840, one man transformed travel in Britain. | 0:00:05 | 0:00:09 | |
His name was George Bradshaw, | 0:00:09 | 0:00:11 | |
and his railway guides inspired the Victorians | 0:00:11 | 0:00:14 | |
to take to the tracks. | 0:00:14 | 0:00:16 | |
Stop by stop, he told them where to go, what to see, and where to stay. | 0:00:16 | 0:00:23 | |
And now, 170 years later, I'm aboard for a series of rail adventures | 0:00:23 | 0:00:28 | |
across the United Kingdom to see what of Bradshaw's Britain remains. | 0:00:28 | 0:00:33 | |
I'm now on the last leg of a journey that began | 0:00:53 | 0:00:56 | |
in a Victorian Manchester slum | 0:00:56 | 0:00:58 | |
and will end at a stately home. | 0:00:58 | 0:01:00 | |
Today, I'll find out about a duke who changed his garden, | 0:01:00 | 0:01:04 | |
and about the son of an illiterate collier worker | 0:01:04 | 0:01:07 | |
who changed the world. | 0:01:07 | 0:01:09 | |
On this last leg, I'm given a Victorian music lesson. | 0:01:11 | 0:01:15 | |
EUPHONIUM SQUEAKS | 0:01:15 | 0:01:18 | |
LOUD NOTE SOUNDS | 0:01:20 | 0:01:22 | |
Wow! | 0:01:22 | 0:01:23 | |
I learn of a watery tragedy in the Peak District. | 0:01:25 | 0:01:29 | |
The final death toll was about 81, of whom half were children. | 0:01:29 | 0:01:34 | |
And I make a splash in Derbyshire. | 0:01:34 | 0:01:37 | |
Whoa! | 0:01:37 | 0:01:39 | |
I never produced as big an impact as that! | 0:01:39 | 0:01:41 | |
My journey began in Manchester, headed west to Merseyside, | 0:01:51 | 0:01:56 | |
felt the sea breeze in Southport, | 0:01:56 | 0:01:59 | |
crossed Lancashire towards Bradford and Huddersfield, | 0:01:59 | 0:02:02 | |
and will finally head to steely south Yorkshire | 0:02:02 | 0:02:06 | |
to end in Derbyshire, | 0:02:06 | 0:02:08 | |
where the father of the railway, George Stephenson, is buried. | 0:02:08 | 0:02:11 | |
Today's leg tunes into Honley, surges into Holmfirth, | 0:02:13 | 0:02:18 | |
takes a break in Sheffield, | 0:02:18 | 0:02:20 | |
and ends in the elegant surrounds of Chesterfield. | 0:02:20 | 0:02:23 | |
My first stop will be Honley. | 0:02:33 | 0:02:35 | |
Bradshaw's tells me, "This place is the centre of the woollen trade | 0:02:35 | 0:02:39 | |
"and has a population of 4626." | 0:02:39 | 0:02:42 | |
Such wool towns had a strong sense of community, | 0:02:43 | 0:02:46 | |
and such communities make music. | 0:02:46 | 0:02:49 | |
To reach the musical mill town of Honley, | 0:02:51 | 0:02:54 | |
my train crosses the magnificent Victorian Lockwood Viaduct. | 0:02:54 | 0:02:58 | |
The houses in Honley cluster on the slopes of the Holme River Valley, | 0:03:09 | 0:03:13 | |
peaking up above each other, facing each other across narrow alleyways, | 0:03:13 | 0:03:18 | |
the washing spread across the street. | 0:03:18 | 0:03:20 | |
You get the impression of a wool community | 0:03:20 | 0:03:22 | |
set apart by its geography and closely knit. | 0:03:22 | 0:03:25 | |
The brass bands of such small towns | 0:03:26 | 0:03:29 | |
are a powerful metaphor for the harmonious communities | 0:03:29 | 0:03:32 | |
that grew up in response to industrialisation. | 0:03:32 | 0:03:35 | |
The invention of the piston valve made the notes on brass instruments | 0:03:35 | 0:03:38 | |
more uniform and easier to play, | 0:03:38 | 0:03:41 | |
and mass production made them more affordable. | 0:03:41 | 0:03:43 | |
By 1860, there were over 750 brass bands in England. | 0:03:43 | 0:03:48 | |
Often sponsored by a local employer, | 0:03:48 | 0:03:50 | |
they were attached to collieries, foundries and textile mills. | 0:03:50 | 0:03:54 | |
Places like Honley still have them. | 0:03:54 | 0:03:56 | |
Peter Marshall is a local historian. | 0:03:56 | 0:03:59 | |
-Peter, hello. -Good morning, welcome. -What a lovely village. | 0:03:59 | 0:04:02 | |
Thank you. It is. We like it very much. | 0:04:02 | 0:04:04 | |
How did bands get going in villages like Honley? | 0:04:04 | 0:04:08 | |
People needed to find a way of entertaining themselves | 0:04:08 | 0:04:10 | |
in the few hours that they had when they weren't working in the mills | 0:04:10 | 0:04:13 | |
or weaving and spinning. | 0:04:13 | 0:04:15 | |
What was the music for, as it were? | 0:04:15 | 0:04:17 | |
Methodism was quite strong in this valley. | 0:04:17 | 0:04:19 | |
John Wesley preached here in the 1780s, | 0:04:19 | 0:04:22 | |
and they needed music to accompany themselves, | 0:04:22 | 0:04:25 | |
both in the chapels and outside, because they had famous sings | 0:04:25 | 0:04:29 | |
where they would sing in the open air - | 0:04:29 | 0:04:31 | |
Easter time, Whitsunday and so forth. | 0:04:31 | 0:04:33 | |
And the band playing became quite competitive, didn't it? | 0:04:33 | 0:04:36 | |
Yes, it did. Honley was able to travel by train | 0:04:36 | 0:04:39 | |
to a number of the competitions across the North, | 0:04:39 | 0:04:42 | |
and including the British Open Championship | 0:04:42 | 0:04:44 | |
which was held in Belle Vue in Manchester, | 0:04:44 | 0:04:46 | |
and in 1884 they became the British champions. | 0:04:46 | 0:04:50 | |
Hello, Honley Band. How are you all? | 0:05:02 | 0:05:05 | |
-Who's been with the band the longest? -I have. | 0:05:05 | 0:05:07 | |
When did you join the band? | 0:05:07 | 0:05:09 | |
1975. They turned me down in 1952. | 0:05:09 | 0:05:12 | |
Being a female, they said they'd only got big instruments like this one, | 0:05:12 | 0:05:16 | |
and that was no good for a girl. | 0:05:16 | 0:05:18 | |
-So, did it take them 23 years to change their minds? -Yeah. -Wow. | 0:05:18 | 0:05:22 | |
You, sir, at the back, how long have you been in the band? | 0:05:22 | 0:05:25 | |
I have been in the band two years. | 0:05:25 | 0:05:27 | |
-And what's your instrument? -The drums. | 0:05:27 | 0:05:30 | |
I kind of guessed that! Give me a twirl. | 0:05:30 | 0:05:33 | |
You've been playing for longer than two years, haven't you? | 0:05:36 | 0:05:39 | |
I've been playing for five years. | 0:05:39 | 0:05:40 | |
And, you sir, you're in plain clothes, | 0:05:40 | 0:05:43 | |
but are you an old bandsman? | 0:05:43 | 0:05:46 | |
Yes, I've been involved with this band for 60 years. | 0:05:46 | 0:05:51 | |
-60 years. Were you born here in Honley? -Yes, I was. | 0:05:51 | 0:05:54 | |
-What made you join the band? -A man called Arnold Booth, | 0:05:54 | 0:05:56 | |
he said, "Would you like to join?" | 0:05:56 | 0:05:58 | |
And he said those magic words that make it difficult | 0:05:58 | 0:06:02 | |
for a Yorkshire lad to refuse. | 0:06:02 | 0:06:05 | |
He said, "And it will all be free." | 0:06:05 | 0:06:08 | |
MICHAEL LAUGHS | 0:06:08 | 0:06:10 | |
What could I do? | 0:06:10 | 0:06:11 | |
Can I tell you about a memory? | 0:06:11 | 0:06:14 | |
And I think it tells you about maybe the dedication to banding. | 0:06:14 | 0:06:17 | |
On 18th May 1959, I got married. | 0:06:17 | 0:06:22 | |
It was Whit Monday, | 0:06:23 | 0:06:24 | |
the busiest day of the year in the brass band calendar | 0:06:24 | 0:06:28 | |
and after the ceremony we went to my new wife's mother | 0:06:28 | 0:06:33 | |
and then I said goodbye to the guests, and, along with the best man | 0:06:33 | 0:06:36 | |
and the groomsmen, we went and joined our brass band colleagues. | 0:06:36 | 0:06:42 | |
I think she made a decision that day that it was, | 0:06:42 | 0:06:45 | |
"If you can't beat them, join them," | 0:06:45 | 0:06:47 | |
and she's been a brass band enthusiast ever since. | 0:06:47 | 0:06:50 | |
Now, if I were to play, what would be the instrument that would, | 0:06:51 | 0:06:55 | |
I don't know, suit me? | 0:06:55 | 0:06:56 | |
To suit you? Well, I think a big lad like you would suit a euphonium. | 0:06:56 | 0:07:02 | |
That fits you like a glove. | 0:07:02 | 0:07:05 | |
Now, then, doesn't he look smart, eh? | 0:07:05 | 0:07:08 | |
-Do I look the part? -Yeah! | 0:07:08 | 0:07:10 | |
Don't think I'm going to sound it, somehow! Right. | 0:07:10 | 0:07:13 | |
To play on the instrument, you need to vibrate air, | 0:07:13 | 0:07:18 | |
cos that's what makes sound. | 0:07:18 | 0:07:20 | |
And the best way to do that is to buzz. | 0:07:20 | 0:07:22 | |
THEY BUZZ | 0:07:22 | 0:07:25 | |
That's right. And, at the same time, press on your tummy, | 0:07:25 | 0:07:29 | |
make your tummy hard. | 0:07:29 | 0:07:30 | |
EUPHONIUM SQUEAKS | 0:07:32 | 0:07:35 | |
EUPHONIUM SOUNDS LOUDER | 0:07:35 | 0:07:38 | |
Wow! | 0:07:38 | 0:07:39 | |
I'm very sorry to have insulted your ears with that noise. | 0:07:41 | 0:07:45 | |
Can we now hear some real music, please? | 0:07:45 | 0:07:48 | |
Maestro! | 0:07:48 | 0:07:49 | |
What a glorious sound! Now I believe I'm in Yorkshire. | 0:08:10 | 0:08:13 | |
Staying in Yorkshire, I'm continuing my journey southeast | 0:08:18 | 0:08:22 | |
on a branch line towards Sheffield. | 0:08:22 | 0:08:24 | |
I'll shortly be entering the Thurstonland tunnel | 0:08:29 | 0:08:32 | |
where, reputedly, | 0:08:32 | 0:08:33 | |
a Victorian film-maker made a film called Kiss In The Tunnel. | 0:08:33 | 0:08:37 | |
In 1899, pioneer Victorian film-maker James Bamforth | 0:08:40 | 0:08:45 | |
directed The Kiss in the Tunnel, an early example of narrative editing | 0:08:45 | 0:08:49 | |
using three shots to tell the story of a furtive moment | 0:08:49 | 0:08:53 | |
of passenger passion on a train in Thurstonland tunnel. | 0:08:53 | 0:08:58 | |
No such luck for me. | 0:08:58 | 0:08:59 | |
My next stop will be Stocksmoor. | 0:09:04 | 0:09:06 | |
I am interested by this reference in Bradshaw, | 0:09:06 | 0:09:09 | |
"Holmfirth, where the Ribble and Diggle brooks join, | 0:09:09 | 0:09:12 | |
"was dreadfully ravaged in 1852 by the bursting of the Bilberry Dam." | 0:09:12 | 0:09:18 | |
Despite the general excellence of Victorian engineering, | 0:09:18 | 0:09:21 | |
there were disasters, and this one was apparently appalling. | 0:09:21 | 0:09:25 | |
Holmfirth station was closed to passengers in 1959, | 0:09:28 | 0:09:32 | |
so I shall make my own way there from Stocksmoor. | 0:09:32 | 0:09:35 | |
Now surrounded by reservoirs, | 0:09:37 | 0:09:39 | |
Holmfirth is celebrated as the location | 0:09:39 | 0:09:41 | |
for Last of The Summer Wine. | 0:09:41 | 0:09:44 | |
By contrast, in Victorian times, the village was notorious. | 0:09:44 | 0:09:48 | |
Bradshaw's remarks that the "valley is about six miles long | 0:09:49 | 0:09:53 | |
"and only 100 yards broad at the widest, | 0:09:53 | 0:09:56 | |
"and the immense volume of water set free in this narrow gutter | 0:09:56 | 0:10:00 | |
"carried away 100 lives with houses and mills and other property. | 0:10:00 | 0:10:05 | |
"The bridge was entirely destroyed, | 0:10:05 | 0:10:08 | |
"and only the bare walls of the church left." | 0:10:08 | 0:10:11 | |
And standing here seeing how the town is wedged into the crevasse, | 0:10:11 | 0:10:16 | |
I begin to imagine that horrific wall of water | 0:10:16 | 0:10:20 | |
advancing upon its people. | 0:10:20 | 0:10:22 | |
In 1852, Bilberry Dam burst | 0:10:25 | 0:10:28 | |
and an unforgiving torrent swept through Holmfirth. | 0:10:28 | 0:10:31 | |
I'm meeting local historian David Cockman at the rebuilt dam. | 0:10:33 | 0:10:37 | |
Was the Victorian Bilberry Dam in this position? | 0:10:38 | 0:10:40 | |
Near enough, I think. We are standing almost at the spot | 0:10:40 | 0:10:44 | |
where at 1am on 5th February 1852, | 0:10:44 | 0:10:49 | |
this collapsed with a pop, with a bang - | 0:10:49 | 0:10:52 | |
80 million gallons, 400,000 tonnes | 0:10:52 | 0:10:55 | |
swept down the valley towards Holmfirth. | 0:10:55 | 0:10:57 | |
Had there been an engineering failure? | 0:10:57 | 0:11:00 | |
-This was a Victorian structure, wasn't it? -Very much so, Michael. | 0:11:00 | 0:11:03 | |
Coming out of this hillside there was a spring, | 0:11:03 | 0:11:05 | |
it was described as being as big as a man's arm. | 0:11:05 | 0:11:08 | |
And the water came down, flowed down through into the valley | 0:11:08 | 0:11:11 | |
where they wanted to build the retaining wall. | 0:11:11 | 0:11:14 | |
They should have put this spring into some kind of culvert | 0:11:14 | 0:11:16 | |
or conduit leading it away. | 0:11:16 | 0:11:18 | |
But they built the dam wall on top of the flowing spring | 0:11:18 | 0:11:21 | |
and gradually, over the years, | 0:11:21 | 0:11:23 | |
this water ate away at the base of the dam, | 0:11:23 | 0:11:26 | |
weakening it all the time, | 0:11:26 | 0:11:28 | |
until it began to leak and it just gave way. | 0:11:28 | 0:11:31 | |
It was one of the most serious civilian disasters | 0:11:31 | 0:11:35 | |
of Victorian England. | 0:11:35 | 0:11:37 | |
300 feet across and 70 feet at its deepest, | 0:11:40 | 0:11:43 | |
the reservoir's 86 million gallons of water weighed 300,000 tonnes. | 0:11:43 | 0:11:49 | |
The water rushed three and a half miles down the valley, | 0:11:49 | 0:11:53 | |
reaching the village in around 15 minutes. | 0:11:53 | 0:11:56 | |
And it was going so fast that even people who ran ahead to try | 0:11:58 | 0:12:02 | |
to warn the citizens that something was about to happen, | 0:12:02 | 0:12:05 | |
they were overtaken by the water. | 0:12:05 | 0:12:07 | |
Now, in one of these houses, there lived a weaver called | 0:12:07 | 0:12:10 | |
Joseph Halliwell with his family - wife and five children. | 0:12:10 | 0:12:13 | |
The water rose in his house almost up to the second floor. | 0:12:13 | 0:12:16 | |
He managed to get up to the second floor, into his weaving room, | 0:12:16 | 0:12:19 | |
and shout for help. | 0:12:19 | 0:12:21 | |
And he was heard by his neighbours who lived above him in the top house, | 0:12:21 | 0:12:25 | |
and they hacked a hole in the floor and dragged him to safety. | 0:12:25 | 0:12:29 | |
But unfortunately, his wife and the five children were drowned. | 0:12:29 | 0:12:33 | |
-Appalling. -Yes. Up the valley, it had wrecked at least three mills, | 0:12:33 | 0:12:38 | |
and it had uprooted boilers weighing 15, 20 tonnes, | 0:12:38 | 0:12:41 | |
and the whole centre of Holmfirth was hit by a battering ram. | 0:12:41 | 0:12:44 | |
The final death toll was about 81, of whom half were children. | 0:12:44 | 0:12:50 | |
Most, I think, were caught asleep in their beds | 0:12:50 | 0:12:52 | |
and drowned in their sleep. | 0:12:52 | 0:12:53 | |
Was there Victorian ghoulishness? | 0:12:55 | 0:12:58 | |
I think so. On the Sunday after the flood, | 0:12:58 | 0:13:00 | |
the railway reported that 16,000 tickets were collected | 0:13:00 | 0:13:05 | |
at Holmfirth station. | 0:13:05 | 0:13:06 | |
But, in the fortnight or so after, the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway | 0:13:06 | 0:13:10 | |
reported that they were selling 9,000 tickets a day | 0:13:10 | 0:13:13 | |
for people to come to Holmfirth. | 0:13:13 | 0:13:15 | |
I am sure it was just disaster tourism, basically. | 0:13:15 | 0:13:18 | |
Ghoulishness to come and walk through the rubble here. | 0:13:18 | 0:13:20 | |
I can't think what else it would be. | 0:13:20 | 0:13:22 | |
I'm heading back to Stocksmoor to travel to Sheffield, | 0:13:28 | 0:13:31 | |
where I shall break my journey. | 0:13:31 | 0:13:32 | |
Looking forward to the day ahead, | 0:13:45 | 0:13:47 | |
I'm taking an East Midlands service south. | 0:13:47 | 0:13:50 | |
My next stop will be Chesterfield, which, like so many places, | 0:13:54 | 0:13:57 | |
is associated by Bradshaw's with coal. | 0:13:57 | 0:14:00 | |
And there, I want to look at the career of one of my heroes, | 0:14:00 | 0:14:04 | |
a man who did so much to convert coal to steam to locomotion | 0:14:04 | 0:14:08 | |
and who made all of this possible. | 0:14:08 | 0:14:11 | |
Mr George Stephenson. | 0:14:11 | 0:14:13 | |
George Stephenson, perfector of locomotives, | 0:14:26 | 0:14:30 | |
builder of railways, whose inventions included | 0:14:30 | 0:14:33 | |
new sorts of rail and bridge and a miner's lamp. | 0:14:33 | 0:14:36 | |
Endlessly inventive, but illiterate until he was 18. | 0:14:36 | 0:14:41 | |
A man who dragged himself up by his bootstraps, the sort that I admire. | 0:14:41 | 0:14:45 | |
Having been born to a poor family near Newcastle upon Tyne, | 0:14:48 | 0:14:52 | |
George Stephenson came to Chesterfield | 0:14:52 | 0:14:55 | |
for the last ten years of his life. | 0:14:55 | 0:14:57 | |
Passionate about machines, back in 1804, | 0:14:58 | 0:15:01 | |
George had walked to Scotland in order to work with steam engines. | 0:15:01 | 0:15:06 | |
A decade later, Stephenson's locomotive, | 0:15:07 | 0:15:10 | |
the Blucher, hauled coal wagons along a wagon way and in 1825, | 0:15:10 | 0:15:15 | |
Stephenson's locomotion Number 1, seen here on its centenary, | 0:15:15 | 0:15:19 | |
ran between Stockton and Darlington, the first public railway on earth. | 0:15:19 | 0:15:24 | |
To learn more of this hero, | 0:15:25 | 0:15:28 | |
I'm visiting Chesterfield Borough Council Museum, | 0:15:28 | 0:15:31 | |
adjacent to the town's famous crooked spire, | 0:15:31 | 0:15:34 | |
to meet curator Anne-Marie Knowles by a Stephenson family portrait. | 0:15:34 | 0:15:39 | |
There's George, centre stage in this rather strange looking outfit, | 0:15:42 | 0:15:47 | |
which is what he used to wear as a younger man. | 0:15:47 | 0:15:50 | |
We're used to seeing George in the frock coat, | 0:15:50 | 0:15:52 | |
looking very Victorian and grand. | 0:15:52 | 0:15:54 | |
But here he is as a much humbler man | 0:15:54 | 0:15:57 | |
when he was the engine-wright at Killingworth colliery. | 0:15:57 | 0:16:01 | |
So this is a picture that says quite a lot about George's life. | 0:16:01 | 0:16:06 | |
The lady who's standing at the back with the churn on her head, | 0:16:06 | 0:16:10 | |
this is Mabel Carr, who was George's mother. | 0:16:10 | 0:16:14 | |
And standing next to her is her husband, George's father. | 0:16:14 | 0:16:17 | |
Then we've got George's first wife with a child, | 0:16:17 | 0:16:21 | |
who actually died in infancy. | 0:16:21 | 0:16:24 | |
Then we have George's second wife, | 0:16:24 | 0:16:26 | |
who is seated here in front of George. | 0:16:26 | 0:16:28 | |
And is George clutching the miner's lamp he invented? | 0:16:28 | 0:16:32 | |
He most certainly is. | 0:16:32 | 0:16:33 | |
Now, there was some controversy about this, wasn't there, | 0:16:33 | 0:16:36 | |
because he invented a miner's safety lamp and Davy invented one, | 0:16:36 | 0:16:40 | |
and there was a bit of argy-bargy | 0:16:40 | 0:16:42 | |
about whether there'd been some piracy of copyright, wasn't there? | 0:16:42 | 0:16:47 | |
Yes, certainly, and Davy actually accused George Stephenson | 0:16:47 | 0:16:51 | |
of stealing the idea from him. | 0:16:51 | 0:16:54 | |
And Stephenson went to a lot of trouble to prove | 0:16:54 | 0:16:57 | |
that he'd actually developed the miners' lamp prior to Davy. | 0:16:57 | 0:17:01 | |
I've heard it said that miners in the North East | 0:17:01 | 0:17:03 | |
used the George Stephenson miners' lamp, | 0:17:03 | 0:17:05 | |
miners elsewhere tended to use the Davy lamp? | 0:17:05 | 0:17:08 | |
-That's right. -I've even heard it said | 0:17:08 | 0:17:10 | |
that is why people in the North East are called Geordies, | 0:17:10 | 0:17:12 | |
I don't know whether that's true? | 0:17:12 | 0:17:14 | |
Well, I don't think anybody is very sure about that, | 0:17:14 | 0:17:17 | |
but certainly the lamp was referred to as the Geordie lamp | 0:17:17 | 0:17:20 | |
because it was made by Geordie, George. | 0:17:20 | 0:17:23 | |
One of George's lesser-known inventions | 0:17:25 | 0:17:28 | |
grew from his passion for gardening. | 0:17:28 | 0:17:30 | |
OK, so here it is, one of the famous cucumber straightening tubes | 0:17:30 | 0:17:33 | |
that was developed by George Stephenson. | 0:17:33 | 0:17:36 | |
Well...that looks like a fairly simple glass tube, | 0:17:39 | 0:17:43 | |
what's so special about it? | 0:17:43 | 0:17:46 | |
Well, when the fruit is very small | 0:17:46 | 0:17:47 | |
it is inserted at this end of the tube | 0:17:47 | 0:17:49 | |
and then it grows straight down the tube, | 0:17:49 | 0:17:52 | |
rather than curling as it grows, because this was always the problem | 0:17:52 | 0:17:55 | |
before modern hybrids, that cucumbers have this tendency to curl. | 0:17:55 | 0:17:59 | |
So that's how he did it. | 0:17:59 | 0:18:01 | |
It actually became a standard piece of kit | 0:18:01 | 0:18:03 | |
for all Victorian kitchen gardeners. | 0:18:03 | 0:18:06 | |
Since George Stephenson took such care to straighten cucumbers, | 0:18:06 | 0:18:09 | |
I wonder why he didn't apply his attention | 0:18:09 | 0:18:12 | |
to the twisted spire of Chesterfield? | 0:18:12 | 0:18:14 | |
That's a very good question, I have absolutely no idea. | 0:18:14 | 0:18:17 | |
Anne-Marie has brought me | 0:18:19 | 0:18:20 | |
to Chesterfield's Holy Trinity Church, | 0:18:20 | 0:18:23 | |
where George Stephenson is buried. | 0:18:23 | 0:18:25 | |
-So no Westminster Abbey for George Stephenson? -No. | 0:18:26 | 0:18:29 | |
Why was he buried in this church, particularly? | 0:18:29 | 0:18:32 | |
Holy Trinity was the church that his wife attended | 0:18:32 | 0:18:35 | |
and she too is buried here. | 0:18:35 | 0:18:37 | |
Is that the only memorial to George Stephenson in this church? | 0:18:37 | 0:18:40 | |
No, actually, it isn't. | 0:18:40 | 0:18:42 | |
If you look above, you can see that there's a rather magnificent | 0:18:42 | 0:18:45 | |
stained glass window which was donated to the church | 0:18:45 | 0:18:48 | |
by Robert Stephenson in memory of his father. | 0:18:48 | 0:18:51 | |
And if you look carefully, | 0:18:51 | 0:18:53 | |
you can see the "S" for Stephenson quite clearly. | 0:18:53 | 0:18:56 | |
It's very touching that it was given by the son. | 0:18:56 | 0:19:00 | |
Robert and George Stephenson are comparable geniuses, | 0:19:00 | 0:19:03 | |
but George Stephenson began without the benefit of any education. | 0:19:03 | 0:19:07 | |
Bradshaw's devotes a lot of space to Chatsworth, which it describes as | 0:19:12 | 0:19:16 | |
"the splendid seat of the Duke of Devonshire, ten miles from Chesterfield station." | 0:19:16 | 0:19:22 | |
Since there's no station closer, | 0:19:22 | 0:19:25 | |
for once, I'm going to have to take a taxi. | 0:19:25 | 0:19:27 | |
Having begun my journey investigating the squalid existence | 0:19:30 | 0:19:33 | |
of Manchester's 19th-century mill workers, | 0:19:33 | 0:19:36 | |
I'm concluding it at the other end of the Victorian social spectrum. | 0:19:36 | 0:19:41 | |
Home to the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, | 0:19:43 | 0:19:46 | |
Chatsworth has been passed down through 16 generations | 0:19:46 | 0:19:50 | |
of the Cavendish family. | 0:19:50 | 0:19:52 | |
Its architecture and collection of art have developed over 500 years. | 0:19:52 | 0:19:57 | |
Bradshaw's has led me to this point, | 0:19:58 | 0:20:01 | |
says "The best view of the house is from a point near the bridge | 0:20:01 | 0:20:05 | |
"and Queen Mary's Bower, where the old hunting tower is seen on the hill." | 0:20:05 | 0:20:12 | |
And yes, this is a fantastic vista. One of the finest houses ever built. | 0:20:12 | 0:20:18 | |
Magnificent and beautiful. | 0:20:19 | 0:20:21 | |
The first Duke completed this Baroque palace in 1707. | 0:20:24 | 0:20:29 | |
It stands in the wilds of Derbyshire | 0:20:29 | 0:20:32 | |
and glows in its warm, buff-coloured stone. | 0:20:32 | 0:20:35 | |
In the 19th century, the sixth Duke built the north wing | 0:20:35 | 0:20:39 | |
and a sculpture gallery. | 0:20:39 | 0:20:41 | |
He added priceless works | 0:20:43 | 0:20:45 | |
to the family's already glorious collection of great masters. | 0:20:45 | 0:20:48 | |
Today it's curated by Matthew Hirst. | 0:20:50 | 0:20:52 | |
-Matthew, hello. -Hello, Michael. | 0:20:54 | 0:20:56 | |
My Bradshaw's is from the middle 1860s. | 0:20:56 | 0:20:59 | |
What recent changes would there have been to the house | 0:20:59 | 0:21:02 | |
just before the guide was written? | 0:21:02 | 0:21:04 | |
Well, quite substantial changes, actually, | 0:21:04 | 0:21:07 | |
because in the 19th century, the sixth Duke of Devonshire | 0:21:07 | 0:21:10 | |
and the Bachelor Duke, as we call him, | 0:21:10 | 0:21:14 | |
kept the Baroque house, | 0:21:14 | 0:21:15 | |
but built an enormous wing to the north, really for two reasons. | 0:21:15 | 0:21:19 | |
He was a great art collector and a great bibliophile, | 0:21:19 | 0:21:22 | |
so he needed space for his ever-growing library, | 0:21:22 | 0:21:26 | |
his new collection of sculpture. | 0:21:26 | 0:21:28 | |
He was a man of many different interests | 0:21:28 | 0:21:31 | |
and was very much at the apex of the social scene at the time. | 0:21:31 | 0:21:35 | |
He entertained Princess Victoria | 0:21:35 | 0:21:38 | |
in 1832 and then she came back again in 1846. | 0:21:38 | 0:21:42 | |
So it was a constant scene of high society and lavish entertaining. | 0:21:42 | 0:21:47 | |
Bradshaw's tells me | 0:21:47 | 0:21:49 | |
"The house may be seen daily from 11 to 5. | 0:21:49 | 0:21:52 | |
"Parties are let in by turns. Apply early if you want to save time." | 0:21:52 | 0:21:57 | |
So, apparently even by the middle 19th century, | 0:21:57 | 0:22:00 | |
this was a magnet for tourists? | 0:22:00 | 0:22:02 | |
Definitely. With the arrival of the railways, | 0:22:02 | 0:22:05 | |
that was made considerably easier. | 0:22:05 | 0:22:07 | |
By 1849 in the summer | 0:22:07 | 0:22:09 | |
we were getting 80,000 visitors a year, | 0:22:09 | 0:22:12 | |
which is staggering when you think about what that means | 0:22:12 | 0:22:16 | |
in the 19th century. | 0:22:16 | 0:22:18 | |
Was this superb dining room created by the sixth Duke? | 0:22:31 | 0:22:34 | |
It was, this was finished in 1832, | 0:22:34 | 0:22:37 | |
just in time for Princess Victoria's visit, | 0:22:37 | 0:22:41 | |
and she dined at this table for the first time in adult company. | 0:22:41 | 0:22:46 | |
And this is the room the sixth Duke referred to | 0:22:46 | 0:22:48 | |
as being like dining in a great treasure chest. | 0:22:48 | 0:22:51 | |
I think you can see that with the vaults, | 0:22:51 | 0:22:54 | |
as if it were about to be opened like a lid. | 0:22:54 | 0:22:57 | |
Magnificent barrel ceiling. | 0:22:57 | 0:22:58 | |
As well as portraits by old masters like Thomas Gainsborough, | 0:23:01 | 0:23:05 | |
Chatsworth's art collection includes the exceptional sculpture gallery, | 0:23:05 | 0:23:10 | |
augmented by the sixth Duke's acquisition of pieces | 0:23:10 | 0:23:13 | |
by the 19th century Venetian sculpture, Antonio Canova. | 0:23:13 | 0:23:17 | |
This sculpture gallery really is beautiful, isn't it? Bradshaw's says | 0:23:20 | 0:23:24 | |
"It's extremely rich in original works, cast busts, marble tables." | 0:23:24 | 0:23:28 | |
"Amongst others are Napoleon's mother, Madame Mere, as she was called, | 0:23:28 | 0:23:32 | |
"and Canova's large bust of Napoleon." | 0:23:32 | 0:23:35 | |
We know the sixth Duke was very passionate about Canova's work, | 0:23:35 | 0:23:39 | |
so much so that the giant bust of Napoleon, | 0:23:39 | 0:23:43 | |
when Candover died, the sixth Duke was so desperate to acquire it | 0:23:43 | 0:23:47 | |
that he immediately started to organise its acquisition. | 0:23:47 | 0:23:51 | |
Napoleon looking...almost like a Roman emperor. | 0:23:51 | 0:23:54 | |
The sixth Duke also played close attention | 0:23:57 | 0:24:00 | |
to the grounds of the house. | 0:24:00 | 0:24:01 | |
In 1826, the work of a young gardener near his property in Chiswick | 0:24:01 | 0:24:06 | |
impressed the Duke of Devonshire | 0:24:06 | 0:24:08 | |
and he appointed Joseph Paxton head gardener at Chatsworth | 0:24:08 | 0:24:12 | |
at the age of 23. | 0:24:12 | 0:24:13 | |
As soon as you set foot outside Chatsworth, it becomes clear | 0:24:16 | 0:24:19 | |
that the house is one of two wonders, | 0:24:19 | 0:24:21 | |
the other being the gardens. | 0:24:21 | 0:24:23 | |
Bradshaw's tells me of the work of Sir Joseph Paxton, | 0:24:23 | 0:24:26 | |
the late duke's celebrated gardener. | 0:24:26 | 0:24:29 | |
And I suspect these wonderful glasshouses | 0:24:29 | 0:24:32 | |
are just part of his work. | 0:24:32 | 0:24:33 | |
The present incumbent of Paxton's post | 0:24:36 | 0:24:38 | |
is head of gardens and landscape, Steve Porter. | 0:24:38 | 0:24:42 | |
What kind of man was Joseph Paxton? | 0:24:42 | 0:24:44 | |
He was an amazing guy, amazingly driven. | 0:24:44 | 0:24:47 | |
The story of his first day here just describes it perfectly. | 0:24:47 | 0:24:49 | |
He caught the coach from London to Chesterfield, arriving at 4.30am. | 0:24:49 | 0:24:53 | |
He then walked the 12 miles to Chatsworth, | 0:24:53 | 0:24:55 | |
climbing over the garden wall when he arrived | 0:24:55 | 0:24:57 | |
to be able to look round the garden | 0:24:57 | 0:24:59 | |
and see exactly what he was taking on | 0:24:59 | 0:25:00 | |
before coming back to the main house | 0:25:00 | 0:25:02 | |
to meet the housekeeper and have breakfast with the housekeeper. | 0:25:02 | 0:25:05 | |
He also met the housekeeper's niece, who he fell in love with | 0:25:05 | 0:25:08 | |
and she fell in love with him and they got married a year later. | 0:25:08 | 0:25:11 | |
That is an amazing story. | 0:25:11 | 0:25:13 | |
So, was the transformation of the garden as thorough | 0:25:13 | 0:25:16 | |
as the transformation of the house under the sixth Duke? | 0:25:16 | 0:25:18 | |
Yeah, absolutely. Paxton came along | 0:25:18 | 0:25:20 | |
and really laid out the garden as you see it today, | 0:25:20 | 0:25:22 | |
so most of the paths, most of the features, | 0:25:22 | 0:25:24 | |
certainly the glasshouses are all from that period. | 0:25:24 | 0:25:26 | |
So, a very important time for the garden. | 0:25:26 | 0:25:29 | |
Paxton achieved fame when his grand Crystal Palace in London's Hyde Park | 0:25:30 | 0:25:35 | |
housed the Great Exhibition of 1851. | 0:25:35 | 0:25:38 | |
It took 2000 men eight months | 0:25:38 | 0:25:40 | |
to build the innovative design in glass and cast iron. | 0:25:40 | 0:25:44 | |
And it was based upon his grand conservatory at Chatsworth. | 0:25:44 | 0:25:48 | |
So, Steve, it was here that the grand conservatory stood. | 0:25:48 | 0:25:51 | |
Bradshaw's says "It was 300 foot long and 65 foot high." | 0:25:51 | 0:25:54 | |
-It must have been astonishing? -Absolutely. | 0:25:54 | 0:25:57 | |
It was the biggest freestanding glasshouse in the world at the time | 0:25:57 | 0:26:00 | |
when it was built in 1836, | 0:26:00 | 0:26:01 | |
so before the Palm House at Kew and those sort of buildings. | 0:26:01 | 0:26:04 | |
He'd been playing with smaller glass houses, | 0:26:04 | 0:26:06 | |
trying out different systems of glazing and construction, | 0:26:06 | 0:26:08 | |
and designed this amazing spectacle full of exotic plants | 0:26:08 | 0:26:11 | |
most people wouldn't have seen before. | 0:26:11 | 0:26:13 | |
-I can't help noticing it's not here any more? -Sadly not. | 0:26:13 | 0:26:16 | |
No, during the First World War, it fell into disrepair. | 0:26:16 | 0:26:19 | |
It was a constant case of painting it as well. | 0:26:19 | 0:26:22 | |
So sadly, in 1920, it was actually blown up. | 0:26:22 | 0:26:24 | |
Leaving us with a maze. | 0:26:25 | 0:26:27 | |
Now, in a moment, you're going to need this. | 0:26:36 | 0:26:39 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:26:40 | 0:26:42 | |
What for? | 0:26:42 | 0:26:43 | |
This is the key to Paxton's greatest engineering feat at Chatsworth, | 0:26:43 | 0:26:47 | |
the Emperor Fountain. | 0:26:47 | 0:26:48 | |
Designed for a visit by Tzar Nicholas I. | 0:26:48 | 0:26:51 | |
When they turned it on in the early 1840s it went up to 296 feet high, | 0:26:51 | 0:26:55 | |
which was the tallest gravity-fed fountain in the world. | 0:26:55 | 0:26:57 | |
Unfortunately, Tsar Nicholas I never made it to Chatsworth, | 0:26:57 | 0:27:00 | |
so he never saw his fountain that they created for him. | 0:27:00 | 0:27:03 | |
I just need to locate this. | 0:27:03 | 0:27:05 | |
This is the biggest key I've ever turned. | 0:27:05 | 0:27:08 | |
Whoa! | 0:27:11 | 0:27:13 | |
For all my years in politics, | 0:27:13 | 0:27:15 | |
I never produced as big an impact as that! | 0:27:15 | 0:27:18 | |
No journey could be longer | 0:27:24 | 0:27:26 | |
than from the Victorian Manchester slum where I began | 0:27:26 | 0:27:30 | |
to the grandeur of Chatsworth, where I end. | 0:27:30 | 0:27:33 | |
Victorian society was characterised by extremes of poverty and wealth, | 0:27:33 | 0:27:37 | |
but also by social mobility. | 0:27:37 | 0:27:40 | |
The self-made man could win as much respect as a duke, | 0:27:40 | 0:27:45 | |
and there was no finer example of that than George Stephenson, | 0:27:45 | 0:27:49 | |
the Father of the Railways. | 0:27:49 | 0:27:51 | |
On my next adventure, I discover an underground warehouse | 0:27:53 | 0:27:56 | |
that once served the Empire. | 0:27:56 | 0:27:58 | |
So this was for the storage of beer, was it? | 0:27:58 | 0:28:01 | |
It's an amazing labyrinth, it goes on and on and on. | 0:28:01 | 0:28:05 | |
I hear about the millionaire eccentric | 0:28:05 | 0:28:07 | |
whose home was an exotic museum. | 0:28:07 | 0:28:09 | |
He would be seen driving around with his four zebras? | 0:28:09 | 0:28:12 | |
Both here and also Piccadilly in London. | 0:28:12 | 0:28:15 | |
And I visit the line where the railway's age of innocence ended. | 0:28:15 | 0:28:20 | |
There's quite a big gang, 15 guys, and they formed a human chain | 0:28:20 | 0:28:23 | |
down this embankment and passed the mailbag stand. | 0:28:23 | 0:28:26 | |
2.6 million in 120 mailbags. | 0:28:26 | 0:28:28 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:28:31 | 0:28:34 |