Amersham to Regent's Park 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.

"London is the capital of Great Britain

"and, indeed, if its commercial and political influence be considered,

"of the civilised world.

"The British metropolis contains the largest mass of human life

"that ever has existed in the annals of mankind."

I'm embarking on five itineraries across our mighty capital

to rediscover the wonders and the horrors of Victorian London.

All week, I'll use my usual 1860s Bradshaw's

and dip into other editions to explore the tracks

along which Victorian London moved.

I'll begin outside the capital, at Amersham,

follow in the footsteps of London's early commuters,

make a short detour via Hampstead Heath

en route to my final stop at Regent's Park.

I'll scoop a cool treat in suburbia...

-It's sludging, yes. Keep going.

-Sludging?

Not sure I want to be known for making sludgy ice cream!

..learn how the railway age was also a boom time for cemeteries...

Some wag had written, "New graves, warmed by steam!"

HE LAUGHS

..and visit an exotic 19th-century attraction

that still draws a crowd.

It's a great way for people to get close to animals.

A bit too close, possibly!

THEY CHUCKLE

I begin on London Underground's Metropolitan line,

which connects the city centre with rural Buckinghamshire.

From the start of the 19th century

until my Bradshaw's Guide was published,

the population of London grew from one million to three million.

But it was still a city without extended suburbs.

They came with the trains and, as this Metropolitan Railway

was pushed out into the green fields,

it created "Metro-Land".

The Metropolitan line was London's first "underground" railway,

but it's only towards the centre of the city

that its trains run in tunnels.

Of its 34 stations, only nine are below ground.

The line's terminus at Amersham is one of the furthest-flung outposts

of the capital's underground system.

I've come to hear how, in the early 20th century,

this pioneering railway created the conditions for suburbia

from author and transport historian Oliver Green.

Now the Metropolitan Railway, um...

it really has two personalities, doesn't it?

Because it was, was it not, the first London underground railway,

what, from Paddington to Farringdon?

It was. In 1863.

It was the first underground railway in the world

and, as you say, it linked up the mainline stations in central London.

But, very soon, the railway company found that, actually,

it was proving very expensive

to extend the line within central London.

So their rather pushy chairman in the 1870s, Edward Watkin,

started to plan to extend the line

out through the suburbs of north-west London.

Initially underground and then overground, through the countryside,

and linking up with a chain of railways

right through to Manchester, which is where he came from.

Watkin's grand plan didn't come to pass

but, by the 1890s, the Metropolitan Railway

had cut a swathe through the rural Home Counties,

making it viable for people to commute into the capital

from these formerly isolated areas.

In the early days, there was quite a lot of concern about it.

The novelist Anthony Trollope said that the railways,

instead of enabling Londoners to live in the countryside,

had brought the city into the countryside.

The Metropolitan Railway Company soon lured more customers

to the rural areas served by its line.

It owned land around the stations,

which it began to develop with homes for middle-class commuters.

So, did this railway get into the business of property speculation?

It did later on, in the early 20th century, yes.

None of the other companies had done this before.

And they christened the area "Metro-Land".

So Metro-Land was a name invented by the railway itself,

not a nickname applied from outside?

Absolutely, yes, they came up with it.

And the guy in the publicity department came up with it

in the middle of the First World War, oddly enough.

Apparently, he was in bed with the flu

and suddenly thought of this publicity word

and jumped out of bed and went back in to work

to tell everyone about it and they adopted it,

and it was used throughout the 1920s and '30s as a promotional tool.

And that's the Metro-Land which is then celebrated by John Betjeman.

Absolutely.

We called you Metro-Land

We laid our schemes

Lured by the lush brochure

Down byways beckoned

To build at last the cottage of our dreams

A city clerk turned countryman again

And linked to the metropolis by train.

George Bradshaw, dying in the 1850s,

had glimpsed only the start of the rail commuting phenomenon.

My next stop is Pinner, linked to the Metropolitan line in the 1880s.

"Pinner, with the trees scattered around it,

"and the rich foliage of Pinner Park,

"forms a landscape of very considerable beauty."

Metro-Land provided the setting for middle-class domestic bliss

and set up a requirement for middle-class domestic goddesses.

The image of the perfect housewife was popularised in Victorian times,

and one woman who did much to promote it

was a Pinner resident, Mrs Beeton,

whose famous Book Of Household Management was published in 1861.

But, apparently, she wasn't the only celebrity cook

to be drawn to this peaceful village.

Food historian Robin Weir will tell me the forgotten story

of another culinary trailblazer from the 19th century.

We're here to talk about Mrs Marshall,

who was, frankly, the most important Victorian cook

and was actually a one-woman industry.

How is it, then, that I have heard of Mrs Beeton

but not of Mrs Marshall,

who apparently was well known in her day?

Well, she was very well known in her day.

But, unfortunately, she died just before her 50th birthday.

After her untimely death,

Mrs Marshall's cookbooks went out of print

and she soon faded into obscurity.

But, in her time, she'd been a formidable businesswoman.

She used the railway to commute from Pinner

to her thriving cookery school in central London.

And she gained a place in gastronomic history

by developing a Victorian delicacy.

And what is it you're clutching where I'm clutching my Bradshaw?

Well, yes, this...

This is a copy of Fancy Ices,

which is one of the most important books on ice cream ever produced.

What she was so clever with is she'd sell you the book.

Then she'd sell you the machine to make it in.

Then she'd sell you the ice cave, which was an early freezer.

Then she'd sell you the moulds to put in the ice cave.

So she was a complete sort of one-woman industry.

This Mrs Marshall is my kind of Victorian.

The 19th century brought ice cream to the masses.

Imported ice became available,

shipped in from as far afield as North America,

while new devices simplified the process of making ices.

Mrs Marshall patented a churning machine,

still used by enthusiasts like Annie Squire,

who is demonstrating a Victorian recipe

with a surprising main ingredient.

We're going to mix some cream, about a pint of cream,

with this cucumber mixture.

It's cooked cucumber with sugar, ginger wine and some lemon juice.

'The cucumber mixture and cream are poured into the pan,

'which is cooled over ice and salt.'

And this is where the hard work begins, is it?

That's where the hard work begins.

'The paddle steadily churns the mixture,

'keeping the texture lovely and smooth.

'In theory.'

-Gentle.

-Gentle?

Well, as fast as you think you can

without it going off into outer space, you know?

As fast as I can without it going into...

-Turning it into a flying saucer!

-..outer space?

Annie, I can feel it stiffening a little bit already, I think.

Well, according to Mrs Marshall,

you should be able to make a pint of ice cream in about five minutes.

-Shall we have a look?

-Yeah.

-It's sludging, yes. Keep going.

-Sludging?

Not sure I want to be known for making sludgy ice cream!

-It's getting quite stiff to the touch.

-Good, yes.

Shall we have a look?

Whoa! What do we think of that?

-Really good.

-So now we serve it out.

-Yes.

Look at that!

Mmm!

-That's really good, isn't it?

-That's very nice.

-The sweetness and the cucumber go very well.

-Yep.

Portillo's ice cream, penny a lump!

Guaranteed to make you jump!

Having experienced the sweet taste of Victorian suburbia,

I'm now continuing my journey towards the heart of the city

on the Metropolitan line.

-Hello!

-Hello!

Do you live on the Metropolitan line?

-Do you live in Metro-Land?

-Yes, we do, Pinner.

And is it important to you to have the access to the centre?

Oh, yes. I mean, it's amazing.

You can get to Baker Street in about 15 minutes.

I think it's the best line on the Underground,

-the Metropolitan line.

-Why so?

Well, because the trains are fast,

easy to get to Finchley Road for Hampstead.

Our grandchildren are in school in Hampstead, so it's very handy.

It sounds like you're quite good fans of rail transport.

Oh, especially as it doesn't cost us anything!

We've got our rail cards!

While in Bradshaw's day, suburban routes were in their infancy,

the modern commuter has a wealth of tracks to choose from.

I'm now swapping the Underground system for the lines

recently reconfigured and rebranded as the Overground,

which will carry me from West Hampstead to my next stop.

Hampstead Heath, says Bradshaw's,

"Is situated in the midst of a fine open country,

"which, from its elevated character,

"provides many beautiful views of the city."

It's one of my favourite open spaces and the point for that panorama

has a name that appeals to me - Parliament Hill.

Even at the time of my guidebook, the countryside around the capital

was gradually being eaten up by urban sprawl,

but thankfully the heath itself has survived almost unchanged.

The vista is, as promised, superb,

and Bradshaw's comments that the air is remarkably salubrious.

That would be in contrast, I suppose,

to the miasma of sulphurous fumes

and the smoke from 100,000 domestic hearths

that would have shrouded the city.

It wasn't just the living who sought to escape to green slopes.

My guidebook comments,

"Cemeteries have been established within the last few years

"under the Burial Acts, which compel metropolitan districts

"to provide suitable space for the interment of the dead."

Then it comments that entry to Highgate Cemetery is free.

That would be for the quick, I think, not the dead.

As 19th century London's population mushroomed,

the problem of where to bury the dead reached crisis point.

In 1836, an Act of Parliament legislated for the creation

of vast new cemeteries on the city's outskirts.

My guide to Highgate is Ian Dungavell.

What made them build cemeteries in places like Highgate?

Normally, you'd be buried in your local parish churchyard,

but those had got very, very crowded,

so the sextons would have to go round prodding,

looking for space for a grave

and oftentimes that wasn't available.

-A shocking situation.

-It really was, it was absolutely terrible,

and on top of that there was a fear of grave robbers or body snatchers,

who were looking for corpses to sell to the anatomy schools,

so all in all, people didn't want to be buried

in parish churchyards any more.

Here lie some of Victorian Britain's most notable figures,

including scientist Michael Faraday, writer George Eliot

and, most famously, Karl Marx.

Cemeteries like Highgate were privately run,

and only those who could afford the fees were buried in them.

The headstones and tombs are magnificent pieces of art.

-Ostentatious.

-Absolutely.

You had to show off your social position

and also the cemetery company

wanted to make sure you knew this was a good place to be,

so if you had your tomb within a certain distance of the main path,

you had to spend a fair bit of money on it.

This is all part of Victorian commercial enterprise, is it?

Absolutely, these were a private speculation.

If you look at the pages of the newspapers in the 1830s,

you'll see ads for cemetery companies

alongside ads for railway companies

and they were both part

of that growth in infrastructure in the 1830s.

In fact, on one new cemetery, they had the billboards up saying,

"New cemetery coming soon,"

and some wag had written, "New graves warmed by steam."

So it's quite clear people saw cemeteries and railways

as joint aspects of modern life.

-A bit macabre.

-Yeah.

What an extraordinary-looking building.

These are the terraced catacombs,

so they're listed because they're the oldest asphalted structure

in the country and the company that did it,

the consulting engineer was Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

My goodness, it's like a library of corpses on their shelves.

That's right. There's 825 of these niches where coffins were placed

and it's the most secure part of the cemetery.

You had three lines of defence - the cemetery walls,

you would come up here with an attendant with a key

and then your coffin would be placed in here

with a marble slab or a granite slab in front with your name inscribed.

So here, you really were on the shelf, weren't you?

I've retraced my steps to West Hampstead

to rejoin the Underground network.

The Jubilee line's first stretch opened in 1979,

partly using these existing tracks,

and now they're carrying me towards central London.

Bradshaw's suggests I visit

Tussauds Wax Exhibition at Baker Street.

"Summer - 11 to 10, winter - 11 to dusk.

"One shilling, see Napoleon, et cetera."

After the opening of this model attraction,

its popularity waxed.

Since its foundation in the early 19th century,

around 500 million visitors

have beaten a path to London's famous waxworks.

In an age before television and Twitter,

here Victorians managed to look their heroes in the eye.

Matthew Clarkson is introducing me

to this venerable institution's founder.

This is the lady herself.

The story of Madame Tussauds starts in about 1770 Paris,

where she learned to model wax likenesses.

Early 19th century, she moved to London with a travelling exhibition

of death masks and relics from the French Revolution.

-Death masks?

-Yeah.

When she was 17, she became the art tutor to Louis XVI's daughter.

She then learned her skill there and had to prove her allegiance

to the family during the French Revolution,

where she was forced to create these death masks of the aristocracy

who had been sentenced to death.

What a frightful beginning.

Yeah, it's kind of dark, but it's where she learned her craft.

In 1835, Madame Tussaud set up shop at the Baker Street Bazaar,

where Londoners could come face to face with figures from Nelson

to Mary Queen of Scots.

Then, in 1884, 34 years after her death, the exhibition relocated

to its present position on the Marylebone Road.

Today's stars now stand alongside

the great and the good of Bradshaw's era.

I see here my old friend Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

Now, what did Queen Victoria make of this?

Was she keen on Madame Tussauds?

She was fascinated by the process.

In 1837, she was sculpted for the first time

and it was what we call a "live sitting".

Whereas now we take hundreds of measurements of facial features,

she had the moulding medium poured on her face

with straws in her nostrils to breathe.

To tolerate such indignity of the royal personage,

she must have been highly amused by the whole process.

Yes, I can imagine so.

If Queen Victoria could endure such hardship

to be immortalised in wax, then so can I.

-Hello, guys.

-Hi.

-Hi.

So what torture have you got ready for me here?

So what we're going to do

is basically dipping your hand into the wax.

It is really, really hot, yeah?

Sorry, you're going to dip my hand in really hot wax?

Yes. First of all, what we're going to do

is put some cream on your hands.

The cream helps to remove the wax later,

while the cold water should make the hot wax dip less painful...I hope!

Let's start dipping with five times.

One,

-two...

-Two!

..three,

four...

Nice. ..five.

So if you come here for me.

You might feel like I'm cutting you a little bit, but I'm not.

Aaaah!

This man is taking a knife around my arteries!

OK, now comes the fun part.

Just relax your hand completely and let it slide off into the water.

It's not going to break.

And here we go.

Look at that! Isn't that lovely!

How's that looking?

I think that that is in the most extraordinary good taste.

Now, do you think that can carry my Bradshaw's?

-I should hope so.

-Oh, beautiful!

That's lovely.

Travelling with Bradshaw's - a hands-off approach.

London's earliest underground railways

were just metres below the city streets,

but towards the end of the 19th century,

the birth of electric trains made deep-level railways possible

and the real "Tube" was born.

In 1906, a new underground railway opened,

bored deep beneath the city's streets,

running between Baker Street and Waterloo.

And though after that it was extended to the south

and very much to the north, it's still known today as the Bakerloo.

The Bakerloo line is taking me

to my final destination on today's journey,

known as the jewel in the crown of the eight Royal Parks of London.

The Regent's Park takes its name from Queen Victoria's uncle,

the Prince Regent, later King George IV.

He allowed elegant new homes, set in ornamental landscaped grounds,

to be built on crown lands formerly used for farming.

"Regent's Park," says the Bradshaw's Guide to London,

"and the surrounding crescents were laid out from a plan by John Nash.

"The zone of noble mansions is a rare boon to the pedestrian

"of which the Londoner may well be proud."

Was there ever a more successful design of park?

At first, only the residents of the exclusive new villas and terraces

were permitted to use the gardens,

but as 19th century London's population grew,

so did the need to provide open spaces.

In 1835, the general public was permitted to enter sections

of the Regent's Park on two days of the week.

Today, it's open all year round for everyone.

-Hello, ladies!

-Hello!

How are you? May I just join you for a second?

-Yeah.

-What are you drinking?

-We're drinking a little Pinot Grigio.

-Pinot Grigio.

Why do you think Regent's Park works so well?

I think it's got so many interesting things in it -

you've got the lovely flowers and you've got the gardens...

-The architecture?

-Beautiful. Absolutely gorgeous.

-Are you pleased it got opened up?

-Absolutely. Who wouldn't be?

A park and a good book.

-Still a good recipe?

-A great combination.

Yeah, we are clashing slightly, with the pink and the yellow.

It think it works!

MICHAEL CHUCKLES

I'd love to linger with a drink, but I'm just passing through

this beautiful park, en route to an attraction built to satisfy

the 19th century's unquenchable thirst for knowledge.

"The Zoological Gardens is perhaps the most fashionable resort

"in the metropolis,

"an institution which has its origins

"in that spirit of association

"which has achieved so much for England.

"Specimens of rare, curious and beautiful animals

"have been collected.

"A walk through this garden is like a rapid journey over the world."

Now, most Victorians were not able to travel the globe

and photography was in its infancy,

so imagine the experience of wonder and joy when they came to the zoo.

'As in Bradshaw's day,

'London Zoo continues to pull in the crowds,

'with more than a million visitors per year.

'I'm meeting zoological director David Field

'to hear how it began as an exclusive club.'

David, it's pretty hot for me in my summer plumage,

so I hate to think what it's like for the penguins!

When did the Zoological Society of London begin?

The society actually began in 1826 and it was the vision

of a wonderful man called Sir Stamford Raffles.

He had the foresight to bring together

a range of eminent scientists and politicians of the day

to create the society that then grew into the London Zoo as we see today.

Created so that researchers

could study exotic animals at close quarters,

when the zoo opened in 1828,

it was the first scientific zoo in the world.

Among those who benefited was Charles Darwin,

who reportedly saw his first ape here.

It was a members-only club until 1847,

when public pressure forced the society

to open its doors more widely.

Bradshaw's talks about it as being a very fashionable place,

so it was treated by the well-to-do as a place to promenade, was it?

Absolutely. In fact, a music hall artiste called The Great Vance

had a song in which the lyrics talked about, "The OK thing to do

"in a Sunday afternoon is promenade in the zoo."

And in actual fact,

that was the first time the word "zoo" was ever coined.

Some of the zoo's residents so captured the Victorian imagination

that they achieved celebrity status.

A great Victorian character surely was Jumbo the elephant.

Oh, one of the most iconic characters

and his name just lives for ever.

Because "Jumbo" didn't actually mean elephantine.

No, not at all, and it certainly was Jumbo

that has given that, that phrase, but he was an enormous animal.

What happened to him?

He actually left the zoo.

He was sold to Barnum & Bailey circus.

Because of his size, Phineas T Barnum,

he wanted the biggest elephant in the world.

But there was an outcry.

There was letters to the press,

even Queen Victoria made a request

that surely we should be able to keep Jumbo.

What happened to Jumbo in the end?

Well, one night in the States,

when the circus was moving from one site to the other,

Jumbo was getting onto the train

and unfortunately another freight train was coming the other way

and hit Jumbo and he died there and then.

That was end of the line for Jumbo.

Jumbo's death sparked a public outpouring of grief.

London Zoo had prompted Victorian Britons to take to their hearts

outlandish species from distant shores.

It's a great way for people to get close to animals,

a bit too close, possibly!

It must have been extraordinary for Victorians

for the first time to come eye to eye with a giraffe.

The Victorians couldn't get enough of this.

But the same is today.

People love to get close and are inspired to get this close

to animals.

Whilst Jumbo's sad death was caused by an American freight train,

life in London has become dependent on railways.

This Metropolitan Railway was opened in 1863

and soon extended as far as Mrs Marshall's Pinner.

London faced a population explosion

and responded by perfecting its recreations and its parks

and by seeking nearby green spaces for its citizens

both living and dead.

London was the first metropolis to struggle with how to open up

rural paradise without urbanising the countryside

and, using the world's first underground railway,

I think my city did it pretty well.

'Next time, I'll see the celebrated ship that supplied Victorian Britain

'with its national drink...'

Every journey back from China, she was bringing 600 tonnes of tea.

That was enough tea to make over 200 million cups.

'..taste the by-product of 19th century global trade...'

Mmm!

Deliciously warm, as though it had just come off

a hot sticky toffee pudding.

'..and learn about the nation's top award for gallantry.'

-This one...is made from the barrel you're leaning on.

-Really?!