Abergavenny to Hanborough 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.

I'm now halfway through a journey that spans Wales and England.

The fabulous wealth of Victorian Britain was founded on steam,

and that meant coal.

Today, I'd like to study the conditions of those

who hewed it from the earth in darkness

and of those whose life was lit by chandeliers.

I'm travelling from pit to palace.

This journey takes me across Britain from west to east.

From the industrial powerhouse of South Wales to the Welsh Borders

and the fertile lowlands of Herefordshire,

I'm seeing how the railways left no aspect of the country unchanged.

I'll finish in the historic university city of Cambridge.

This leg will take me below ground at Abergavenny,

east to Moreton-in-Marsh

and on to rebellious turf in Ascott-under-Wychwood,

ending in the Oxfordshire village of Hanborough.

'Today, my heart is in my mouth as I go down a mine...'

We're 300 feet below the surface and it's a strange feeling, isn't it?

It is. Yep.

'..I'm taught the art of ploughing in Oxfordshire.'

-Are you happy with that? Are a relaxed man?

-Yes.

-Good. I'm very relaxed about this.

-Keep...

-Don't pull it quite so tight. Perfect.

-Very nice.

-Perfect!

'And at Blenheim Palace, I'm offered a glimpse of some very racy art.'

Ooh la la! There's a lot of flesh on display.

They were perhaps a little too risque for the ladies to see.

My first stop today will be Abergavenny which,

according to Bradshaw's, "Stands amongst the Monmouthshire hills.

"Its present prosperity derives from valuable coal,

"likely to be much increased

"by the Newport, Abergavenny and Hereford railway

"on which I am now travelling."

It's time to descend to the bowels of the earth.

In the shadow of the Black Mountains

sits the historic town of Abergavenny, Gateway to Wales.

At the time of my guidebook, it was known for its 11th-century castle

and also for its psychiatric hospital.

The phrase "gone to Abergavenny"

was used locally as a metaphor for going insane.

But the focus of my visit today is the Blaenavon Big Pit Mine,

where Victorian men and children once toiled night and day

to power the Industrial Revolution.

Opened in 1860, it was connected to the railways six years later.

Today, it's a national museum set in a World Heritage Site.

I'll descend into the black world of Victorian coal mining.

You press this button on the right, turns the light on, OK?

Thankfully, experienced miner Paul Green is to accompany me.

-Morning and thank you. Thank you.

-Morning. Watch your step.

Do you remember your first time in the cage?

Yeah, I was a young 15-year-old.

I left school at 15, started at NCB in those days.

And when you did your training,

they took you to different mines to have a look at it.

I jumped in the cage and it wasn't lovely and quiet

like we've just been taken away, it was a sudden jolt.

-Were you afraid?

-Not afraid,

apprehensive, for want of a better word.

And as this instructor took us around the roadways of this particular mine,

there was a guy coming out pulling a horse along behind him!

He had a horse! And I thought,

"I've only ever seen one of them in a field!"

MICHAEL LAUGHS Couldn't believe it.

You must be older than I think!

Nah, a little bit younger than yourself.

We're 300 feet below the surface and it's a strange feeling, isn't it?

It is, yeah.

-Morning.

-Good to you.

-Morning, Pete.

-Just watch under feet, Michael.

-Yeah.

-Feet and head.

-Feet and head, you got it.

Close the door behind you, Michael.

-Close this door behind me?

-Yeah.

So these doors are pretty important?

Yes, Michael. They're ventilation doors and what they do,

they direct the air round the roadways of the mine

where we want it to go.

We've got a series of doors here.

If we left these doors open, the air will short circuit.

Come down the shaft that we came down, straight through this roadway

up the upcast shaft and starve other areas of the mine of air.

And in Victorian times, children as young as six worked on these doors.

They'd sit by the door and when they heard the horse

and the haulier coming along, they'd get up, open the door,

close the door behind them.

In those days, they didn't have lights like we have today,

so the child would have a candle.

What do you think's going to happen with that candle

-because of the air movement?

-It's going to blow out.

It's going to blow out, so the child is going to be in the dark

until the next haulier comes along with his horse and dram of coal

and lights the child's candle, and that's how it used to work.

Watch your head as we come through.

In 1838, an accident at a colliery near Barnsley in Yorkshire

brought the plight of children working in the mines

to public attention.

The disaster led to public outcry and a Royal Commission was ordered.

The outcome was an Act of Parliament in 1842

that banned women and children under ten from working underground.

Right, Michael, this is where we enter the stables here at Big Pit.

These are the names of the ponies, are they?

Yeah, names of the ponies, that actually worked here.

Now, the ponies were well looked-after, mind.

They'd come underground aged four,

they'd have a guy in charge of them called a haulier or a hostler

and his duty was to work that horse.

Now, if this horse got injured for any reason,

this mine owner would want to know why.

If it was found it was the haulier's fault,

he would have the sack, family kicked out of the cottage.

Always get another haulier, he had to buy another pony.

Ponies were the more valuable.

Ponies were more valuable in those days. Yeah.

Paul is taking me deeper into the mine

to see what life was like at the coal face.

-What is this chamber?

-This is what we call a stall.

Now, you'd have man and boy working together, father and son.

So they'd pick the coal off using your mandrels and your tools.

And then it would be the boy's job to fill the dram of coal.

The miner would only get paid for the amount of drams he filled,

but only coal.

When they were putting the supports in there and building the cogs up,

as we call them, and putting the timber supports up,

they didn't get paid for - only for the drams that were going out.

So, yes, hard times.

You've been telling me about the appalling conditions,

and of course, it got better during the Victorian period

and much better during the 20th century,

but even so, mining always continued to be potentially dangerous

and very bad for health.

So why was there such a feeling of community,

such a sense of loyalty around coal mining?

Mining brought the community together.

You knew everyone in the village, the man worked in the pit with you.

In my day, and the Victorian day, it was a way of life.

Every village had a coal mine.

The history of coal mining is the Victorian age in a nutshell.

Brilliant engineering to win the coal,

the exploitation of labour by the coal mine owners,

then waves of legislation and reform

as Victorians developed a social conscience.

In the 20th century, the coal miners became the aristocracy of labour,

with an enormous sense of pride and solidarity,

as I well remember from my political career.

Before I leave Wales, there's one last highlight to explore

before I seek the shelter of a railway carriage.

Here the picturesque River Usk winds through verdant countryside

towards the Bristol Channel.

"The scenery of the River Usk," says Bradshaw's,

"from Abergavenny to Brecon is very romantic

"as it winds around the Black Mountains.

"Excellent trout fishing."

I'm in a cast of mind to find out more.

Fly fishing for trout can be traced back to the Romans,

but advances made by the Victorians

shaped the sport that we enjoy today.

Keen fisherman Simon Evans has offered to show me why.

Good to see you.

Was trout fishing quite popular with the Victorians?

Very. There was whole culture that built up

with hotels scattered up and down the length of the river,

they would catch the railway, there were stop-offs at regular intervals.

There used to be a fishing hotel

that was associated with most of the stations.

That hotel then had a little bit of fishing on the Usk.

And it's always been very popular for that.

Even up to this day, it's still very popular for that type of thing.

Trout thrive in clear spring-fed rivers

where there is plenty of flies.

The fish reputedly have a brain the size of a pea,

so the fisherman can't feel too happy when outwitted.

I'm trying to here use some fairly authentic tackle

of that sort of age.

It's interesting compared to the carbon fibre rods that we use now.

So that's made of what?

That's made out of cane. But in the times of the Victorian,

most of the people were using things made out of bamboo and greenheart.

-And did the Victorians have reels?

-They did.

In the Victorian times, most of the reels were made out of wood.

This is a Hardy reel from about 1920, 1930.

But it would have been similar to a Victorian one?

It would have been almost identical.

And what did they use for lines?

They had silk lines. Now we use nylon lines.

But they used to have silk thread, plaited and tapered.

Probably the biggest change has been in

what we use to connect the line to the fly.

In those days, it was just horses' hair from the tail of a horse.

I suppose it was effective. They caught fish, didn't they?

They caught plenty of fish.

How did techniques develop during the Victorian age?

To begin with, it was just dapping.

So you had a pole and a line and a fly on the end

and you dapped it on the surface till the trout said hello.

Then casting came in with the revolutions in rods that happened.

And then that gave you the option of either fishing a wet fly,

which is you're fishing below the surface

trying to imitate a small fish or something of that ilk,

or a dry fly, which is imitating an emerging insect.

Fully briefed on Victorian technique and strategy,

I'm ready to cast my first line.

The rod is effectively like a spring,

-so hold the line in your left hand.

-Yeah.

And then pick the rod up and try and cast the line behind you.

And then put it back out again. Without catching the vegetation.

So as it comes up, you're stopping it on the top of your shoulder,

then letting the line extend backwards,

then it goes back out again.

Try one more time?

I'm not immediately getting the hang of this.

But what is the great attraction to you of angling?

It's just you and the fish, there's nothing else.

It doesn't matter what else is going on in the world,

whether it's raining, you've got problems at home, whatever,

it's just you and the fish for that magic moment.

And that's a precious thing in this day and age.

I must return to the line of duty and resume my journey.

I'll leave Simon to concentrate on his a catch.

WOMAN ANNOUNCES STOPS OVER TANNOY

From Abergavenny, I'm crossing the border into England

to the city of Hereford, where I'll change trains to travel east

to my overnight stop in the Cotswolds.

My next stop will be what Bradshaw's describes as,

"A small town on the old Fosse Way.

"It must have some claim to be at the heart of England

"since, apparently close by, there's a four-mile stone

"where Oxfordshire, Gloucester, Worcester and Warwickshire unite."

I can think of no better place to end this rain-sodden, soggy day

than Moreton-in-Marsh.

My Bradshaw's recommends this converted 17th-century coaching inn,

ideal for the weary traveller.

Before I turn in for the night, local historian Michael Rees

is joining me for a drink.

I think you might be interested in the Curfew Tower,

-which is opposite this hotel.

-Curious name.

Yes, it was called the Curfew Tower

because a curfew was rung at night and morning here until the 1860s.

Apparently, the bell in the tower was rung every night

to remind the townsfolk of the risk of fire in their homes.

But it also had other uses.

The story is,

Sir Robert Fry was travelling from London to Moreton-in-Marsh

and he got lost in the fog on Moreton Common.

But he heard the bell and it guided him to his destination here.

-He arrived safely?

-He arrived safely.

And he was so grateful that he made an endowment of 20 shillings

for the upkeep of the clock

and ten shillings for the ringing of the bell.

Well, I think you and I have time before the curfew

-to have a little drink.

-Thank you, Michael.

Another day and I'm ready to move on east, deep into rural Oxfordshire.

"Wychwood Forest," says my Bradshaw's,

"is a fine wooded track of silven beauty."

And I shall be leaving this train at Ascott-under-Wychwood.

Of the Oxfordshire countryside, it says,

"Much butter and cheese are made

"and calves are reared and fed for London markets."

But amidst the placidity of the cows and sheep,

trouble was brewing in the countryside.

During the 1870s,

an agricultural depression greatly unsettled

Ascott-under-Wychwood's rural community

and gave rise to a group known as the Ascott Martyrs.

Historian Nicola Verdon can explain why.

So these benches commemorate the Ascott Martyrs. Who were they?

The Ascott Martyrs were 16 women who were arrested,

basically for picketing, in May of 1873 at Crown Farm.

They were mostly the wives and daughters of labourers

in the village and at Crown Farm.

And their local union had gone on strike for better wages.

The farmer, Mr Hambridge, had sacked his labourers who joined the union

and brought in blackleg workers.

So the women were trying to persuade and disrupt the blackleg workers

from going to work on that farm.

What happened to the women?

16 of the women were arrested.

They were taken to Chipping Norton police station

where they were sentenced.

The women were sentenced to between seven and ten days hard labour,

but once the townsfolk got to hear about that, trouble erupted.

Basically what happened is

a crowd forms outside of the police house

and starts rioting against the sentence,

trying to get into the police station to free the women.

They were planning to take the women to Oxford prison by train,

but that was considered too public and too risky.

So they whisked them out the back in dark at night

and took them by horse and wagon.

What happened to the women, ultimately?

The women were eventually pardoned.

They received a pardon from the Queen

and they were also given a five-pound token by the union,

although they were expressly told not to spend it on alcohol.

During the late 19th century, rural poverty

and the rise of the trade unions

sparked agrarian revolts across southern Britain.

The workers struck their early blow for labourers' rights at Crown Farm.

The job of working these 460 acres has changed considerably

since Bradshaw's time.

To find out more, I'm meeting owner Chris Badger.

-Hello!

-Hello.

-Excuse me stopping you.

This is Crown Farm where the Ascott Martyrs were 150 years ago.

That's right, yeah.

I assume the labour situation's changed enormously.

They would've had to employ many more people in those days.

-Oh, yeah. They had horses and not tractors.

-Yeah.

Yeah, they didn't do so much as we do.

If I didn't have the diversification on here,

I'd probably do the whole lot on my own.

-Really?

-Yeah.

-You could do that?

-Oh, yeah. I might bring in one for harvest.

-Yes.

But the rest of the year, you wouldn't have anybody here at all.

And if you were just on your own, I suppose you wouldn't have

too many labour difficulties, would you?

Only me and the wife!

-You might still have your difficulties.

-That's right!

Have a go.

'Although I'm here to learn about Victorian farming,

'I can't resist trying out some modern day machinery.'

So how do I drive this thing?

-OK, foot on the clutch.

-Yes, sir.

Turn the key.

ENGINE STARTS UP

-Foot off clutch?

-Foot off the clutch.

-Away you go.

-Foot on the accelerator?

-And I'm trying to keep the wheel following this furrow?

-That's right.

-Hold tight there, Chris.

-That's all right.

-You happy there? Are you a relaxed man?

-Yeah.

-Good. I'm very relaxed.

Just don't pull it quite so tight on the furrow. That's it. Perfect.

-Very nice.

-Perfect!

So how are the wage levels of agricultural workers?

Can farm labourers make a decent wage?

Oh, yeah. They're earning quite good money these days, I think.

Lots of overtime, double time at weekends, that sort of thing.

They're earning £15-20 an hour.

I think I've ploughed my furrow

and I think I've furrowed your brow as well!

CHRIS CHUCKLES

In the days of the Ascott Martyrs,

it would have taken a man and a horse a day

to plough an acre of land,

whereas today it can be done in 15 minutes.

-Thank you, Chris. Pleasure.

-I hope you enjoyed it.

Only a handful of trains stop at Ascott-under-Wychwood each day.

I'm interested to see that a vintage signal box survives here.

It's quite an unusual box. It's...

BELL CHIMES FOUR TIMES

..between here and Oxford and it's basically a fringe box.

BELL CHIMES

What's all this business?

We communicate by bells.

It's an unambiguous way of talking to each other.

What you do, you actually repeat everything back.

That way, it can be deemed as not being wrong.

So nothing is accepted until it's repeated back.

I love it. It seems so wonderfully old-fashioned.

-There's about 52 different bell codes.

-No!

-Yeah.

'The railway block code, rather like Morse, is used between

'signal boxes to ensure the line is clear and that trains can proceed.'

How long has this signal box been here?

It's well over 100 years.

It's a lovely place to work.

-Good place to learn your bell codes.

-It is. It's wonderful.

My final destination beckons and I'm ready to board my last train

to the village of Hanborough.

The 12-mile journey takes me through glorious Oxfordshire countryside.

Blenheim is the only house not built for royalty or for a bishop

to bear the title "palace".

Bradshaw's tells me that,

"It contains a library of more than 17,000 volumes.

"It did contain a most costly collection of paintings

"until recently, the most valuable portion of them

"having been accidentally destroyed in a fire.

"It is a calamity that the nation will deeply deplore."

I'd like to know which works of art were forever lost

and also what volumes graced the bookshelves of the house

where a decade after my Bradshaw's Guide, Winston Churchill was born.

I'm alighting at Hanborough, the nearest station to Blenheim.

The Palace was built in the early 18th century

and was a gift from Queen Anne to the first Duke of Marlborough,

who had defeated the French at the Battle of Blenheim in 1704.

The outstanding Baroque edifice is set in over 2,000 acres

of parkland and gardens.

My main interest here is the great fire, as mentioned in Bradshaw's,

and I am meeting archivist John Forster to find out more.

A magnificent space, John. What is this room called?

This is the Orangery at Blenheim Palace.

In 1861, there was a huge fire here which destroyed

a valuable collection of paintings.

When you say here, in the Orangery?

Yes, actually in this room where we are.

Very early in the career of the first Duke of Marlborough,

he'd been given a set of paintings by the Duke of Savoy,

a set of Titians, as they were then thought.

The 4th Duke of Marlborough,

about 50 years after the acquisition of the paintings,

decided they were perhaps a little too risque for the ladies to see

and so, he had them put here in a separate gallery,

I have to say, for gentlemen's eyes only.

Would we ourselves judge them as particularly salacious?

We do have copies of them here.

I think that, by modern standards, they are fairly innocuous.

Ooh la la! There's a lot of flesh on display.

A lot of flesh, but restrictive by modern standards, I think.

-But in their day, they were thought unsuitable.

-Yes, indeed.

Not for the ladies.

John wants to tell me about some of the later Dukes of Marlborough

and is taking me first to Blenheim's Great Hall...

..a spectacular room with arched portals, columns, sculpture

and an exquisitely-decorated ceiling.

And who is this?

So here we've got the 8th Duke of Marlborough.

What sort of man was he, John?

He was very much a scientist, a mathematician, a technocrat, really.

And so, he installed electricity,

he installed his own design telephone system

and he was responsible for bringing the railway

-to Woodstock and Blenheim.

-Blenheim had its own railway station?

Indeed it did, called Blenheim.

Which it no longer has, unfortunately.

No, unfortunately, it closed many years ago.

How did the Duke pay for these improvements?

One of basic things he did was sell the picture collection.

Really all the great pictures apart from the portraits he sold in 1886.

-That's extraordinary. Some paintings destroyed in the 1860s...

-Yes.

-..others sold in the 1880s.

-Yes.

-Devastating.

-Absolutely devastating.

'We're on our way to the Palace's library, that retains catalogues

'and documents recording the pictures that were sold.'

Good heavens, John, this is one of the most glorious rooms

-I've ever set foot in, I think.

-Isn't it magnificent?

-Those pictures that were sold.

-Yes.

Here's the original catalogue.

"Catalogue of the collection of pictures from Blenheim Palace,

"which by order of His Grace, the Duke of Marlborough,

"will be sold by auction on Saturday, July 24th, 1886."

If you turn a few pages, you can begin to see the real meat of them.

Rubens, Rubens...

And so you see the prices paid then for a Rubens, only £483.

This one a little more - £1,575.

Imagine now, you're talking of millions.

So this is the money that was used for the electrification

for telephone system and the railway station?

Yes, and all his other things too that he did at Blenheim, yes.

Bradshaw's tells me that this wonderful library

contains 17,000 volumes. Is that accurate?

Yes, in Bradshaw's day it did.

But again, it was sold by the 7th Duke

to fund the expenses of part of his political life

and so, he sold the library in 1881.

Does anything survive from the original collection?

We're so lucky because some things were held back.

And so, we have this magnificent remains of that original library.

And, Michael, it's actually in Spanish.

"Comienza el segundo libro de

"la General y Natural Historia de las Indias."

"Here begins the second book of

"General and Natural History of the Indies."

If you look at the date, 1535,

and when you think Columbus only discovered it in 1492,

isn't that amazing?

This is absolutely superb.

So this is right at the beginning of printed word as well, is it?

I'm impressed, you see. It's still totally legible.

You read it without any difficulty at all.

500 years it was printed.

That is superb.

And this magnificent piece survived the depredations of the 7th Duke.

-Yes, indeed.

-John, thank you so much.

-My pleasure.

-Bye-bye.

Much of our island's story is the history of great men -

the Duke of Marlborough who won the Battle of Blenheim

and built this palace,

and Sir Winston Churchill, born here,

who led us to victory in World War II.

But in Bradshaw's time, economic forces were our masters.

And the main actors were not dukes but entrepreneurs,

coal owners and the like,

and the men and women and girls and boys

who toiled underground to build Victorian prosperity.

'Next time, I discover a miniature edition by my favourite publisher...

And this is actually the first edition of Bradshaw's.

Ah! That is exciting.

'..marvel at the ambition of a new railway...'

You're going to raise this up, bring the rail across by this weekend?

-Yes.

-There's a man speaking with confidence.

'..and learn what a hat can do.'

It's amazing. In a moment, you've converted me

from an investment banker into a rake!