London's West End 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 industry, society and leisure time.

As I crisscross the country 150 years later, it helps me

to discover the Britain of today.

I'm now over halfway through a London railway odyssey,

discovering how, with industrialisation,

the capital became the world's first megalopolis.

Today, I'm bound for its very heart.

Sandwiched between the capital's political and financial centres,

at Westminster and the old City of London, is the West End,

whose theatres, emporia, eating houses, coffee shops

and public houses were a magnet

for Victorian pleasure seekers and players.

And they've lost none of their pulling power today.

I'm using my usual guidebook

and extracts from Bradshaw's 1862 Illustrated Handbook to London

to make a series of journeys in and around the capital.

This time, I'm exploring the West End, from Covent Garden, via

Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly, to the bustling streets of Soho.

'On today's journey, I'll discover how 19th century engineering

'made for spectacular theatricals...'

Ben Hur was produced there twice.

They staged the chariot race and the horses ran across the stage.

To make it more exciting, they actually turned the treadmills around

so that the horses were running towards the audience.

'..discover a Victorian luxury fit for a queen...'

The other area that Queen Victoria liked was rose.

And so if I dab this behind my ears, I can smell like Queen Victoria.

'..and come face to face with my guiding spirit...'

George Bradshaw, 1801 to 1853.

First stop is Covent Garden.

Once, it was home to London's fruit, vegetable and flower markets.

Now tourists flock here to visit the shops,

soak up the atmosphere, or take in a show.

The first playhouses appeared here in the 17th century,

but the West End's modern reputation

as the home of British theatre dates back to Victorian times.

"The Strand is a fine street running parallel with the river,

"formerly the favourite abode of our ancient nobility.

"Between their mansions and the river

"were gardens, terraces and steps."

But by the time of my Bradshaw's guide, this was theatreland,

and here at the Adelphi Theatre, for more than 200 years, there's

been the smell of the greasepaint and the roar of the crowd.

The first theatre on this site opened in 1806,

marking the beginning of a 19th century theatre boom,

fuelled by industrial London's pell-mell economic growth.

I'm treading the boards with theatre historian Mark Fox.

Well, Mark, here we are in the spotlight. Why was it that

from Shakespearean times to the beginning of the 19th century

the centre of theatre moved from the south bank to the West End?

The whole of London was developing, particularly along the riverside,

roads being built, tenement blocks being swept away.

Sites became available, and if an impresario could actually find

a site that they could actually build a theatre very quickly with enough

seats and get the entertainment that people wanted to come and see,

then they could make money very quickly.

By the time of my guidebook,

this area was in turmoil, thanks to the creation of the Embankment.

Extraordinary feats of Victorian engineering reclaimed

land from the Thames and provided new sewers

and underground railways to serve the city's mushrooming population.

The advent of the railways transformed the landscape

and the reach of theatreland.

Before the railways, so before about 1830, how were the theatres

here getting their audiences?

The theatres were built to attract the people in the locality,

you didn't have any such thing as a long run.

They would do a play for perhaps just one day or two days,

and then they would change the bill completely.

The railways, then, must have had quite a big impact,

when people were able to travel greater distances.

It did, it changed the profile of the audience completely,

because suddenly tourists were coming in as well.

Somewhere here like the Strand... Charing Cross, when that opened,

that was the boat train, so people could come even from abroad,

and that changed the nature of the whole business.

It wasn't the same rough audiences that had actually been there all the

time. It became a bit more expensive, it actually became special.

Thanks to the railways, there was now a market for long-running shows,

but to keep the crowds coming, the producers had to give them thrills.

Tell me about stagecraft - during the 19th century, how good was it?

They didn't have the technology that we have today, obviously,

but they did manage some huge technological feats.

So, Drury Lane in 1894, Augustus Harris bought in from Vienna

enormous hydraulic lifts, but that meant that he could actually

rock the stage from side to side so he could sink ships!

He could do things that people hadn't ever seen before.

Just to give you an idea of the real scale, Ben Hur was

produced there twice. They staged the chariot race both times.

The first time, they had treadmills and the horses ran across the stage

with a scene that moved behind them, so you could actually see the

progression of the race, but the second time they revived it,

they actually turned the treadmills round

so that the horses were running towards the audience.

Ah, people must have been absolutely mesmerised.

By the turn of the 20th century,

there were 46 theatres in the West End.

And still today, the railways deliver to the capital

out-of-towners lured by the bright lights.

-Hello, ladies.

-Nice to meet you.

Nice to see you, are you on your way to the theatre?

-We are, yes.

-So, why do you choose the theatre in London?

It's my home town originally.

She's from London but she's lived in Liverpool for 50 years.

Where have you come from?

-Peterborough.

-That's not so far!

No, it isn't, it's just down the road on the train.

Is there something special about the theatre scene in London,

-do you think?

-Oh, yeah, I think so.

It's the excitement, it's different,

you know, it's not only going to the theatre,

it's walking around, people watching.

We used to go to the Wood Green Empire, Finsbury Park Empire,

you know, they were our haunts.

And what sort of things were you seeing? Musicals?

All the top stars, mostly.

Are you here for the theatre today?

No, I'm up here to buy railway books.

HE LAUGHS

My guidebooks can now help me

to discover how teeming Victorian London fed its hungry masses.

Bradshaw's Guide to London 1862 describes the capital as a modern

Babylon, in which there's a choice of 330 dining rooms,

833 coffee shops, 4,343 publicans,

802 beer shop keepers.

The capital apparently consumes 776,000 sheep,

270,000 pigs, and 120,000 tonnes of fish.

I hope I haven't BATTERED you with statistics.

Victorian industrialisation and urbanisation

helped to spread the quintessential British takeaway.

Ahmet Ziyaeddin's family have been serving fish and chips

for over 30 years.

-Hello, Ahmet.

-Michael, hello, good to see you.

Here I am dressed in my finery, all ready for you.

Fantastic, you look ready for the job.

How long has there been a shop on these premises?

Since 1871, so that's just over 140 years.

Although fried fish has been sold in Britain since the 17th century,

it was first served to urban workers with chips in the 1860s.

Why do you think fish and chips became so popular

in the Victorian time when this shop opened?

It was a massive influx of the hard work the Victorians had done.

We had modern transport trains...

With the expansion of the fishing fleet

and mechanisation on the trawlers they were able to catch more.

'Thanks to steam trawlers and steam trains,

'cheap fish flooded into Britain's cities,

'and by the 1920s there were 35,000 fish and chip shops.'

What recipe do you work to?

We were very fortunate in that there were two elderly ladies that

lived above the shop when my father arrived.

They were the daughters of the grandson of the original owner.

They put forward to my father that his fish and chips

wasn't good enough for this shop,

and he said, "Well, if you think you can do better, show me,"

and they did! We adopted their methods, which date back

to the origins of this shop, and we've carried it on ever since.

And you break it open and you see that white, flaky, fresh fish.

Simple enough to cook, but when it's done well, it's unparalleled.

-It's good, honest food.

-Makes you proud to be British.

-Absolutely.

At the time of my guidebook,

rapidly-expanding London was battling against congestion

in its streets by experimenting with underground railways.

In the first years of the 20th century,

the first deep-level Tubes opened.

I'm taking the Northern line to Charing Cross,

to visit a cultural beacon that had its roots in Bradshaw's day.

TANNOY: 'This is Charing Cross...'

The National Gallery -

"that singularly dull, heavy-looking building

"that extends the whole north side of Trafalgar Square.

"Although this gallery is inferior to the great continental galleries,

"still it is a highly valuable collection."

Bradshaw's understood the art of faint praise.

In the mid-19th century,

the gallery's neoclassical look had fallen out of fashion.

Today up to six million visitors a year pass through its portals.

The 46,000 square metre building houses a world-class collection

of over 2,000 paintings,

but archivist Alan Crookham takes me back to its modest beginnings.

Before the foundation of the National Gallery in 1824,

what was the opportunity for the city clerk

or the steam-engine operative to see art?

Well, there weren't a great many opportunities.

The Dulwich Picture Gallery had been founded a few years earlier,

but there were problems in getting out there,

cos at that time there weren't any railways,

so the opening of the gallery really gave people an opportunity

to see great works of art right in the centre of London.

And how, then, did the collection actually begin?

Well, it was purchased by the government

from the estate of John Julius Angerstein, a financier, in 1824

for the princely sum of £60,000.

Initially there were just 38 paintings

displayed in Angerstein's house in Pall Mall.

Then, in the 1830s, work began on this gallery -

part of an ambitious building programme

in which Trafalgar Square replaced streets of slums.

There was a whole area of Trafalgar Square that was known

as Porridge Island, and it was called that

because the inhabitants of this area used to make a kind of gruel,

and the gruel stank. But that was all cleared for Trafalgar Square.

How did the public react at first to the opportunity

of spending the day in a gallery?

Some people, for example, came in and would actually have a picnic

here in the gallery, and would sit around having their food

and drinking glasses of gin,

and when they were told off for doing this,

they would simply offer the gallery assistant

a glass of gin to join them.

By 1853, there were over 400 paintings in the collection,

which was boosted further when JMW Turner left hundreds of works

to the nation in his will - including this one,

inspired by the wonder of locomotion.

What's the name of the picture?

It's Rain, Steam And Speed.

And, in fact, when this was first put on display,

William Thackeray, the author and critic, came in to see it,

and he wrote an article about it, where he said it was almost so vivid,

it's almost as if the train could leap off the canvas

and then go through the wall and out, down Charing Cross,

-and disappear into the distance.

-Marvellous image.

Many of those responsible for the transformation

of 19th century Britain are commemorated next door,

in the National Portrait Gallery,

founded in the 1850s so the public could admire the likenesses

of those who'd risen by their efforts and intellect,

and those born to greatness.

I've come to the National Portrait Gallery

to see one portrait in particular.

George Bradshaw, 1801 to 1853,

shown here with his famous railway map of Britain.

This was painted in 1841.

He was probably best known then as a cartographer.

And his portrait hangs beside that of Robert Stephenson...

..who was responsible for the railway line

from London to Birmingham.

And above, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who built the railway line

from London out to the west - the Great Western Railway.

And I think

something in George Bradshaw's Quaker humility would baulk

against being shown alongside two, surely, of his greatest heroes.

And having paid homage to three heavyweights of the railway age,

I'm breaking my journey for the night.

I'm continuing my exploration of London on the Bakerloo line,

which opened in 1906 as the Baker Street And Waterloo Railway.

In Victorian times, every aspect of the world's greatest city

magnetised the visitor. Having attended the theatres

and galleries, they could also take advantage

of the metropolis's enormous range of high-quality merchandise.

Bradshaw's urges that,

"proceeding up Piccadilly, the visitor should not omit Bond Street,

"to view this most fashionable promenade.

"The shops here are extremely elegant

"and their articles most recherche.

"And here the ladies of aristocracy and wealth may be seen alighting

"from their carriages and splendid equipages to make some purchases."

I'm at Piccadilly for the sweet smells of wealth and success.

A favourite purchase for the rich in Victorian London was perfume,

and to sniff out its history I've come to Piccadilly Circus,

one of the busiest stops on the network.

Passengers make more than 40 million journeys

through the station each year.

The attraction of the nearby shops hasn't changed since Bradshaw's day.

Hi, guys! What are you hoping to do in the West End?

Hopefully see The Lion King tonight.

-Saw the Queen today in the Opening of Parliament.

-You've seen the Queen?!

-We did!

-Very exciting!

-It was a massive moment!

Are you shopping today?

No, we've just come from Canterbury to have a wander round.

-Now, will you do any shopping while you're here?

-A little.

-A little.

What do you like to do when you get here?

Well, usually we go for food or sometimes come out and...

-Watch people and things.

-Watch people?

-Yeah!

I'm looking at perfume in the West End.

Do you like to buy perfume at all?

LOVE perfume! We just bought some perfume.

-Are you into perfume yet?

-Yes!

-What do you like to wear?

-One Direction perfume!

-One Direction perfume?!

What sort of perfume do you think One Direction wear?

Um...

-probably just cologne or aftershave.

-Yeah.

While many of the shops familiar to Victorian customers

have long since gone, this Jermyn Street perfumery

has survived almost unchanged.

Today it's run by Edward Bodenham.

-Edward, hello!

-Hello, Michael. Welcome to the shop,

-welcome to Floris.

-Thank you very much, it's such an elegant shop.

I imagine it was flourishing in the mid-19th century.

But on the other hand, I suppose the origins must go back much further.

Yes, they do, actually, back to 1730,

when my great-great-great-great-great-great- grandfather set up the business.

He actually came over from Minorca, which was part of the British Empire

-at the time.

-So this was another Spanish immigrant

-who made his fortune in Britain.

-Absolutely.

-And you have Spanish blood, like me, then.

-Certainly do.

Your shop has a 19th century look, would that be right?

Yes, all the cabinets in here were actually acquired

from the Great Exhibition in 1851, which was obviously

the largest trade fair of its day. So, originally jewellery cabinets,

but a deal was done and we were able to acquire the cabinets for our shop.

The Great Exhibition showcased

the best of British and international invention,

from silverwork to the latest steam engines.

Was there a connection between perfume and the railways

once they came?

Yes, there was. We used to source a lot of our essences

from the south of France. Before trains were introduced,

the family, or whoever was sourcing the oils,

would have to travel by horse and cart,

so it really did make things a lot easier.

Perfume was worn partly to mask the unpleasant smells

of 19th century London, but it also conferred status.

Members of Britain's elite

have been buying their scent here for centuries.

-Another beautiful room.

-This is where we keep our account ledgers.

These ones actually date back to the 1930s and '40s.

This is the roll call of the royal family - the King,

the Princess Mary Louise, Queen Mary...

And various other well-known names - Sir John Gielgud,

Laurence Olivier, Winston Churchill.

So "28 Hyde Park Gate" crossed out, "10 Downing Street" inserted.

"10 Downing Street" crossed out!

-Absolutely!

-It's the history

of the 19th and 20th century just there, isn't it?

The shop received its first Royal Warrant in 1800,

and when Queen Victoria ascended the throne,

she continued the tradition of royal patronage.

Perfumier Sheila Foyle is talking me through the regal fragrance.

We know that there were two particular areas of fragrance

that she enjoyed to wear -

one was the cologne notes.

And what are the highlights of the recipe?

Bergamot oil, we have neroli...

-What's that?

-A steam distillation of the flowers of the orange tree.

-We also have myrtle.

-Yes, I find that quite strong

and quite heady, I would say. What would you say of that?

For me, it's light, it's fresh, quite crisp...

The other area that Queen Victoria liked was rose,

so I've also created a rose bouquet.

Mmm, very distinctive rose, isn't it?

And so, if I dab this behind my ears,

-I can smell like Queen Victoria!

-You certainly can.

I'm now swapping the heady scent of royalty

for the earthy smells of the Underground,

as I rejoin the Bakerloo line towards Oxford Circus

and consider a grimmer side of Victorian London life.

As the city's population had swelled,

little thought had been given to sanitation for the masses,

and in overcrowded poorer neighbourhoods,

the consequences could be disastrous.

Today, London's Soho quarter buzzes with restaurants, cafes and shops.

In Victorian times, people lived here cheek-by-jowl -

an average of 18 to a house.

The 1862 Bradshaw's Guide To London contains this comment -

"upwards of 100 drinking fountains now exist, from which flows

"a continual stream of water, where three years since

"not a single one was known.

"And although little artistic taste has been displayed in their erection

"they must be highly useful in a sanitary point of view."

Well, yes, if the water supply was clean, but if it was contaminated,

it could be lethal.

In Bradshaw's day, infectious disease was rife,

and perhaps the most feared was cholera.

Four deadly outbreaks swept through the capital

between 1832 and 1866, killing thousands.

The authorities' response was hampered by ignorance

of how the fatal illness was spread.

Peter Daniel from the Westminster Archives can tell me how the answer

came from a diligent Victorian who analysed the evidence.

Why is Britain blighted by successive outbreaks of cholera

during the middle of the 19th century?

Well, the origins of cholera were in the Ganges in India,

but with the opening up of the British Empire

and different trade routes, it can spread more easily and quickly

through shipping, railways -

the things that had brought lots of benefits

but were now going to bring this deadly disease to the country.

And at the time of my Bradshaw's Guide,

what was the theory as to what lay behind cholera?

Well, the prevailing theory was miasmatism -

the idea that bad smells cause diseases.

Many influential people, those in government

who could make the decisions strongly believed in that.

Who makes the breakthrough towards understanding that cholera

is a waterborne disease?

It's a man called Dr John Snow.

Dr Snow was something of a Victorian celebrity,

having assisted at the birth of Queen Victoria's son.

He had long suspected that contaminated water caused cholera,

and when, in August 1854, the disease tore through

his local neighbourhood in Soho, he set out to prove it.

It was a matter of doing a lot of walking and talking to people,

and he mapped out where all the cases were occurring.

There were 13 water pumps in the Soho area

and he found a cluster of the cases

around one pump that was in Broadwick Street.

But just as revealing as who had succumbed to the disease

was who had not.

What other proofs were there for Snow?

Well, literally just a few yards along there was the Lion Brewery,

and when Snow was doing his investigations here for his mapping,

he found that none of the workers in the brewery had died -

that's because they only drunk beer!

What, and beer can't carry cholera?

Well, it's because the fermentation killed off the bacteria,

so it was safe to drink.

Snow's methodical research has earned him a place

in medical history as one of the founders of modern epidemiology -

the study of the spread of disease.

With the help of the parish vicar Henry Whitehead,

he found the evidence needed to prove the miasmatists wrong,

including the curious case of Susannah Eley.

She owned a cartridge company,

and made so much money she'd been able to move out to Hampstead.

The one thing is, she couldn't leave her working-class roots behind.

She loved the taste of Broad Street pump water,

and she had it shipped to her every day,

to her new residence out in Hampstead,

and she was the only person in Hampstead to die of cholera.

And it was easy for Snow then to say,

"Bad smells just can't reach from Soho out to Hampstead.

Snow convinced the local parish authorities to remove

the handle of the offending pump, but it wasn't until after his death

in 1858 that his ideas became widely accepted,

and proper sewers were built in the capital,

eradicating cholera in London.

So Snow makes his breakthroughs in 1854, 1855,

and it comes, I'm afraid, just too late for one man, who dies in 1853 -

George Bradshaw - of cholera.

John Snow is a shining example

of the Victorian spirit of enquiry that transformed Britain.

Scientific advance and technological progress

would eventually bring relief even to the capital's seething masses,

living in their poverty and squalor.

Seeing the portraits of Isambard Kingdom Brunel

and Robert Stephenson reminds me yet again how much we owe

the great railway builders, but even when their work was done

here in the West End of London,

amongst the finery of the shops and the theatres, cholera raged.

The capital is indebted to the diligent Dr John Snow,

and a new generation of civil engineers who undertook

the unglamorous work of building clean water pipes

and leak-proof sewers.

'Next time, I'll be getting a fresh perspective

'on a Victorian landmark...'

Oh!

I mustn't look down, I mustn't look down!

'..learning how London's most-famous flower market

'had a darker side in Bradshaw's day...'

Flower sellers would use it almost as a cover for prostitution.

'..and discovering how the capital's 19th century railway

'is being equipped for the 21st.'

The scale of this enterprise, the scale of this vision,

it is positively Victorian.