Derby to Grantham Great British Railway Journeys

For Victorian Britons,

George Bradshaw was a household name.

At a time when railways were new,

Bradshaw's guidebook inspired them to take to the tracks.

I'm using a Bradshaw's Guide

to understand how trains transformed Britain -

its landscape, its industries, society and leisure time.

As I crisscross the country 150 years later,

it helps me to discover the Britain of today.

Until the 20th century,

Britain was an intensely Christian country

and the first to experience an industrial revolution.

George Bradshaw, a Quaker, seems to imply

that Britain's virtues were responsible for its prosperity.

Its perseverance in serious study had overcome mysteries in science

and challenges in engineering

and its international trade policy was liberal.

Today, I'm beginning a journey

that will take me from the noisy workshops of Derby

to the mystic tranquillity

of one of Britain's earliest Christian sites at Lindisfarne.

Following my Bradshaw's Guide,

my journey starts in the heart of the industrial East Midlands,

then continues to Nottinghamshire,

before heading north towards the rugged foothills of the Pennines.

Crossing the gritty Yorkshire West Riding,

I'll take in the history of the county

before heading up the coast to the industrial cities of the North.

My journey will end on the part-time island of Lindisfarne.

On today's leg, I'll start in the railway hot spot of Derby,

then travel to the city of Nottingham,

before heading out to Sherwood Forest

and the beautiful Newstead Abbey.

My last stop is one of Lincolnshire's best-known markets.

'On the first leg of this adventure,

'I help to give an old engine a fresh start...'

Ooh, my goodness!

George is getting appallingly damaged here.

'..discover the macho side of the poet Byron...'

He was a fantastic boxer.

He had the champion of England - Gentleman Jackson -

actually teach him how to box.

'..and find that my cooking skills

'aren't what they're cracked up to be.'

There's a bit of eggshell in there, Michael. So, point deducted.

According to my guidebook,

"various manufactures are carried out in Derby,

"the most flourishing being silk, stockings, ribbons,

"tape, cotton and porcelain."

The first silk mill in England was built here in 1718

and manufacturing has been a thread

running through Derby's history ever since.

Between the dawn of the 19th century and the time of my Bradshaw's Guide,

Britain's population doubled,

but Derby's multiplied five times - from 10,000 to 50,000 souls.

The railways played no small part in that extraordinary transformation.

As my guidebook points out,

this industrial town was also the chief depot

of the Midland Railway Company.

To steer me through its illustrious history,

I'm meeting engineering director Pete Erwin

at what was affectionately known as the Loco Works.

Nice to meet you.

It's a fantastic railway territory, this,

and I think you're celebrating 175 years of railways here in Derby.

How did it all start?

Really started with the bringing together

of three railway companies into what was the London Midland Region

and typically, at that time...

If we look over there, we've got a new building.

That was originally the Derby Locomotive Works.

Throughout its history, the growth and supply

and traction of rolling stock for the area,

it was identified that they really needed a separate place

for the locomotives and the carriage.

And over the back of what is the old research buildings there

is the Derby Carriage and Wagon Works,

which today is occupied by Bombardier -

building trains still in the area.

From humble beginnings,

the Midland company grew into a major national network.

It connected Leeds with London

and the East Midlands to Birmingham, Bristol, York and Manchester.

During the 1860s,

the company created London's mighty St Pancras station

and with business booming, its first locomotive superintendent -

Matthew Kirtley - persuaded the directors

to build their own rolling stock.

Why did the Midland company decide to build its own locomotives?

I mean, why not buy on the market, as it were?

I think a lot of the things at that time were really route specific

because of obviously our bridges

and the horse-drawn carriages that used to go through them.

What happens today is we try and get as many go-anywhere routes as we can,

given the constraints of the infrastructure on our railways.

The Derby site has continued to play its part in railway history.

In the 1960s, the British Rail Research Centre

was based here and built the first tilting trains.

The engineering research centre also designed

the high-speed InterCity 125s that run on our railways today.

I joined the railways in 1971.

I'm the third generation of my family to work in the industry

and I came to BR Research in late '78

and spent 13 years of my career with BR Research.

It's my 43rd year this year and I owe the industry a lot.

It's a fantastic industry to work in.

Today, Railway Vehicle Engineering uses its skills

to give tired old trains a new lease of life.

So, historically, what went on in this workshop?

This was the original APT building,

so the Advanced Passenger Train was developed

and tested in this building, where we're standing now.

And today, the work undertaken by Railway Vehicle Engineering

is very much the maintenance

and overhaul of various amounts of rolling stock.

This is part of the Northern Belle train

and that's very much an overhaul and a refurbishment

to give it its next six, eight-year life,

typically, within the industry.

Lovely to see rolling stock

in the old cream and chocolate colours, isn't it?

Our pride and joy is just here. Now, this is the Class 73 locomotive.

This is for one of our major customers in Network Rail

and it's getting christened the Ultra 73

because the important thing about this locomotive

is it has two modes of operation.

It was a diesel locomotive and it also operates off a third rail.

But typically, the diesel element of it was very much underpowered,

you know, for the kind of operation that's needed.

But the important...

The gauging of this, the structure gauging,

that makes it a go-anywhere locomotive,

so, to our customer, very important.

There's something extremely satisfying

about seeing engines being given a fresh start.

-Oh, we're going on here, are we?

-Yeah.

And it's an honour for me to be allowed to help

with the finishing touches to Ultra 73.

Ooh, my goodness!

George is getting appallingly damaged here.

So, it's going to go where? About there, is it?

Yeah, seems about right.

The last time I applied a transfer, it was to a plastic model aircraft.

This is on a bigger scale.

It's remarkable that after 175 years,

the site constantly reinvents itself.

Oops!

I name this a new Class 73...Ultra.

As I rejoin the East Midlands main line,

I'm reminded that this area has a Viking past.

Derby is in fact an Old Norse name -

the B-Y at the end means village or farmstead.

My next stop is Nottingham.

According to my guidebook, "near the beautiful River Trent,

"which is well-known to the angler.

"It's situated on a rocky eminence of red sandstone

"and is one of the most picturesque and healthiest towns in England."

It spawned a chain of health stores to boot.

Mid-Victorian Nottingham was a severely overcrowded city

with a population of 50,000

packed into its cramped medieval centre.

Death rates were high.

Smallpox, typhus, and tuberculosis were endemic

and cholera alarmingly epidemic.

Against that backdrop, in 1849,

John Boot opened a small herbalist's shop

selling home-made remedies to poor factory workers.

And over the next 160 years,

his business grew into the UK's best-known high street chemist.

I've come to their manufacturing site

to meet archivist Sophie Clapp.

John Boot, where did he come from? What was his background?

So, he was an agricultural worker and he had a very humble background

and he was too ill, really, to work on the land

so he came to the centre of Nottingham

to start supplying these herbal remedies.

So, what was the next stage in the development of Boots?

So, unfortunately, John died quite young

and from then, his son Jesse took over the shop

and he really developed the business and he started to really challenge

the established trade of the pharmacy business

by offering traditional medicines at a much reduced rate.

Central to building the business

was his extraordinary range of products.

Bestsellers were lobelia pills,

said to remove obstructions from every part of the system.

Ointment Of No Name was recommended for a variety of skin complaints.

One of Boots' most popular products was fluid beef.

Manufacturing obviously began at some point.

-Did it begin here?

-No, it was in the centre of town,

actually on Station Street and Island Street,

which is very close to the station, for obvious reasons.

So, like many factories in Nottingham,

they were based close to the railway and to the canal

and to the main road networks.

But this site was acquired in the late '20s as a manufacturing site

because we were running out of space in the centre of town.

In 1890, Jesse Boot had ten stores

and by 1914, the number had multiplied to 550.

To service his shops,

this huge manufacturing building opened in 1933,

part of a 300-acre site.

I had taken this to be a much more modern building.

Tell me about its features.

It was designed to look like an ocean liner.

So, you can tell that from the porthole-style

glass disc in the roof, which allowed the daylight to come in.

So, this was the first daylight factory in the UK.

Was it a success?

It was an absolute success and it was proving to be so efficient

that we were having an excess of stock,

so what the company did was quite unique

and it started, really, the manufacturing weekend.

So, it gave people Saturday morning off,

which was what most people would have to work,

with no reduction in pay,

which was obviously a great initiative for the staff.

The company's high productivity was due in part to its own railway.

Puffing Billy brought raw materials into the heart of the factory

and the wider rail network was used for distribution

and for workers' social outings.

In our very early days, we were using the railways

to enable us to take our staff to the countryside

or to the seaside and on one occasion,

we decorated eight trains and we took them -

5,000 members of staff -

down to the British Empire Exhibition in 1924 - down to Wembley.

They were all hanging out of the windows smiling.

Today, the company has a workforce of 60,000 people.

And thanks to Jesse Boot's philanthropy,

research into naturally-occurring medicines

continues at Nottingham University.

Chris Moody is the seventh

Sir Jesse Boot Professor of Chemistry.

-Hello, Michael.

-Good to see you.

What sort of things were they making in Victorian times?

What sort of drugs could they make in those days?

Well, a lot of the stuff came from nature.

If you look at the Victorian adverts,

they're advocating cocaine and morphine

and all sorts of things for treatments.

They all come from natural sources.

Aspirin was discovered in 1897,

so those are the sorts of simple, synthetic drugs

that Boot and his scientists would have been making.

Aspirin comes from the willow tree,

whose curative properties had been known since ancient times.

But it was only in the late 19th century

that a German firm developed the medicine that we still use today.

What have you done there? You've added what?

I've added something we call acetic anhydride,

which is related to acetic acid,

-which most people would know as vinegar.

-Ha!

Willow trees and vinegar.

-You're making it sound very simple.

-Yeah.

And then we add what we call a catalyst,

which, in this case, is a few drops of acid.

So, a catalyst is something which speeds up the process

without being changed itself, if I remember.

That's correct, yes.

And then we have to put it to heat for ten to 15 minutes.

I shall be very intrigued to see what comes out

cos it's obviously not going to be a little packet of tablets, is it?

No, it's not.

Once heated, the final product looks like this.

The Boots of Nottingham are a fine example

of how the ordinary man in Victorian England

could stride ahead.

Time to raise a glass to them, at my rest stop for the night.

I'm up early and it lifts my heart

to see the newly restored Nottingham station.

Built at the end of Queen Victoria's reign,

the station has been spruced up and freed from clutter

so it's possible to appreciate

this marvellous brick and glass building,

which expresses the pride and the affluence

of the old Midland Railway.

I'm directed now to Newstead Abbey,

which my Bradshaw's tells me was formerly Lord Byron's seat,

to which he succeeded when he was only ten years old.

Morning!

-Good morning.

-Good morning.

I'm on a pilgrimage to find out about Lord Byron.

-Do you know much about Lord Byron?

-Not really. Only what I've read.

Just apart from obviously us being in the marching band.

We're actually named after Lord Byron.

-We're the Mansfield Woodhouse Byronaires marching band.

-Heavens!

Do you know why you're named after Lord Byron?

Yeah, I think it's just about the area, really,

cos Mansfield Woodhouse is probably only about five miles away

from Newstead Abbey itself.

So, just named after him, really. Just after Lord Byron.

How fantastic. What sort of music do you play?

It's basically like a kazoo and marching band

with, like, marching marimbas and bells.

You know, the ones what started off in the pit villages

-years and years ago during the miners...

-Absolutely.

We're quite successful as well.

We're going to the world championships in a few months now

and we've won the best Midlands bands on several occasions now,

so, hopefully, we're going to do well this year as well.

But you don't strike me yourself as overly Byronic.

No, no, perhaps not.

If you'd seen some of my tempers, though, at band practice sometimes.

-I believe he had a bit of a temper.

-I see. He did too.

-I think there's maybe that bit lives in me a little bit.

-Very good.

-Have a great day.

-Thank you very much.

-Keep winning!

-Hopefully, yes. Thank you.

Newstead Abbey near Sherwood Forest was founded in 1163

as an Augustine priory.

It remained a religious house for nearly 400 years

until its dissolution by Henry VIII.

I'm meeting Diane Turner, one of the house stewards,

to learn more about Byron's connection.

So, how did this religious building eventually become a private house?

It became a private house

due to the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

So, Henry VIII comes on the throne.

He asked for all the religious buildings to actually be taken down

and one of the ancestors of our poet Byron,

John Byron, he actually purchased this for £810,

having supported the king loyally in his royal fights

-and this was his reward.

-A bargain.

And then the poet Lord Byron is descended from those Byrons?

He comes down from those Byrons

and he comes to inherit it from his great-uncle,

the fifth Lord Byron.

But his great-uncle managed the estate very badly,

so, in 1798, when the young Byron came into his inheritance,

it was very run down.

But I can imagine, you know, a Romantic poet

would be inspired by a Gothic ruin.

I think he was and I think we see that.

If we read some of his poetry, we see that melancholy

and the gothicness that comes out of his poetry

and I think that really does echo probably from his first view

and he does write about, you know, his beloved Newstead.

So, George Byron inherits this tremendous pile,

albeit a ruin, and of course, he inherits a title,

but then he's a man with a limp,

so what sort of personality does that produce?

Well, I think probably the limp did define him,

but I think one of the interesting things

is how good a sportsman he was.

One of the things that he did was he was a fantastic boxer.

He had the champion of England - Gentleman Jackson -

actually teach him how to box.

He did sword fighting. In this room, he did pistol practice.

The only thing that he didn't do was dance.

I sympathise with him!

But that's quite a social disability in those days.

Apparently, he would stand quite aloof at the side of the room

and look that Byronic look, as he did,

and I think that's what people became used to seeing him,

not realising that perhaps he didn't want to dance.

I have that image of, you know, like, Mr Darcy

in Jane Austen's Pride And Prejudice standing haughtily to one side.

Yes, I mean, we have heard that perhaps the character of Darcy

was actually based on Byron by Jane Austen

when she was actually at one of these gatherings.

By 1813, Byron was at the height of his fame.

-Byromania took off, didn't it?

-Yeah.

And that was a new phenomenon in those days.

Yeah, I think he was the biggest celebrity of the day.

One of his quotes is that he woke up one morning

and found he was famous.

And his success with women, I think,

would not have disgraced a modern rock star.

No, I don't think it did

and a lot of the women used to request snippets of hair from Byron.

But by all accounts, he used to take a snippet off Boatswain the dog

so that he didn't land up bald.

The Romantic poet's energy for writing and loving

contrasts with the abbey's tranquil air.

He had a lust for life

and considering how many mistresses he had,

the boxing may have come in handy too.

It's the most remarkable monument to a dog.

He must have been very, very fond of this animal.

I think he was and I think when you read that,

it tells you much he did love his animals and especially his dog.

"Here are deposited the remains

"of one who possessed beauty without vanity,

"strength without insolence, courage without ferocity

"and all the virtues of man without his vices."

This praise, which would be unmeaning flattery

if inscribed over human ashes,

is here a just tribute to the memory of Boatswain, a dog.

So, all the human virtues, none of the human vices.

No, and I think it shows from his poem

how much he actually did love his animals.

I think it sums it up in that poem.

I've rejoined the East Midlands line heading east.

I'm now crossing from Nottinghamshire into Lincolnshire.

My next stop will be Grantham.

According to Bradshaw's,

"a parliamentary borough near the River Witham

"with some long wolds.

"At the Free School founded by Bishop Fox,

"Sir Isaac Newton was educated."

I feel myself attracted to Grantham as if by some gravitational force.

OVER TANNOY: This train will be arriving into Grantham station.

Grantham, situated alongside the Great North Road,

has roots going back to Roman times.

It's famed for having produced some of the nation's most powerful minds.

This fine building, dating back to 1497,

is The King's School.

One of its most celebrated 17th century scholars

was the scientist who discovered gravity,

Sir Isaac Newton.

If Isaac Newton is Grantham's most famous son,

then Margaret Thatcher is certainly the town's most famous daughter.

I think when she was growing up here,

there were three strong influences in her life.

The first, that Britain was then at war alone against the dictators.

The second was the example of public service

given by her father, Councillor Roberts.

And the third was that she was born

above her father's corner grocer shop

where she used sometimes to serve.

And even when she was Prime Minister,

she would recite to me the price of a half pound of butter

or a pint of milk,

which made her considerably more in touch

than some holders of her office.

Whilst Grantham has produced a great scientist

and a prime minister,

I'm here to discover more about a delicacy

highlighted in my guidebook,

which has become an obsession for local entrepreneur Alistair Hawken.

-Hello, Alistair.

-Hello, Michael. How are you?

-Good to see you.

I'm intrigued by this, in Bradshaw's,

that Grantham is noted for the manufacture of Grantham cakes,

a very superior sweetmeat sold in boxes at a shilling.

Very superior indeed cos a shilling was a lot of money.

It certainly was back then.

It's the oldest commercially traded biscuit in the United Kingdom,

as far as the history books are concerned.

And it really was a product that was first created,

you know, when biscuits were biscuits.

In the 1700s, Grantham was a halt for coaches on the Great North Road.

Passengers and drivers would stock up on Grantham Whetstones,

which were hardy rusk-like biscuits.

They were some of the first biscuits made for sale in this country.

So, how did that Whetstone get converted into a gingerbread?

Well, William Egglestone,

who was one of the bakers of Grantham Whetstones,

mistook one ingredient for another one dark Sunday morning in his bakery

and hey, presto, a very sweet ginger biscuit was created,

which latterly became known as Grantham gingerbread.

Is it still manufactured in the town today?

It is, absolutely, by my own fair hands

and a good team that I've got behind me.

And I think that's something special. It needs to be created.

It's a product of Grantham.

-Are you using an original recipe?

-Yes, we are.

It's in my trusted book here.

-You have your own trusted book.

-Exactly. Just like yours.

This is a recipe book that's been passed down

from the family of William Egglestone over the generations.

And would it be like certain well-known fizzy drinks -

that the recipe is an absolute secret?

Absolute secret. Everyone knows it!

Given that Alistair's book is about the same age as my Bradshaw's,

it feels appropriate to try it out.

Ah, there are the magic ingredients. Ha-ha!

-Are you good with eggs?

-Oh, very good with eggs.

You've got some eggshell in there, Michael.

So, that's a point deducted, but I'll forgive you.

'The biscuits hadn't been made commercially

'for more than 50 years.'

So, what we need to achieve is a 13 gram ball of dough.

-Can't be serious.

-I can be absolutely series.

BOTH LAUGH

'Many recipes claim to be the original,

'all with differing quantities of flour, ginger, butter,

'sugar and eggs.

'Finally, William Egglestone's great-great-great-nephew

'came forward and produced the definitive 1740s version.'

-Oh, lovely!

-Look at those.

They've spread out beautifully and they've got a nice dome

and they are really a superlative sweetmeat

and I'm sure they're worth all of a shilling a box.

Well, I think it would be entirely unfair

-to keep these to ourselves.

-I think you're right.

I'm heading back to Grantham station.

I wonder what the locals will make of my batch.

Have a go at that.

-Mm!

-Do you like it?

-Delicious. Mm.

-It is Grantham gingerbread.

-Oh, right. OK.

As made by my fair hands.

Do you think your friend here would like some?

Sputty, would you like some?

-I think that gets the seal of approval, don't you?

-I think so.

-How do you find it?

-That's all right, that.

-Is it?

-Yeah.

-Would you like another one, would you?

-No, I'm all right.

-After drinking that, I'll be feeling sick.

-Very good. Thank you.

-Would you like to try one?

-Thank you.

-Mm. They're good. You did a good job.

-Yeah? It's OK?

-Yeah.

-Yeah? Good.

-Tell you what, have another one.

-Thank you.

-There we go.

-They're still warm, I think.

-They are, yes, yes.

On this first part of my journey,

I've encountered some great names from history -

Sir Isaac Newton, the genius founder of modern science,

George Byron, who left a trail of verses and lovers in his wake

and Margaret Thatcher,

one of the world's most powerful women,

who helped to shape modern Britain.

But none of their memories is evoked

by a million last-minute Christmas presents

nor by an outlet in almost every major railway station,

as is the name of Jesse Boot.

Next time, I put my culinary skills to the test

using the nation's favourite cooking apple...

Quite good, that. That's a new technique, I think.

I've never done that before.

Learn about forgotten lives in a Victorian lunatic asylum...

There are 2,861 women, men and children

buried three deep in unmarked graves.

..and take the wheel of a surprisingly speedy steam engine.

I had no idea you were going to go so fast!