0:00:04 > 0:00:08For Victorian Britons, George Bradshaw was a household name.
0:00:09 > 0:00:11At a time when railways were new,
0:00:11 > 0:00:16Bradshaw's guidebook inspired them to take to the tracks.
0:00:16 > 0:00:20I'm using a Bradshaw's Guide to understand how trains
0:00:20 > 0:00:25transformed Britain, its landscape, its industries, society
0:00:25 > 0:00:27and leisure time.
0:00:27 > 0:00:30As I crisscross the country 150 years later,
0:00:30 > 0:00:34it helps me to discover the Britain of today.
0:00:51 > 0:00:54I'm nearly halfway through my exploration
0:00:54 > 0:00:56of the web of tracks that links up London.
0:00:57 > 0:01:02Today I'm approaching east London on Britain's first high-speed line.
0:01:04 > 0:01:08Upper and middle class Victorians viewed the East End of London
0:01:08 > 0:01:09with horror.
0:01:09 > 0:01:13Its slums were the scene of unspeakable depravity,
0:01:13 > 0:01:17its dark streets lent themselves to robbery and murder.
0:01:17 > 0:01:20And respectable folk feared revolution,
0:01:20 > 0:01:23the mob and cholera sweeping down the Thames.
0:01:23 > 0:01:27I hope to see how the East End was transformed by railways
0:01:27 > 0:01:30in the 19th century and again in the 21st.
0:01:37 > 0:01:41Supplementing my usual guidebook with Bradshaw's special London edition,
0:01:41 > 0:01:44I'm following a route from east London's
0:01:44 > 0:01:45railway hub at Stratford
0:01:45 > 0:01:47towards the centre of the metropolis,
0:01:47 > 0:01:50pausing at Temple en route to Victoria station.
0:01:51 > 0:01:56I'll learn how the Olympic Park sustains a Victorian ideal
0:01:56 > 0:01:58of providing leisure space for Londoners...
0:01:58 > 0:02:01- Whoa!- Oh!
0:02:01 > 0:02:04..hear how a lawyer who learnt his trade in Victorian London
0:02:04 > 0:02:06went on to change the world.
0:02:06 > 0:02:09To this day, every meal served
0:02:09 > 0:02:13at the Inner Temple has a vegetarian option in memory of Gandhi.
0:02:13 > 0:02:16And meet a modern descendant of the Hackney cab drivers
0:02:16 > 0:02:18that Bradshaw would have known.
0:02:18 > 0:02:24How can you get from Bishopsgate to the Old Bailey without crossing a road?
0:02:24 > 0:02:28Ha-ha! By hiring a cab with a knowledgeable driver!
0:02:34 > 0:02:38My Bradshaw's tells me that my first stop is "an important junction"
0:02:38 > 0:02:42and at the time of my guidebook, it was also home to
0:02:42 > 0:02:45the Great Eastern Railway's locomotive works.
0:02:45 > 0:02:48A few years ago, I came here to Stratford to see how
0:02:48 > 0:02:51one of Victorian London's largest railway sites was being
0:02:51 > 0:02:54transformed to host the Olympic Games.
0:02:54 > 0:02:58Today, I want to see whether tracks laid at the dawn
0:02:58 > 0:03:02of the railway age coped with the crowds of spectators
0:03:02 > 0:03:07and whether the flame of regeneration still burns brightly in the east.
0:03:11 > 0:03:14The former Olympic Park has recently reopened to Londoners,
0:03:14 > 0:03:18creating a vast new public space the size of Hyde Park,
0:03:18 > 0:03:21studded with contemporary sculptures,
0:03:21 > 0:03:24including Anish Kapoor's striking ArcelorMittal Orbit.
0:03:25 > 0:03:29Parks, as we now know them, were invented in the 19th century,
0:03:29 > 0:03:32green oases, ringed by elegant homes,
0:03:32 > 0:03:35in the midst of industrial Britain's smoky cities.
0:03:36 > 0:03:40Dr Paul Brickell has been working to ensure that the Olympic Games
0:03:40 > 0:03:42bequeathed London a worthy park.
0:03:43 > 0:03:46Paul, I was here before the Olympic Games
0:03:46 > 0:03:48and the expectation was that many, many people,
0:03:48 > 0:03:51most people would come by train. Did it work out that way?
0:03:51 > 0:03:53Well, it did and there were many.
0:03:53 > 0:03:56You imagine the park down below us, quarter of a million,
0:03:56 > 0:03:58third of a million people every day.
0:03:58 > 0:04:01Plus the tens of thousands of people going to the shopping centre,
0:04:01 > 0:04:05plus the tens of thousands of people going about their normal business.
0:04:05 > 0:04:08And it worked. The railway was astonishing.
0:04:08 > 0:04:11It's such a connection with the Victorian period, isn't it?
0:04:11 > 0:04:14This was the most extraordinary railway works.
0:04:14 > 0:04:17Of course, you can still see the pattern of the railways all around.
0:04:17 > 0:04:21Yeah, I think they were the biggest railway engineering yards in Europe.
0:04:21 > 0:04:25Stratford works opened in 1847 and were the creation of the so-called
0:04:25 > 0:04:30"Railway King" George Hudson, chairman of the Eastern Counties Railway.
0:04:31 > 0:04:37At the peak of its 115-year history, the works employed some 6,500 people
0:04:37 > 0:04:39and to this day, the whole area is
0:04:39 > 0:04:44criss-crossed with railway lines dating back to Victorian times.
0:04:48 > 0:04:50One of the big challenges of building the Games was to
0:04:50 > 0:04:54weave this new piece of city around all this hard infrastructure,
0:04:54 > 0:04:57this hard railway and I think to get the beautiful view
0:04:57 > 0:04:59that you now see in the midst of all that is a tribute
0:04:59 > 0:05:01to the people who built the Games.
0:05:01 > 0:05:04Another thing that makes me think of Victorian times
0:05:04 > 0:05:06is that you have created a park here.
0:05:06 > 0:05:10Now, of course, Victorians had to create parks because their city was growing so fast.
0:05:10 > 0:05:13But it's a while since London had a new park.
0:05:13 > 0:05:15Tell me about yours.
0:05:15 > 0:05:17Like those Victorian parks, it's for the local population.
0:05:17 > 0:05:20Half the people who come here live around the park.
0:05:20 > 0:05:22But also it's a great park for London, for the world.
0:05:22 > 0:05:25We're here in the south with the stadium, the aquatic centre.
0:05:25 > 0:05:28The South Park Plaza is a waterside promenade,
0:05:28 > 0:05:31tree-lined promenade with lots of break-out spaces
0:05:31 > 0:05:32and lots going on in it.
0:05:32 > 0:05:35As you get further north, you can see the river winds, you get this
0:05:35 > 0:05:38sense of river valley, it's a much quieter park up there
0:05:38 > 0:05:42and it leads then of course to the Hackney Marshes and the Walthamstow Marshes.
0:05:42 > 0:05:44Now, you're a Stratford boy, I think.
0:05:44 > 0:05:47The East End was traditionally seen as the place of Jack the Ripper,
0:05:47 > 0:05:49Fagin from Oliver Twist
0:05:49 > 0:05:52and then the terrible bombings during World War II.
0:05:52 > 0:05:53Is all of this changing
0:05:53 > 0:05:56the way we feel about the East End of London?
0:05:56 > 0:05:58The positive side of that is that it was always
0:05:58 > 0:06:02full of entrepreneurial vim and vigour, which has mostly
0:06:02 > 0:06:05been on the right side of the law and occasionally perhaps not!
0:06:05 > 0:06:08The kind of people who are coming here are people who want to do new things.
0:06:08 > 0:06:10Some of them are old institutions.
0:06:10 > 0:06:12We're talking to the Victoria and Albert Museum,
0:06:12 > 0:06:16Sadler's Wells, University College London about coming to sites here.
0:06:16 > 0:06:20So, I think that that same spirit is here in east London.
0:06:20 > 0:06:23But hopefully more regulated, more legal.
0:06:23 > 0:06:25- Stratford on track.- Yes.
0:06:29 > 0:06:32Just as the creators of Victorian parks sought,
0:06:32 > 0:06:36the promoters of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park aim to provide
0:06:36 > 0:06:40space for Londoners to mingle, relax and exercise.
0:06:40 > 0:06:44But no park in Bradshaw's day could offer Olympic-standard
0:06:44 > 0:06:47amenities like the Copper Box Arena,
0:06:47 > 0:06:52designed for sports as diverse as basketball, fencing and netball.
0:06:52 > 0:06:53Get it back, Blue!
0:06:57 > 0:07:00- Hello!- Hi. - Sorry to interrupt your game.
0:07:00 > 0:07:03How does it feel playing in an Olympic facility?
0:07:03 > 0:07:04It's really, really good.
0:07:04 > 0:07:07We've been playing here for one season now.
0:07:07 > 0:07:09We've been practising for some really interesting events
0:07:09 > 0:07:12while playing in the Copper Box. It's a really good experience.
0:07:12 > 0:07:15And make my day. Who comes here to play by train?
0:07:15 > 0:07:16Hands up.
0:07:16 > 0:07:17Yeah?
0:07:17 > 0:07:19- Do you use the train? - Yes, I do.
0:07:19 > 0:07:20It's the perfect way to travel.
0:07:20 > 0:07:24That's the best thing about this location is how easy it is to access.
0:07:24 > 0:07:28We've attracted a lot of new players because of it.
0:07:28 > 0:07:32- Well, I guess I'm in the blue team. - I think so. Let's go.
0:07:32 > 0:07:36- Here we go. Straight away. - Someone throw to Michael.
0:07:36 > 0:07:39To me, Michael.
0:07:39 > 0:07:41Back to Michael. Let's go.
0:07:41 > 0:07:43Don't make it easy for him, girls!
0:07:47 > 0:07:48- Whoa!- Oh!
0:07:52 > 0:07:55Having caught my breath, I'm continuing my journey
0:07:55 > 0:07:58on the capital's newest rail service, London Overground.
0:07:59 > 0:08:02I'm travelling from Stratford to Hackney Central,
0:08:02 > 0:08:05passing straight through the Olympic Park.
0:08:07 > 0:08:11Long before Victorian train tracks wove their way across the city,
0:08:11 > 0:08:13Londoners travelled by carriage,
0:08:13 > 0:08:17and its descendant still works the streets today,
0:08:17 > 0:08:21recognised the world over as a symbol of the British capital.
0:08:22 > 0:08:26Hackney Central seems like a good place to take a hackney carriage,
0:08:26 > 0:08:29which is the official name of a London taxi.
0:08:29 > 0:08:31According to Bradshaw's London guide,
0:08:31 > 0:08:35"Every driver of a hackney carriage shall, when hired,
0:08:35 > 0:08:38"deliver to the hirer a card whereon
0:08:38 > 0:08:42"is printed the number of the stamp office plate fixed to the carriage.
0:08:42 > 0:08:45"The utility of this ticket will be readily seen
0:08:45 > 0:08:48"in the case of loss of luggage."
0:08:48 > 0:08:51I must say, I would find it very useful if that rule still applied.
0:08:51 > 0:08:55So handy when you leave your spectacles in the back of a cab.
0:08:55 > 0:08:56Taxi!
0:08:57 > 0:08:59Spitalfields, please.
0:09:03 > 0:09:08My driver, Howard Taylor, has been a cabbie for 27 years.
0:09:08 > 0:09:11What is the origin of calling a London taxi a hackney carriage?
0:09:11 > 0:09:14There's nothing written in stone
0:09:14 > 0:09:17but most people think it derives from the French term haquenee,
0:09:17 > 0:09:21which was a horse-drawn carriage, I believe.
0:09:21 > 0:09:24Ah, so not necessarily anything to do with good old Hackney at all.
0:09:24 > 0:09:27How long have hackney carriages been around then?
0:09:27 > 0:09:31Over 300 years now. We were licensed at the end of the 17th century.
0:09:31 > 0:09:34- Good heavens.- I wasn't there at the beginning!
0:09:34 > 0:09:35HE LAUGHS
0:09:35 > 0:09:40London taxis are the oldest regulated transport system in the world,
0:09:40 > 0:09:42and their drivers are famed
0:09:42 > 0:09:44for knowing the city like the back of their hand.
0:09:44 > 0:09:48That's because of the daunting exam they have to pass called
0:09:48 > 0:09:49"the Knowledge".
0:09:49 > 0:09:53- How far back does the Knowledge go? - Well before my time.
0:09:53 > 0:09:55And my father's before him.
0:09:55 > 0:09:59My father was a taxi driver, that's why I am, in truth.
0:09:59 > 0:10:01What did you have to learn?
0:10:01 > 0:10:05I had to learn everything within a six-mile radius of Charing Cross.
0:10:05 > 0:10:09So that's about 25,000 streets,
0:10:09 > 0:10:14and 70, 80, 90,000 places of interest.
0:10:16 > 0:10:20I reckon I know my city pretty well, but I'm no match for Howard.
0:10:21 > 0:10:26How can you get from Bishopsgate to the Old Bailey without
0:10:26 > 0:10:28crossing a road?
0:10:31 > 0:10:35Ha-ha! By hiring a cab with a knowledgeable driver!
0:10:35 > 0:10:37With a knowledgeable driver who'll tell you that the
0:10:37 > 0:10:43City of London has streets, alleys, hills and places, but no roads.
0:10:44 > 0:10:48- Ah!- Little bit unfair, I think. - That's a clever one.
0:10:48 > 0:10:52In Bradshaw's day, the railways rivalled the hackney cab trade
0:10:52 > 0:10:56and new technology is still affecting business today.
0:10:56 > 0:11:00- Nowadays we have these sat-nav Johnnies.- Satnav Johnnies!
0:11:00 > 0:11:05Private hire vehicles, if that's what you want to call them, pull up next to me totally confused.
0:11:05 > 0:11:07And the passenger in the back is asking me
0:11:07 > 0:11:10for directions cos the driver's not sure where they're going
0:11:10 > 0:11:12and the sat-nav has really lost them.
0:11:12 > 0:11:14So you can't beat the Knowledge.
0:11:15 > 0:11:18My hackney cab has brought me to a part of town which,
0:11:18 > 0:11:20at the time of my guidebook,
0:11:20 > 0:11:22was the capital's multicultural melting pot.
0:11:22 > 0:11:23Thank you.
0:11:29 > 0:11:32I'm a few yards from the City of London,
0:11:32 > 0:11:36but those who broke off from investing in the Victorian railway bubble,
0:11:36 > 0:11:41and ventured from their counting houses as far as Spitalfields,
0:11:41 > 0:11:42entered a different world.
0:11:42 > 0:11:45Here they encountered foreign immigrants.
0:11:45 > 0:11:51Your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
0:11:52 > 0:11:57For hundreds of years, this area just outside the old city walls
0:11:57 > 0:12:00has been home to wave upon wave of immigrants.
0:12:04 > 0:12:07Dr Daniel DeHanas has researched migration in Spitalfields
0:12:07 > 0:12:09over the years.
0:12:13 > 0:12:15Dan, you've really taken me back in time,
0:12:15 > 0:12:18but a long way back, way before my Bradshaw's guide?
0:12:18 > 0:12:22Absolutely, we've moved into a Huguenot weaver's house.
0:12:22 > 0:12:24This is probably from around 1720.
0:12:24 > 0:12:28And you can see that Huguenots were masterful silk weavers,
0:12:28 > 0:12:30that was their main trade.
0:12:30 > 0:12:34But they were forced to leave Catholic France because
0:12:34 > 0:12:39they were Calvinists, Protestants who were being persecuted.
0:12:39 > 0:12:44In the late 17th century, following violent persecution in France,
0:12:44 > 0:12:48some 50,000 Huguenots fled to Protestant England.
0:12:48 > 0:12:52Within the City of London, the textile trade was tightly controlled
0:12:52 > 0:12:56by the city's guilds, which were largely closed to foreigners.
0:12:56 > 0:13:01So a community of Huguenot weavers set up shop here, just outside
0:13:01 > 0:13:05the city walls, where they found a ready market for their beautiful silks.
0:13:07 > 0:13:10Overall, the Huguenots were quite a prosperous group who did
0:13:10 > 0:13:13very well from their silk trade which was really
0:13:13 > 0:13:16valued by the upper classes at the time.
0:13:17 > 0:13:20- Did they face prejudice here? - They certainly did.
0:13:20 > 0:13:24There's record actually from Parliament about a swarm
0:13:24 > 0:13:26of frogs which had invaded England.
0:13:26 > 0:13:30And that actually is something which was mirrored by other
0:13:30 > 0:13:33waves of immigrants that have come to this area as well.
0:13:33 > 0:13:35In the late 18th century,
0:13:35 > 0:13:40the opening up of global trade led to the decline of the London silk weaving industry,
0:13:40 > 0:13:43and the Huguenots gave way to Irish immigrants,
0:13:43 > 0:13:46escaping the great famine of the 1840s and '50s.
0:13:48 > 0:13:51They were drawn to Spitalfields by its abundant employment
0:13:51 > 0:13:53opportunities in the nearby docks
0:13:53 > 0:13:56and in the vast Truman Brewery on Brick Lane.
0:13:58 > 0:14:00It's called Brick Lane because this was where
0:14:00 > 0:14:03they would have carted bricks back and forth.
0:14:03 > 0:14:05The bricks had to be made outside of the city walls
0:14:05 > 0:14:09and this was actually a very, very busy and noxious
0:14:09 > 0:14:11and loud and noisy sort of lane.
0:14:11 > 0:14:14Then, around the time my guidebook was written,
0:14:14 > 0:14:18Spitalfields began to change again as Russian
0:14:18 > 0:14:23and East European Jews fleeing persecution settled here,
0:14:23 > 0:14:26earning the area the nickname Little Jerusalem.
0:14:26 > 0:14:29And now, as I look around me, we've got balti houses,
0:14:29 > 0:14:30we've got curry houses,
0:14:30 > 0:14:33so evidently there was another wave of immigration after that.
0:14:33 > 0:14:34Well, there was.
0:14:34 > 0:14:38The Bangladeshis are the wave since the '60s.
0:14:38 > 0:14:42They've really reshaped Brick Lane as a real curry mile.
0:14:42 > 0:14:45But beneath the trappings of so-called "Banglatown",
0:14:45 > 0:14:48it's possible to glimpse this area's many-layered past.
0:14:50 > 0:14:53Well, it seems that the minaret has been purpose built,
0:14:53 > 0:14:57but the mosque behind is not, I think, tailor-made.
0:14:57 > 0:15:02That's correct. The building is from 1743
0:15:02 > 0:15:05and what's remarkable is that it's been a place of worship
0:15:05 > 0:15:09for all of these successive waves of immigrants over time.
0:15:09 > 0:15:12So it was built as a Huguenot chapel.
0:15:12 > 0:15:14It spent part of its life as a Wesleyan chapel
0:15:14 > 0:15:16and a Methodist chapel.
0:15:16 > 0:15:19In the late 1800s, this became the great synagogue
0:15:19 > 0:15:23and at that time, there were more than 100,000 Jews
0:15:23 > 0:15:25living in the East End of London.
0:15:25 > 0:15:28And today, this is the great mosque.
0:15:28 > 0:15:32It's like the archaeology of all the religions that have been
0:15:32 > 0:15:35here in Brick Lane. Anyway, thank you so much.
0:15:35 > 0:15:37I'm off to see if I can have a really spicy evening!
0:15:37 > 0:15:38I hope you do.
0:15:47 > 0:15:51My journey is now taking me away from the East End as I travel
0:15:51 > 0:15:54towards central London on the District Line.
0:15:54 > 0:15:59I'm alighting at Blackfriars, where Bradshaw's Handbook of 1875
0:15:59 > 0:16:03promises a "new and truly magnificent bridge".
0:16:03 > 0:16:06Indeed it is, but Bradshaw was referring to the road bridge,
0:16:06 > 0:16:08which was new then.
0:16:08 > 0:16:13Today we can admire a bridge which arguably might have excited him even more.
0:16:17 > 0:16:20Since 1831, when London Bridge was demolished,
0:16:20 > 0:16:21there hadn't been a bridge
0:16:21 > 0:16:24spanning the River Thames with buildings on it.
0:16:24 > 0:16:28But that's all changed now with the new Blackfriars station.
0:16:28 > 0:16:32It spans the river and it has entrances on the north bank
0:16:32 > 0:16:34and the south bank.
0:16:34 > 0:16:38My Bradshaw's guide loves statistics about railway stations,
0:16:38 > 0:16:42so let me tell you that it's part of a £6.5 billion refurbishment
0:16:42 > 0:16:44of the Thameslink system.
0:16:44 > 0:16:50And that this station has 4,400 solar panels.
0:16:53 > 0:16:58I'm making my way just upriver, to the so-called Inner Temple,
0:16:58 > 0:17:00where Victorian lawyers learnt their craft.
0:17:04 > 0:17:07The Temple, according to Bradshaw's,
0:17:07 > 0:17:10"formerly the residence of the Knights Templar,
0:17:10 > 0:17:13"that was a medieval Christian military order
0:17:13 > 0:17:16"and now leased by the common law students.
0:17:16 > 0:17:20"There is, in the tranquil retirement of these buildings, and the garden
0:17:20 > 0:17:24"facing the river, an appearance of delicious quietness."
0:17:24 > 0:17:29And yet it was the brief of one of those students to shake the world.
0:17:34 > 0:17:38Much of the Inner Temple was rebuilt in Bradshaw's day,
0:17:38 > 0:17:41but its legal pedigree dates back to medieval times.
0:17:43 > 0:17:46Patrick Maddams is a member of the Inner Temple
0:17:46 > 0:17:48and is showing me around.
0:17:49 > 0:17:52Patrick, the Inner and Middle Temple take their names
0:17:52 > 0:17:57from the Knights Templar, but then lawyers came here and occupied
0:17:57 > 0:17:59Inns of Court. What are Inns of Court?
0:17:59 > 0:18:04Inns of Court were places where you would work, where you would sleep,
0:18:04 > 0:18:08where you would eat and drink and see friends.
0:18:08 > 0:18:11You have a good example of an Inn of Court here in King's Bench Walk.
0:18:11 > 0:18:14It was a single building where at the basement
0:18:14 > 0:18:18you would have the kitchen and where the servants lived.
0:18:18 > 0:18:21On the ground floor you would have the chambers where
0:18:21 > 0:18:23the barristers would see their clients.
0:18:23 > 0:18:27Above that you would have the rooms where the barristers lived
0:18:27 > 0:18:31and right at the top in the eaves was where the student barristers,
0:18:31 > 0:18:33called pupils, would live.
0:18:33 > 0:18:35By the time of my guidebook,
0:18:35 > 0:18:39this quiet corner of London was becoming a global centre for law,
0:18:39 > 0:18:43as Britain exported its legal expertise across the Empire.
0:18:43 > 0:18:45Is the opposite happening,
0:18:45 > 0:18:47are students coming from the Empire to here?
0:18:47 > 0:18:49It is. It's a two-way trade.
0:18:49 > 0:18:52By the time of the late Victorian era there are many, many,
0:18:52 > 0:18:56for example, young Indian barristers practising English law in India.
0:18:56 > 0:18:57Any notable examples?
0:18:57 > 0:19:01Well, of course, the most famous of all is Gandhi.
0:19:03 > 0:19:09Mohandas Gandhi would become the leader of the Indian nationalist movement against British rule.
0:19:12 > 0:19:16But his extraordinary career began in Victorian London
0:19:16 > 0:19:18as a young law student.
0:19:20 > 0:19:23So here we have, clearly, a bust of the great man.
0:19:23 > 0:19:26- Here he is.- And these documents?
0:19:26 > 0:19:30These are very important because Gandhi arrived at the Inner Temple in 1888
0:19:30 > 0:19:35and, as every student has to do to this day, he has to fill
0:19:35 > 0:19:36in an admission form.
0:19:36 > 0:19:39Here we see in his own handwriting,
0:19:39 > 0:19:45"I, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, of 20 Baron's Court Road, West Kensington,"
0:19:45 > 0:19:49signing his declaration that he is a fit and proper person.
0:19:49 > 0:19:55Luckily for historians, Gandhi kept a diary during his three years here.
0:19:55 > 0:19:58He took dancing lessons, he played the violin
0:19:58 > 0:20:02and he just seemed to be absorbed by everything that London had to offer.
0:20:02 > 0:20:06There's a very poignant final entry in the diary
0:20:06 > 0:20:11when he is on the boat leaving London and there's
0:20:11 > 0:20:15a copy of it there, Michael, if you'd like to have a look at it.
0:20:15 > 0:20:18Gandhi's final thoughts on London.
0:20:18 > 0:20:20"So much attached was I to London
0:20:20 > 0:20:23"and its environments, for who would not be?
0:20:23 > 0:20:25"London with its teaching institutions,
0:20:25 > 0:20:28"public galleries, vegetarian restaurants is a fit place
0:20:28 > 0:20:30"for a student and a traveller, a trader
0:20:30 > 0:20:35"and a faddist, as a vegetarian would be called by his opponents.
0:20:35 > 0:20:38"Thus it is not without regret that I left dear London."
0:20:38 > 0:20:41And this reminds us of one final legacy.
0:20:41 > 0:20:45Gandhi gave to the chef here some recipes
0:20:45 > 0:20:47that his mother had sent him
0:20:47 > 0:20:51and the chef took kindly on him and cooked a vegetarian curry.
0:20:51 > 0:20:53It soon became very popular
0:20:53 > 0:20:57and to this day, every meal served at the Inner Temple has
0:20:57 > 0:21:00a vegetarian option in memory of Gandhi.
0:21:00 > 0:21:04- This place is full of traditions. - It certainly is.
0:21:04 > 0:21:08After Gandhi qualified as a lawyer in 1891, he briefly returned
0:21:08 > 0:21:13to India before heading to join an Indian law firm in South Africa.
0:21:13 > 0:21:17Until that point, Gandhi had shown little interest in politics.
0:21:17 > 0:21:21Indian barrister Ram Viraraghavan knows more.
0:21:24 > 0:21:28- Ram, hello.- Hello, Michael. - Very good to see you.
0:21:28 > 0:21:32What has brought you from India to London?
0:21:32 > 0:21:37I wanted to taste the waters at the fountain of justice.
0:21:37 > 0:21:39That was why I came to the Inner Temple.
0:21:39 > 0:21:41What a lovely answer.
0:21:41 > 0:21:43I've been learning about Mahatma Gandhi,
0:21:43 > 0:21:46it seems that when he was in London he was not particularly
0:21:46 > 0:21:50interested in politics, so what changes him?
0:21:50 > 0:21:53I should think the provocation was he was
0:21:53 > 0:21:56thrown off a train in South Africa
0:21:56 > 0:21:57and that, I should think,
0:21:57 > 0:22:00was the beginning of his political consciousness.
0:22:00 > 0:22:04He was brown and the South Africans would have nothing of it.
0:22:04 > 0:22:06They threw him out of the train.
0:22:06 > 0:22:08This is what he says:
0:22:08 > 0:22:12"The hardship to which I was subjected was superficial,
0:22:12 > 0:22:17"only a symptom of the deep disease of colour prejudice.
0:22:17 > 0:22:21"I should try, if possible, to root out the disease
0:22:21 > 0:22:24"and suffer hardships in the process.
0:22:24 > 0:22:28"Redress for wrongs I should seek only to the extent
0:22:28 > 0:22:33"that would be necessary for removal of the colour prejudice."
0:22:33 > 0:22:35And so began in a small way,
0:22:35 > 0:22:38the road which ultimately leads to free India.
0:22:39 > 0:22:43It's quite extraordinary when you think that such important
0:22:43 > 0:22:46- history begins with an incident on a train.- Of course it does.
0:22:49 > 0:22:52It's time for me to take a train from the very same
0:22:52 > 0:22:55station that the young Gandhi would have used all those years ago
0:22:55 > 0:22:59and travel on the District Line to my final stop - Victoria.
0:23:01 > 0:23:05Here the District and Circle Lines, constructed in the 19th century,
0:23:05 > 0:23:08meet the 1960s-built Victoria Line
0:23:08 > 0:23:11and the result can be chaotic.
0:23:11 > 0:23:12It's a complete mess.
0:23:12 > 0:23:15They are at the moment doing some improvements.
0:23:15 > 0:23:17Do you think that's going to make it better?
0:23:17 > 0:23:20I'm hopeful that it will, and just ease some of the congestion.
0:23:20 > 0:23:23It's not intuitive, the way you get around the station.
0:23:23 > 0:23:26They tell us that in a few years' time we're going to have great big new ticket halls.
0:23:26 > 0:23:30- That's something to look forward to, isn't it?- Yeah!
0:23:34 > 0:23:38As Bradshaw says, "Occupying the site of the Grosvenor Canal basin,
0:23:38 > 0:23:41"the Victoria station is now the busy scene of the arrival
0:23:41 > 0:23:45"and departure of the West End and Crystal Palace, the Brighton
0:23:45 > 0:23:49"and South Coast and the Chatham and Dover lines."
0:23:49 > 0:23:54Not surprisingly then, Victoria has become cluttered, congested
0:23:54 > 0:23:57and confused, and clearly in need of an upgrade.
0:24:01 > 0:24:05Since 2009, the Underground station that serves this busy
0:24:05 > 0:24:09terminus has been undergoing a £700 million makeover,
0:24:09 > 0:24:12due to be completed in 2018.
0:24:15 > 0:24:16David Waboso is showing me
0:24:16 > 0:24:19what will eventually be a vast new ticket hall.
0:24:25 > 0:24:28David, Victoria Underground station is very badly congested,
0:24:28 > 0:24:30what is your master plan?
0:24:30 > 0:24:35We want to increase capacity of this station by a whopping 33%.
0:24:35 > 0:24:39We have more passengers use just Victoria Underground station
0:24:39 > 0:24:40than Heathrow Airport.
0:24:40 > 0:24:43Over 80 million passengers a year come through here.
0:24:43 > 0:24:45To link the new and old ticket halls
0:24:45 > 0:24:48and to improve connections between the Tube lines,
0:24:48 > 0:24:52280 metres of new tunnels are being squeezed in
0:24:52 > 0:24:55amongst the existing underground infrastructure.
0:24:55 > 0:24:57The trouble with that, from an engineering point of view,
0:24:57 > 0:25:00is we're having to basically tunnel through water-bearing sands,
0:25:00 > 0:25:03which is not very good material to tunnel through.
0:25:03 > 0:25:04How do you cope with that?
0:25:04 > 0:25:08We've effectively here put in over 2,000 jet grouting columns.
0:25:08 > 0:25:11Basically vertical columns of concrete that we pour
0:25:11 > 0:25:14into the ground under controlled methods, and that stabilises
0:25:14 > 0:25:18the ground so that we can then build these huge underground caverns.
0:25:18 > 0:25:21I walk past here probably most days of my life,
0:25:21 > 0:25:25I had no idea that this great big hole, this great big box was here,
0:25:25 > 0:25:28I just wish everybody could see it.
0:25:28 > 0:25:31It's a great achievement that during these vast works
0:25:31 > 0:25:35going on below ground, Victoria station has stayed open.
0:25:37 > 0:25:40David is now taking me to the cutting edge.
0:25:40 > 0:25:43DRILLING
0:25:45 > 0:25:48- Hello!- How are you?
0:25:48 > 0:25:50- Michael.- Eugene. Pleased to meet you.- Good to see you.
0:25:50 > 0:25:53And what is it that Eugene's doing?
0:25:53 > 0:25:55I'm used to seeing great big boring machines.
0:25:55 > 0:25:59I'm quite surprised to see Eugene doing kind of hand-mining, really.
0:25:59 > 0:26:02Yeah, when you get this close in, the space is so limited
0:26:02 > 0:26:07that you really need manual methods of doing it, and we exploit
0:26:07 > 0:26:11the skills of people like Eugene who have hand-mining capabilities.
0:26:11 > 0:26:14In Victorian times, they had to do all this hand-mining,
0:26:14 > 0:26:16but without these wonderful pneumatic tools.
0:26:16 > 0:26:18They must have been really good men, mustn't they?
0:26:18 > 0:26:22Yeah, they were, it's heroic stuff and we owe them a huge debt
0:26:22 > 0:26:24because a lot of the stuff we use today is based on
0:26:24 > 0:26:28the Victorians who built the first sections of the Tube in the 1860s.
0:26:28 > 0:26:30Where exactly are we now?
0:26:30 > 0:26:32So we're about 24 metres below ground level.
0:26:32 > 0:26:35Right on top of us is the Victoria Palace Theatre, which is
0:26:35 > 0:26:36currently having a matinee concert.
0:26:36 > 0:26:39Either side of that will be London buses
0:26:39 > 0:26:42and there'll be taxis and cars
0:26:42 > 0:26:46and people walking around and all this stuff is going on underground.
0:26:46 > 0:26:49Just behind us, about a metre behind that clay, will be
0:26:49 > 0:26:51the running tunnels for the Victoria Line.
0:26:51 > 0:26:52- Just behind that wall?- Yeah.
0:26:54 > 0:26:58On this journey I've witnessed London's insatiable restlessness
0:26:58 > 0:26:59and constant reinvention.
0:27:01 > 0:27:03Today, as in Bradshaw's day,
0:27:03 > 0:27:07its energy attracts visitors and settlers from around the world.
0:27:09 > 0:27:13As a new Underground station takes shape in the heart of the capital,
0:27:13 > 0:27:18in East London, Victorian railway sidings have become an Olympic Park.
0:27:18 > 0:27:21The East End is used to change,
0:27:21 > 0:27:26because waves of immigration altered it from one generation to another.
0:27:26 > 0:27:31As the son of a refugee, let me urge you to speak kindly to foreigners.
0:27:31 > 0:27:33After being insulted on a train,
0:27:33 > 0:27:38Mahatma Gandhi led a movement that deprived the British Empire
0:27:38 > 0:27:43of what had once been the jewel in Victoria's crown, India.
0:27:43 > 0:27:46Careless talk can be expensive.
0:27:50 > 0:27:53Next time, I'll discover how 19th century engineering
0:27:53 > 0:27:56made for spectacular theatricals.
0:27:56 > 0:27:58Ben Hur was produced there twice.
0:27:58 > 0:28:01To make it more exciting, they turned the treadmills round
0:28:01 > 0:28:03so that the horses were running towards the audience.
0:28:03 > 0:28:07Discover a Victorian luxury fit for a Queen...
0:28:07 > 0:28:12If I dab this behind my ears, I can smell like Queen Victoria.
0:28:12 > 0:28:15And come face to face with my hero...
0:28:15 > 0:28:16George Bradshaw.