0:00:05 > 0:00:10In 1840, one man transformed travel in Britain.
0:00:10 > 0:00:12His name was George Bradshaw
0:00:12 > 0:00:16and his railway guides inspired the Victorians to take to the tracks.
0:00:17 > 0:00:20Stop by stop, he told them where to go,
0:00:20 > 0:00:23what to see and where to stay.
0:00:24 > 0:00:29and now, 170 years later, I'm aboard for a series of rail adventures
0:00:29 > 0:00:31across the United Kingdom
0:00:31 > 0:00:34to see what of Bradshaw's Britain remains.
0:00:54 > 0:00:591837 is a year that lives in British history.
0:00:59 > 0:01:03In that June, King William IV died and his niece,
0:01:03 > 0:01:05Victoria, became queen,
0:01:05 > 0:01:07at barely 18 years of age.
0:01:07 > 0:01:09In the following month,
0:01:09 > 0:01:13there opened the first section of a hugely ambitious railway
0:01:13 > 0:01:17designed and built by the great engineer Robert Stephenson,
0:01:17 > 0:01:22providing a high-speed link between London and Birmingham,
0:01:22 > 0:01:24two of the greatest cities on the globe.
0:01:24 > 0:01:28I'm beginning my journey through the heart of England at the London
0:01:28 > 0:01:33terminus designed by Stephenson, with suitable splendour - Euston.
0:01:39 > 0:01:43I'm starting on the urban commuter lines of London.
0:01:43 > 0:01:45Then heading north on the London Midland line
0:01:45 > 0:01:50on to the manufacturing heartlands of Northamptonshire and Warwickshire.
0:01:50 > 0:01:52After making stops in the East Midlands,
0:01:52 > 0:01:55my journey will conclude in Yorkshire.
0:01:55 > 0:02:01Today, I'll travel under and over ground to the outskirts of the metropolis at Harrow,
0:02:01 > 0:02:05before moving on to Tring and the Buckinghamshire town of Cheddington.
0:02:05 > 0:02:07On the first leg of this adventure,
0:02:07 > 0:02:11I discover an underground warehouse which once served the Empire.
0:02:11 > 0:02:14So this was for the storage of beer, was it?
0:02:14 > 0:02:18It's an amazing labyrinth, isn't it? It goes on and on and on.
0:02:18 > 0:02:23I hear the tale of a millionaire eccentric who turned his home into an exotic museum.
0:02:23 > 0:02:26He would be seen driving around with his four zebras?
0:02:26 > 0:02:30Both here and also in Piccadilly in London.
0:02:30 > 0:02:33And I travel to a point on the line that witnessed an abrupt end
0:02:33 > 0:02:36to the railway's age of innocence.
0:02:36 > 0:02:37There was quite a big gang.
0:02:37 > 0:02:40There's 15 guys, and they formed a human chain down this abutment
0:02:40 > 0:02:44and passed the mailbags down. 2.6 million in 120 mail bags.
0:02:56 > 0:02:59Sadly, arriving at Euston, Bradshaw's is less than
0:02:59 > 0:03:01usually reliable.
0:03:01 > 0:03:04"Passing under the magnificent Doric entrance,
0:03:04 > 0:03:08"which forms so grand a feature of the metropolitan terminus of this
0:03:08 > 0:03:14"railway, the huge pile of building at once arrests the eye.
0:03:14 > 0:03:19"The style of architecture is Roman and has been treated with great skill."
0:03:20 > 0:03:26What happened to all that classical grandeur, that it should come to this?
0:03:33 > 0:03:38Stephenson's grand Euston opened in 1837 with the first
0:03:38 > 0:03:40inter-city trains running all the way to Birmingham.
0:03:40 > 0:03:44To find out what happened to all that splendour, I'm meeting up
0:03:44 > 0:03:46with architectural historian Robert Hradsky
0:03:46 > 0:03:50to discover more about the station's heritage.
0:03:50 > 0:03:53- Robert, Hello.- Hi.- I get the impression from Bradshaw's that
0:03:53 > 0:03:57Euston Station when it opened was extraordinarily grand.
0:03:57 > 0:04:00What would the early Victorian railway traveller have seen here?
0:04:00 > 0:04:04As you arrived, you would have seen this immense stone arch,
0:04:04 > 0:04:06the Euston Arch.
0:04:06 > 0:04:10The Euston Arch was the very first great monument of the railway age.
0:04:10 > 0:04:14So what happened to it all, this wonderful arch? Where's it gone?
0:04:14 > 0:04:17It was demolished in the 1960s.
0:04:17 > 0:04:22It wasn't just the arch that was lost. There was a great complex.
0:04:22 > 0:04:24there was a wonderful
0:04:24 > 0:04:28ticket office, a great hall, there was a shareholders' meeting room.
0:04:28 > 0:04:31In fact, there was a great campaign to save the arch.
0:04:31 > 0:04:35It was spearheaded by John Betjeman and Nikolaus Pevsner.
0:04:35 > 0:04:39They met the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan. He didn't care.
0:04:39 > 0:04:42- Today, people would be aghast.- Yes.
0:04:42 > 0:04:45But at the time, in the 1960s,
0:04:45 > 0:04:49the attitude towards 19th century architecture was quite different.
0:04:49 > 0:04:50Yes.
0:04:50 > 0:04:52I don't remember the old Euston,
0:04:52 > 0:04:55but I do remember when the new Euston opened and I'm afraid
0:04:55 > 0:04:57I was one of the philistines, you know I thought this was
0:04:57 > 0:05:02fantastic because this was like an air terminal, this was the modern world.
0:05:02 > 0:05:08And I do now feel as though I was, really, a cultural vandal.
0:05:08 > 0:05:11And it was total architectural desecration.
0:05:11 > 0:05:15Some of the stone ended up in a demolition worker's house
0:05:15 > 0:05:19while most of the rest went to fill a hole at the bottom of a London canal.
0:05:21 > 0:05:25In 1994, divers went down into the Prescott Channel
0:05:25 > 0:05:29near the River Lea - the final resting place for the arch.
0:05:32 > 0:05:36The Trust now has great plans to rebuild the arch at Euston
0:05:36 > 0:05:39and to reinstate the station's lost grandeur,
0:05:39 > 0:05:42something which shows proper respect for the engineer
0:05:42 > 0:05:45of the London to Birmingham line, Robert Stephenson.
0:05:59 > 0:06:03Nowadays, the journey from Euston to Camden takes about four minutes
0:06:03 > 0:06:06on the Northern Line of the London Underground.
0:06:06 > 0:06:09But in the early days of the London to Birmingham Railway,
0:06:09 > 0:06:13this short section represented an enormous challenge,
0:06:13 > 0:06:18which was met by a typically radical Victorian engineering solution.
0:06:21 > 0:06:24Camden Town is on a slight hill above Euston.
0:06:24 > 0:06:27And for Stephenson's early locomotives,
0:06:27 > 0:06:29the incline proved too steep.
0:06:29 > 0:06:33So he came up with an ingenious plan - a winding engine to
0:06:33 > 0:06:39pull trains up the incline by means of a 3,700 metre-long endless rope.
0:06:39 > 0:06:44It was powered by two 60-horsepower steam engines.
0:06:44 > 0:06:45In their day,
0:06:45 > 0:06:49the winding engine towers became something of a tourist attraction.
0:06:49 > 0:06:50But within seven years,
0:06:50 > 0:06:52the winding engine was redundant
0:06:52 > 0:06:57because of advances in locomotive technology and a tighter timetable.
0:06:57 > 0:07:01Bradshaw's tells me that "the internal economy of a railway,
0:07:01 > 0:07:03"and the activity, regularity,
0:07:03 > 0:07:07"and order with which these great undertakings are conducted,
0:07:07 > 0:07:12"may be gathered from a visit to the Camden Town Goods Station."
0:07:12 > 0:07:13Extraordinary to believe that
0:07:13 > 0:07:18while Euston was the passenger terminus, the meeting point
0:07:18 > 0:07:23of the goods and services of the British Empire was here at Camden.
0:07:23 > 0:07:25I have to know more.
0:07:29 > 0:07:31Looking at today's sprawling warren of streets,
0:07:31 > 0:07:34it's hard to believe that Camden Town as we know it
0:07:34 > 0:07:36began life in the 1790s
0:07:36 > 0:07:39as little more than a handful of buildings.
0:07:39 > 0:07:42I've come to meet Peter Darley,
0:07:42 > 0:07:44founder of Camden Railway Heritage Trust.
0:07:46 > 0:07:49I love the canals here in Camden.
0:07:49 > 0:07:53Does that mean that actually there was a history of freight
0:07:53 > 0:07:56- here in Camden before the railways? - There was indeed.
0:07:56 > 0:07:59The Regent's Canal linked the Grand Junction Canal
0:07:59 > 0:08:02at Paddington Basin to the docks at Limehouse.
0:08:02 > 0:08:05So this was a way of getting trade from the Midlands
0:08:05 > 0:08:10all the way through and the north of England all the way through to the docks.
0:08:10 > 0:08:13Everything from iron to coal would arrive into Camden
0:08:13 > 0:08:19and then be taken on by barge to the Thames - some of it for export.
0:08:19 > 0:08:22It would have seemed as busy then as the M25 does today
0:08:22 > 0:08:27and each of the heavily laden barges would have been pulled by a horse.
0:08:27 > 0:08:30If you look carefully, you can still see traces of where the horses
0:08:30 > 0:08:34towed barges from the lock across this bridge.
0:08:34 > 0:08:37It's extraordinary to think that cast iron could be worn away
0:08:37 > 0:08:41like that by a rope pulled by a horse. That's amazing.
0:08:41 > 0:08:45But it was the sand and silicon that was picked up by the cotton rope
0:08:45 > 0:08:49from the bottom of the canal that really affected the wear.
0:08:49 > 0:08:53You've got to have respect for those horses, though - my goodness!
0:08:53 > 0:08:57To understand better the impact of the arrival of the railway
0:08:57 > 0:09:00on the Regent's Canal, Peter's taking me on to the waterway.
0:09:00 > 0:09:04I'm going to see how goods would have been brought in by boat
0:09:04 > 0:09:07and above the canal, by road and rail.
0:09:07 > 0:09:09This is the interchange warehouse.
0:09:09 > 0:09:13So interchanging what? Between water and railway and road?
0:09:13 > 0:09:19Yes indeed. There were all manner of hoists and opening doors that allowed
0:09:19 > 0:09:25goods to be taken from road and rail and stored in the warehouse.
0:09:25 > 0:09:28The warehouse was designed to mechanise the whole
0:09:28 > 0:09:30process of freight transport.
0:09:30 > 0:09:33It became a gigantic goods distribution centre
0:09:33 > 0:09:37and the fortress-like building needed to be very strong,
0:09:37 > 0:09:39safe enough to store valuables such as wines,
0:09:39 > 0:09:43spirits and silk as well as beer, coal and lime.
0:09:45 > 0:09:49First, the boats had to negotiate this watery entrance with
0:09:49 > 0:09:52the inauspicious name of Dead Dog Basin.
0:09:52 > 0:09:55It's quite spooky in here, actually, isn't it? Bit dirty.
0:09:55 > 0:09:58I think you call this guano. There's a lot of bird life in here, isn't there?
0:09:58 > 0:10:01There certainly is a lot of pigeons nesting in here.
0:10:01 > 0:10:04It's vast! Tell me about the scale of it.
0:10:04 > 0:10:08Well, it was designed for 16 different narrow boats.
0:10:08 > 0:10:12They could park sort of four across.
0:10:12 > 0:10:14It's very impressive, isn't it?
0:10:14 > 0:10:19It really is, I think, a symbol of the confidence of the railway
0:10:19 > 0:10:23company in its ability to move goods around the world and around London.
0:10:25 > 0:10:28Here we are in the 1855 vaults.
0:10:28 > 0:10:31It was originally for the storage of beer.
0:10:31 > 0:10:35It's an amazing labyrinth. Goes on and on and on.
0:10:35 > 0:10:39And I always admire the Victorian brickies.
0:10:39 > 0:10:42They were real skilled craftsmen, weren't they?
0:10:42 > 0:10:45Everything is so beautifully arched and vaulted.
0:10:45 > 0:10:51And these vaults are... extend over probably about half an acre.
0:10:52 > 0:10:54It's a whole secret world, isn't it?
0:10:57 > 0:11:01This is what I like to see - railway lines,
0:11:01 > 0:11:05and my Bradshaw's is rather eloquent on this.
0:11:05 > 0:11:10"During the six months ended August 1848,
0:11:10 > 0:11:14"73,732 railway wagon loads of goods
0:11:14 > 0:11:17"entered and departed from Camden Station."
0:11:17 > 0:11:19That's quite a thought, isn't it?
0:11:19 > 0:11:22Once at Camden, horse-drawn wagons would have been waiting to
0:11:22 > 0:11:24take the goods in to the city.
0:11:24 > 0:11:28At the busiest times, there would have been 800 horses working here.
0:11:29 > 0:11:32I think of the Victorian era as being highly mechanised and it's
0:11:32 > 0:11:35easy to forget that of course they were still dependent on horses.
0:11:35 > 0:11:38Almost every railway journey
0:11:38 > 0:11:43was started behind one plodding horse and finished behind another.
0:11:43 > 0:11:47But for the next leg of my journey, horses won't be much use.
0:11:47 > 0:11:50I'm using London's newest rail service, the London Overground,
0:11:50 > 0:11:55providing a 21st-century link that orbits the capital.
0:11:55 > 0:11:58Next stop, Willesden Junction.
0:12:05 > 0:12:08Willesden Junction, first built by Robert Stephenson
0:12:08 > 0:12:12in 1841 as part of the London-Birmingham Railway.
0:12:12 > 0:12:15The junction occurs between trains that are moving from east to west
0:12:15 > 0:12:18at this higher level and I'm going down below,
0:12:18 > 0:12:21where the trains go from south to north.
0:12:34 > 0:12:37Bradshaw's is enthusiastic about my next stop -
0:12:37 > 0:12:39"On account of the delightful prospect which the
0:12:39 > 0:12:43"churchyard of Harrow Hill affords, it's a place of frequent resort."
0:12:44 > 0:12:48"Crossing the meadow from the station, we reach the foot of the hill
0:12:48 > 0:12:53"and if we ascend the summit, the view deserves all the encomiums
0:12:53 > 0:12:55"bestowed upon it."
0:12:55 > 0:12:58Well, I know Harrow pretty well myself and I don't
0:12:58 > 0:13:02think we're going to find a meadow between the station and the hill.
0:13:04 > 0:13:09In 1841, Harrow was safely distant from the capital's rapid expansion.
0:13:09 > 0:13:14But by the time my family moved to neighbouring Stanmore in 1954,
0:13:14 > 0:13:18Harrow was already a major commuter town.
0:13:18 > 0:13:21Harrow School was famed for educating a notorious and
0:13:21 > 0:13:26illustrious array of boys, from Byron to Peel and Churchill.
0:13:26 > 0:13:29I'm curious to see how the town has changed,
0:13:29 > 0:13:35not just since Bradshaw's day, but from my own school days.
0:13:35 > 0:13:37You probably thought it was just my bad taste that made me
0:13:37 > 0:13:39wear things like this but no -
0:13:39 > 0:13:43this is the blazer of my old boys' association
0:13:43 > 0:13:46from my old school which is behind me.
0:13:46 > 0:13:49Harrow school, the posh one, is at the top of the hill and here at the bottom,
0:13:49 > 0:13:54the lowly grammar school, for bright boys from ordinary families.
0:13:54 > 0:13:57We felt a rivalry with the public school,
0:13:57 > 0:14:00mixed with inverted snobbery.
0:14:00 > 0:14:02"Worth not birth" was our school motto
0:14:02 > 0:14:08and our school song began, "Worth not birth will be our battle cry".
0:14:10 > 0:14:12I came to Harrow County in 1964.
0:14:14 > 0:14:18Here I am aged 17 and I haven't changed a bit.
0:14:18 > 0:14:20I like to recall those days.
0:14:20 > 0:14:28Returning to these familiar haunts reminds me just how much I owe to my school.
0:14:28 > 0:14:31Well, the view from the churchyard at the top of Harrow Hill
0:14:31 > 0:14:34is, as Bradshaw says, a delightful one.
0:14:34 > 0:14:37"Of the wide, rich valley through which the Thames
0:14:37 > 0:14:40"stretches its sinuous course, embracing
0:14:40 > 0:14:45"a view of the fertile portions of Buckinghamshire and Berkshire."
0:14:47 > 0:14:52Now this is very interesting - the gravestone of Thomas Port.
0:14:52 > 0:14:56"Bright rose the morn and vig'rous rose poor Port
0:14:56 > 0:14:59"Gay on the train, he used his wonted sport.
0:14:59 > 0:15:03"Ere noon arrived, his mangled form they bore,
0:15:03 > 0:15:07"With pain distorted and o'erwhelm'd with gore.
0:15:07 > 0:15:10"When evening came, to close the fatal day
0:15:10 > 0:15:14"A mutilated corpse the sufferer lay."
0:15:14 > 0:15:18Commemorating an early victim of a railway accident.
0:15:22 > 0:15:24His tragic death in 1838
0:15:24 > 0:15:26was one of the railway's first fatalities
0:15:26 > 0:15:30but unfortunately, it wasn't the last in Harrow.
0:15:31 > 0:15:36'On a misty October morning, tragedy came to North London,
0:15:36 > 0:15:39'when a local train was standing at Harrow and Wealdstone station,
0:15:39 > 0:15:42'crowded with workers on their way to the city,
0:15:42 > 0:15:45'the Perth night express came thundering in.
0:15:45 > 0:15:50'Then, to add to the horror, the Liverpool-bound train roared in at 60mph,
0:15:50 > 0:15:53'piling up into a hell of wreckage and human suffering.'
0:15:57 > 0:16:02112 people died and more than 300 were injured in England's
0:16:02 > 0:16:05most catastrophic railway accident.
0:16:05 > 0:16:08For me, the tragedy has some personal resonance
0:16:08 > 0:16:11so I'm meeting railway journalist Gareth Edwards
0:16:11 > 0:16:12to find out more.
0:16:14 > 0:16:19Gareth, I wanted to talk about the terrible rail disaster of 1952.
0:16:19 > 0:16:23My brother was at school in the area and he told me he has some memory of it.
0:16:23 > 0:16:25I think they came to the school
0:16:25 > 0:16:28appealing for some of the older boys to come down and give blood.
0:16:28 > 0:16:30How does it unfold?
0:16:30 > 0:16:34Well, the person who kind of really sees it unfold is the signalman at the time.
0:16:34 > 0:16:35That was Signalman Armitage,
0:16:35 > 0:16:41and as the express was coming down from Scotland into Euston,
0:16:41 > 0:16:43he stopped it here.
0:16:43 > 0:16:46- Travelling maybe at that sort of speed?- Yes.
0:16:46 > 0:16:48Cos we're far enough from Euston here
0:16:48 > 0:16:51but the trains are going fast in both directions.
0:16:51 > 0:16:56Now, because of those speeds, there was a range of signals between here and Watford Tunnel,
0:16:56 > 0:17:01which is where the express train was coming through, and Signalman Armitage set all three
0:17:01 > 0:17:04of those signals to make sure that the express train stopped.
0:17:04 > 0:17:06The reason he did that was because at the time,
0:17:06 > 0:17:10there was a very packed commuter train sitting here at Harrow station.
0:17:10 > 0:17:14suddenly out of the mist, Signalman Armitage sees this train
0:17:14 > 0:17:16just pouring towards the station about 50-60mph.
0:17:16 > 0:17:18He lurches across the signal box.
0:17:18 > 0:17:21He tries to set the signal to stop it but it's too late.
0:17:21 > 0:17:25And to his horror, he kind of realises that there's going to be an accident.
0:17:25 > 0:17:29In that split second, he frantically leans back across the signal box
0:17:29 > 0:17:32and tries to grab the lever to warn another express that's
0:17:32 > 0:17:35coming in on the Euston line but unfortunately, it's too late.
0:17:35 > 0:17:38The express train from Scotland goes straight into the back
0:17:38 > 0:17:41of the commuter train and then, as the wreckage is still there,
0:17:41 > 0:17:46this fast train coming up from Euston slides into the wreckage.
0:17:46 > 0:17:49The death toll could have been far worse had it not
0:17:49 > 0:17:53been for the fast response of US Air Force medical personnel,
0:17:53 > 0:17:56some of whom had been caught up in the accident.
0:17:56 > 0:17:59They were able to give medical assistance on the spot.
0:18:00 > 0:18:03But this shocking tragedy could have been avoided
0:18:03 > 0:18:07and lessons about rail safety needed to be learnt quickly.
0:18:08 > 0:18:11Harrow is ultimately the result of driver failure.
0:18:11 > 0:18:14It really highlights that sometimes the human element isn't enough -
0:18:14 > 0:18:16you need technology to help these people as well.
0:18:16 > 0:18:19Harrow is the point where you start to see the move to having AWS -
0:18:19 > 0:18:22automated warning systems - in place on trains.
0:18:22 > 0:18:25The railways learn by trial and error. I mean, obviously
0:18:25 > 0:18:28the errors are hideous, but none the less, safety moves forward.
0:18:28 > 0:18:32Yes, I mean, it takes time, a long time for these things to start to come in
0:18:32 > 0:18:35but they do eventually arrive.
0:18:35 > 0:18:41So since then, train drivers have had the benefit of automatic warning systems to counter
0:18:41 > 0:18:45human error and there hasn't been another UK disaster on such a scale.
0:18:53 > 0:18:59I'm up early to catch the train north to Tring in leafy Hertfordshire.
0:19:02 > 0:19:05Today's rail timetable says that my journey should take just
0:19:05 > 0:19:08under half an hour.
0:19:12 > 0:19:14Bradshaw's tells me that at Tring, my next stop, the railway
0:19:14 > 0:19:21reaches its greatest elevation, being 300 foot above that of Camden Town.
0:19:21 > 0:19:24But it's not just the tracks that reach new heights in this
0:19:24 > 0:19:26part of Hertfordshire.
0:19:26 > 0:19:29It also attracted the most elevated echelons of society.
0:19:33 > 0:19:37TANNOY: 'We are now approaching Tring'.
0:19:37 > 0:19:41Tring Park was the country estate of one of the world's wealthiest
0:19:41 > 0:19:44banking families - the Rothschilds.
0:19:44 > 0:19:47By the early 1800s, Nathan Mayer Rothschild had earned
0:19:47 > 0:19:51a fortune from trading textiles and gold.
0:19:52 > 0:19:56But Nathan's eldest son, Walter, was a reluctant banker,
0:19:56 > 0:20:00announcing at the age of seven, "I am going to make a museum."
0:20:02 > 0:20:05Tring Park became home to Walter's collection,
0:20:05 > 0:20:07with an astonishing variety of animals.
0:20:11 > 0:20:13When his treasures outgrew the family's house,
0:20:13 > 0:20:19the Rothschilds came up with a grand solution.
0:20:19 > 0:20:22I've come to Tring's Natural History Museum to meet Alice Adams,
0:20:22 > 0:20:24one of the curators,
0:20:24 > 0:20:28to find out what happened to his collection.
0:20:28 > 0:20:29How did the museum begin?
0:20:29 > 0:20:34The museum was essentially a 21st birthday present for Walter.
0:20:34 > 0:20:38- You know, your average birthday present!- How wonderful.
0:20:38 > 0:20:41Perfectly normal. It had kind of got to the stage, as I say,
0:20:41 > 0:20:42he started collecting when he was five,
0:20:42 > 0:20:45so by the time he got to the age of 20, he had literally
0:20:45 > 0:20:48thousands of specimens and it was really out of hand.
0:20:48 > 0:20:51He was storing things in his parents' mansion, in various sheds
0:20:51 > 0:20:52and buildings all over Tring.
0:20:52 > 0:20:55It was a bit of a mess and I think his parents really recognised
0:20:55 > 0:20:58by that time that he wasn't growing out of this kind of childhood hobby.
0:20:58 > 0:21:01- This was really what he wanted to. This was his passion.- Yeah.
0:21:03 > 0:21:08Before he died in 1937, Walter had amassed over a million specimens
0:21:08 > 0:21:13here and the collection is now part of the Natural History Museum.
0:21:13 > 0:21:17Coming face-to-face with Walter's treasures, I'm left in little
0:21:17 > 0:21:20doubt about what an unusual figure he must have been.
0:21:22 > 0:21:24Would it be fair to call him eccentric?
0:21:24 > 0:21:27I guess in some ways you could say he was.
0:21:27 > 0:21:31One of the things he did was have four live zebras which he
0:21:31 > 0:21:34managed to train with some specialist horse handlers
0:21:34 > 0:21:36to pull a carriage, which is incredible,
0:21:36 > 0:21:39because zebras are said to be absolutely impossible to train,
0:21:39 > 0:21:42very temperamental, kicking, biting, so it was a real achievement.
0:21:42 > 0:21:45And so he'd be seen driving around with his four zebras?
0:21:45 > 0:21:48Both here and also in Piccadilly in London.
0:21:48 > 0:21:52He was invited to take them to Buckingham Palace as well because they'd heard about it.
0:21:52 > 0:21:54He used three zebras and a pony
0:21:54 > 0:21:57because when he had the four zebras attached,
0:21:57 > 0:22:00when he pulled the reins, the zebra would quite often sit down,
0:22:00 > 0:22:03maybe as a protest, so when he ran with three zebras and a pony,
0:22:03 > 0:22:07when he pulled the reins, the pony would run and the zebras would cooperate.
0:22:07 > 0:22:10A very useful tip should I ever find myself with a pony
0:22:10 > 0:22:11and three zebras!
0:22:12 > 0:22:16Walter's zebras eventually ended up in his museum
0:22:16 > 0:22:20and the challenge for Tring is that conserving these 100-year-old
0:22:20 > 0:22:22specimens is a painstaking task.
0:22:25 > 0:22:29So is this right? I'm keeping the vacuum cleaner fairly close
0:22:29 > 0:22:31and I'm just brushing the fur.
0:22:31 > 0:22:33Yes. This looks like a great job.
0:22:33 > 0:22:35You can imagine how long it takes us
0:22:35 > 0:22:37to do all 4,000 specimens in the museum.
0:22:37 > 0:22:39You've got to do it very gently.
0:22:39 > 0:22:44It's very important to clean a zebra without crossing it.
0:22:44 > 0:22:47Now if you just intermittently just check the gauze to see in case
0:22:47 > 0:22:49we've picked up any pest species.
0:22:49 > 0:22:52- Here we go.- 'Well, I thought it was funny, anyway!'
0:22:54 > 0:22:59Walter's collection illustrates that this was an age of travel and discovery.
0:22:59 > 0:23:02For the next hundred years, the railways flourished - anything
0:23:02 > 0:23:06and everything was being carried by train, including money, food,
0:23:06 > 0:23:08even gold.
0:23:13 > 0:23:17By the 1960s, the supremacy of the railways was being challenged.
0:23:17 > 0:23:20Lines were closed and for the first time in its history,
0:23:20 > 0:23:23the railway was under threat.
0:23:23 > 0:23:26My next station, Cheddington, says Bradshaw's,
0:23:26 > 0:23:29is four and a half miles from the Money Order Office.
0:23:29 > 0:23:33Now that particular office didn't put this area on the map but
0:23:33 > 0:23:37its successor, the Post Office, and the money that it handles certainly did
0:23:37 > 0:23:43in an event that stands in railway history, and indeed in my memory.
0:23:48 > 0:23:51The 8th of August 1963
0:23:51 > 0:23:54saw one of the most audacious robberies in British history.
0:23:58 > 0:24:04£2.6 million - around £40-£45 million in today's money -
0:24:04 > 0:24:07was stolen from the Glasgow to London mail train.
0:24:07 > 0:24:10I'm meeting author Nick Russell-Pavier,
0:24:10 > 0:24:13who has researched the event in detail.
0:24:13 > 0:24:16The Great Train Robbery - I remember picking up the newspaper
0:24:16 > 0:24:22in August 1963 and reading that £2.5 million had been stolen from a train.
0:24:22 > 0:24:26I had no idea that that sort of money was being transported by rail.
0:24:26 > 0:24:27Why was it?
0:24:27 > 0:24:30Trains were just a very good way of getting not only mail
0:24:30 > 0:24:34but money up and down the country and there was a lot of money floating around in 1963.
0:24:34 > 0:24:37Practice in banking at that stage was that regional banks would
0:24:37 > 0:24:41transport surplus funds overnight back to their central
0:24:41 > 0:24:44offices in London and so money was constantly shifting up
0:24:44 > 0:24:47and down the mainline railways.
0:24:47 > 0:24:50What was it that the robbers had to do to commit their crime?
0:24:50 > 0:24:53There were some signals there and this is Sears crossing.
0:24:53 > 0:24:56The robbers rigged the lights here to stop the mail train
0:24:56 > 0:24:59coming down from Glasgow, which was carrying the money.
0:24:59 > 0:25:01So they turned the light to red. How did they do that?
0:25:01 > 0:25:03Actually, extraordinarily simply.
0:25:03 > 0:25:06Actually, it was all a little bit sort of kind of like a Blue Peter
0:25:06 > 0:25:07kind of way of doing it.
0:25:07 > 0:25:10They had some six-volt batteries which they hot-wired the red light
0:25:10 > 0:25:15and they covered the green light with a black leather glove and it was as simple as that.
0:25:15 > 0:25:16And then what did they have to do?
0:25:16 > 0:25:20They had to first of all uncouple the locomotive
0:25:20 > 0:25:22and the carriage carrying the money
0:25:22 > 0:25:24and move it down to a bridge about 1,000 yards further
0:25:24 > 0:25:27south from here where it's near a road, because of course,
0:25:27 > 0:25:29they had to unload 120 mailbags which was very heavy.
0:25:29 > 0:25:32That bridge, that is the iconic image.
0:25:32 > 0:25:35I remember the photograph of the little bridge
0:25:35 > 0:25:38and the locomotive parked above it.
0:25:40 > 0:25:42From what I recall, a breakthrough for the police came
0:25:42 > 0:25:44when about a day after the robbery,
0:25:44 > 0:25:47they put out statements saying that they thought the robbers were
0:25:47 > 0:25:50still within 30 miles of the crime and indeed they were.
0:25:50 > 0:25:52They were at a farmhouse, what? 23 miles away.
0:25:52 > 0:25:55- And that put the robbers into a panic, didn't it?- It did.
0:25:55 > 0:25:58And it was decisive but actually, it was the result of a misquote.
0:25:58 > 0:26:00What the head of Buckinghamshire CID in fact said,
0:26:00 > 0:26:03because it was based on something that the robbers said to the
0:26:03 > 0:26:05people on the train when they left is,
0:26:05 > 0:26:08"Don't move for 30 minutes." What they were going to search was
0:26:08 > 0:26:11a distance of 30 minutes' travelling time from the bridge.
0:26:11 > 0:26:15But there was a misquote by the press and in fact the robbers were 28 miles outside.
0:26:15 > 0:26:17So it was just a complete stroke of luck.
0:26:19 > 0:26:24From then on, the whole thing began to unravel quite significantly.
0:26:24 > 0:26:28The police mounted a huge hunt for the robbers and their hideout.
0:26:28 > 0:26:32Fingerprints and evidence at a nearby farmhouse eventually led
0:26:32 > 0:26:36to ten of the 16 being imprisoned.
0:26:36 > 0:26:38Most of the money was never recovered.
0:26:38 > 0:26:41Two of the perpetrators later escaped from high-security prisons
0:26:41 > 0:26:44and the most notorious, Ronnie Biggs,
0:26:44 > 0:26:47went on the run for over 35 years.
0:26:47 > 0:26:51Why do you think this crime lives so much in our memories?
0:26:51 > 0:26:53I think partly the idea of robbing a train has that sort of
0:26:53 > 0:26:57Jesse James kind of, er...
0:26:57 > 0:27:01Westerns were very popular in 1963 so it had that romantic image to it.
0:27:01 > 0:27:05But undoubtedly the mythology was to some extent sparked by the GPO
0:27:05 > 0:27:09and British Railways who were highly embarrassed about losing
0:27:09 > 0:27:11so much money so it rather suited them to,
0:27:11 > 0:27:14if you like, big up the robbery
0:27:14 > 0:27:18and the press of course picked up on that and the British public absolutely loved it.
0:27:25 > 0:27:28Trains first ran along these tracks in the first
0:27:28 > 0:27:30weeks of Queen Victoria's reign.
0:27:30 > 0:27:35If the railways were then newborn, they've lost their innocence since.
0:27:35 > 0:27:39This line has seen its share of horrors, a dreadful accident
0:27:39 > 0:27:42and a notorious robbery.
0:27:42 > 0:27:45But the railways are the great survivor from Victorian times.
0:27:45 > 0:27:49Steel wheels still run along steel tracks along lines
0:27:49 > 0:27:53and through stations designed by 19th century engineers.
0:27:53 > 0:27:56A remarkable tribute to Robert Stephenson
0:27:56 > 0:27:58and his brilliant generation.
0:28:00 > 0:28:02On the next leg of my next journey,
0:28:02 > 0:28:06I meet one of the Second World War's most secret agents.
0:28:06 > 0:28:08It was all a bit crafty, really.
0:28:08 > 0:28:10So you took a message which had a meaning
0:28:10 > 0:28:11and you put it in to other words
0:28:11 > 0:28:14- but of course the meaning had to be exactly the same.- That's right.
0:28:14 > 0:28:17I test my knowledge of 18th-century hymns...
0:28:17 > 0:28:19Do you recognise that one?
0:28:19 > 0:28:21You're teasing me! What is it?
0:28:21 > 0:28:24..and learn the ancient craft of vellum making.
0:28:24 > 0:28:26Do you do this all day?
0:28:26 > 0:28:28This is my afternoon work.