Stroud to Bath 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 continuing my journey from the Midlands towards Dartmoor,

now passing through Gloucestershire.

'In this most rural of counties,

'I'll discover how Victorian innovations revolutionised

'the practices of agriculture,

'creating new industries and paving the way for social change.'

My route, which began in Birmingham,

now winds south through the Cotswolds,

before striking out for the coast

and the ancient spas and port cities of the South West.

Ending up in one of Britain's most glorious national parks.

This third leg begins in Stroud in Gloucestershire,

then on to the market town of Cirencester before arriving

the next day in time for tea in elegant Georgian Bath.

'On this journey, I take potluck with an early snooker cue.'

Oh! A bit askew.

'Hitch a ride with a farmer of the future.'

Just being out in the field getting wet and muddy is absolutely wrong.

It's highly technical these days.

'And hone my conversational skills at a Victorian tea party.'

The cucumber this season is extremely crisp.

My first stop will be Stroud, which I'm informed is situated,

"near the confluence of the River Frome and the Slade-water.

"Woollen cloth forms the staple manufacture."

So today, I will put the history of that important textile on the table.

-Bound for Stroud.

-Lovely.

-Thank you.

Stroud's peaceful appearance today

gives little hint of its history as an industrial town making textiles.

The town was well supplied with wool and water

and became a refuge in the 17th century for immigrant Huguenots

and in the 19th century for Jews.

'Both communities renowned for their skills as cloth manufacturers.'

Morning.

'In its heyday during the Victorian era,

'there were over 100 mills here

'producing the woollen broadcloth for military uniforms.

'WSP Textiles, named after its founding owners,

'Messrs Winterbotham, Strachan and Playne,

'is one of the few survivors.

'And I'm going to meet European Sales Manager Stuart Gardiner

'to hear how the business has changed since Bradshaw's day.'

Stuart, why is woollen cloth made in this area?

Geographically, it's positioned on the five valleys.

So you've got the water coming down off the hills

and good quality water in the rivers.

And that water is used, what, both for treating the cloth

-and then, I suppose, later, actually for powering the mill.

-Exactly.

Powering the mill via the waterwheel, which was located here.

What products do you make today?

Predominantly, snooker and pool cloth and tennis ball fabric.

The tennis balls are used at Wimbledon

and the snooker cloth is used at the World Championships in Sheffield.

Any connection between the modern products

and what you were making traditionally?

Yes. The modern snooker cloth has a nap on it.

That evolved from the old coaching cloths,

where the coachmen used to wear these broadcloths with a napped pile

so that the water wouldn't stick on it

and it would just run off their cloaks.

Um...would that do for a snooker table?

Maybe some of the cheaper ones, yeah.

MICHAEL LAUGHS

Let's have a look at your process.

There have been many changes.

The factory is run on electricity rather than water power

and the wool that will eventually be transformed into snooker cloth

comes from New Zealand, rather than the Cotswolds.

'But the production process remains much the same.'

-What is happening here, then?

-OK.

This is the first process that happens at Lodgemore,

and it's a mending process, or burling.

So what they're looking to do is remove any defects from the fabric,

take any knots out.

If there's any yarns or threads that are missing or broken,

they get repaired here.

Having passed muster, the cloth is then passed through a chemical bath

before being dyed, washed and dried.

So that is the most extraordinary transformation.

What process has that gone through?

It's been shrunk, or fulled.

You shrink about a third of the overall dimensions off the cloth

to give you a given thickness.

Much like shrinking your fine-woollen jumper in a hot wash.

And what's critical about the thickness?

The thickness dictates the speed of the ball when you're playing snooker.

'These days, workers are protected from the chemicals

'used in fulling, but at the time of my guidebook,

'everything was done by hand on an open factory floor.'

Well, this is a very attractive, I imagine, Victorian factory building

but conditions weren't necessarily as attractive, were they?

No, absolutely. The conditions in here would have been fairly horrendous.

There would have been huge amounts of steam in here -

specifically in the winter, it would have been really bad.

There would be a lot of acid processes,

so the condensation would drip with acid in it onto your head.

-It was horrible.

-How long have you been with the company?

I've been with the company for 30 years.

I remember steam waist-high,

so you'd have to be sort of looking under the steam, you know.

It was fairly grim.

The company's snooker cloth now sells all over the world,

thanks to the advent of colour television,

that took the game from barroom sport to mass entertainment.

But the mill's records date from when it was the gentleman's

game of billiards that was all the rage.

So, Michael, I thought you'd be interested in seeing this.

This is a ledger dated 1897, where we sold cloth with a table

to the Queen for her full-size number five mahogany table.

Now, she was quite short, Queen Victoria, and I imagine her

having to sit up on the table to take those awkward shots.

What do you think? I'm sure she would've stood on a box.

'I'm keen to find out more about the game of snooker'

and how it developed from billiards.

So leaving the factory behind,

I'm off to meet snooker expert Peter Clare.

Hello, Peter. Very nice to meet you.

What was the origin of the game of snooker?

The origins date it back to 1882.

It was said that Col Neville Chamberlain,

who I believe is the uncle of the peace-in-our-time Mr Chamberlain,

he wrote down the rules in the Ooty Club up in the Highlands in

India for his other fellow officers to play the game of snooker.

And why do they call it snooker?

We believe it was because young recruits were called snookers

and because the game was new and everybody was new to the game,

the game was called snooker.

Peter's brought along a set of ivory balls that date from the end of the

19th century, as well as a curious implement known as a mace, the

antecedent to the modern snooker cue, which takes a bit of getting used to.

-One hand...one hand on the cushion.

-How strange.

-And you've got a sighting line to use.

-Oh, I see. Yes. Oh, sorry.

And just push.

Oh! Now, a bit askew.

Eventually, someone had the bright idea of turning the mace

around to use the other end and so the modern snooker cue was born.

How did the game make the leap from the gentry to the ordinary man?

Prior to World War II,

we would have one set of snooker balls in the billiard hall.

After the war, as the troops came back, it was a popular game to play.

And nobody's found anything better than the baize.

Yes, I think you'll get into trouble calling it baize. It's pure wool.

Baize is a mixture of wool and cotton

and probably sells for about £12 a running metre.

This snooker cloth will sell for about £50 a running metre.

Well, Peter.

-I have a while before my next train. Shall we continue the frame?

-Why not?

I think it's my shot now.

Ooh, my God.

Not bad!

I'm returning to Stroud station.

But sadly, there's little time to admire the flowers before I pick up

the first Great Western service to continue my journey south-east

through the Cotswolds.

I shall be leaving this train at Kemble in order to reach

Cirencester, which is

described as one of the greatest marts in England for wool.

I'm told that the Gloucestershire downs which formerly lay open,

producing little else other than furs,

are now converted into arable enclosed fields.

In the Victorian period, agriculture was becoming more productive

and more scientific and farming was a suitable subject for academic study -

not just something to be picked up on the hoof.

There used to be a station at Cirencester

designed by the great Isambard Kingdom Brunel himself.

But it was closed in 1964, a victim of the Beeching cuts.

Kemble station benefits from this lovely garden, which was built by

and is maintained by students from the Royal Agricultural University.

And with its beds of lavender and of rosemary, it's full of summer scents.

The Royal Agricultural College of Cirencester opened in 1845

and received its Royal Charter from Queen Victoria.

Her husband, Prince Albert, was one of the early shareholders.

Built in the Victorian Gothic style, it resembles an Oxford college

and the first intake comprised 25 sons of local landowners.

The college became a university in 2013 and now 1,200 students study here.

The motto of the college is Arvorum Cultus Pecorumque -

a quote from Virgil's Georgics,

which means "caring for the fields and the beasts".

A noble aim indeed.

Prof Chris Gaskell is the principal.

-Chris, how very good to see you.

-Hello. Welcome to the RAU.

Thank you very much indeed.

Before there was an agricultural college here, what was there on this spot?

It was a farm.

Here's the farmhouse, the old farmhouse on which they built

the iconic college and behind it is the tithe barn, the original

tithe barn of the farm where they stored grain and kept animals.

-Dating back to what time?

-Oh, 16th century.

You became relatively recently a university.

-Is that an important thing?

-I think it is very important.

I think it's important for agriculture to have a

university with agriculture in its name.

I think it's very important because agriculture as a career went through

something of a doldrum in the late 1990s, when excess production meant

that society didn't value its food and its farmers as much as it could.

But I also think it brings agriculture into a more

technological age and people's concept of agriculture as just

being out in a field getting wet and muddy is absolutely wrong.

It's highly technical these days.

The mid-19th century was a pivotal time for the teaching

and understanding of agriculture.

Early students learning about new fertilisers would also study

the science behind traditional methods of crop rotation

and soil management and how they might increase yield.

'To find out more, I'm heading out to the fields to meet Tom Overbury...'

Good to see you.

'..organic expert and director of farming at the university.'

How much difference is there between agricultural methods

when the Royal Agricultural College was founded in 1845 and today?

Some of them will be fairly similar.

The basic principles in terms of crop production, in terms

of preserving forage for the winter, they would be much the same, but

obviously, the methods that we are using are probably fairly different.

In this case, we're making silage as opposed to hay.

Sometimes in some of the cropping, we're growing oilseed rape,

which they would never have heard of then.

Well, there have been huge technological changes -

in tractors instead of horses, but chemicals, for example - big changes.

Our chemicals have allowed us, and pesticides have allowed us

to do quite a lot of monoculture and pushing things

forward from that point of view but we're almost getting to the

stage now where we're needing to go back and think, well, actually,

some of the things, those old rotations and things like that, we

must make sure that we don't forget those basic lessons that we learnt.

Well, I think I might talk to one of your students about these

issues - if I can flag her down.

These are challenging times for farmers and I want to find

out what the next generation thinks about a return to Victorian values.

-Hello, Megan.

-Hi, Michael.

Megan Berryman comes from a Cornish farming family

and this is her final year at the university.

Now, I'm an old townie,

so tell me what it is you're actually doing here.

-We're baling up some silage here.

-And silage is what?

-Wettish grass, is it?

-Yes, it is.

It's, um, grass which has been preserved.

Important to you to get a proper university education in agriculture?

Um, I think so. I'm female, so it allows me

a better chance in trying to find a job somewhere out there.

-Do they actually teach any history of farming?

-Yes, they do.

They cover quite a lot of history at the um, at the Ag University.

We should really look into the history

and remember the way which farmers used to do it.

It was good to them, like by keeping some of their techniques and their

skills going, um could help the agricultural industry go further.

I wish you all the very best. Have a wonderful career in farming.

-Bye-bye, Megan.

-Nice to meet you.

-Good luck to you.

After all that fresh country air, I need a place to rest my head.

So I'm going into Cirencester town to find a bed for the night.

I've been attracted to this 14th century coaching inn

by a mention in my Bradshaw's Guide.

During the English Civil War, Lord Chandos came here,

recruiting on behalf of King Charles I.

But this was parliamentary territory

and a mob murdered his supporters, burnt his coach

and he had to take refuge here in the King's Head.

The irony of the name of this hotel must have struck him,

when shortly after, his beloved monarch lost his...

The next day, I'm up early to continue my journey

from Chippenham, where I join up with the main line service going west.

I've rejoined the railway at Chippenham in order to get

Bath, titillated by this reference in Bradshaw's.

"A striking campanile tower built by William Beckford

"who died here in 1844, and is buried in a cemetery.

"He wrote Caliph Vathek, a most original story,

"which created quite a furore in those days."

It all sounds novel.

-Do you know Bath?

-I know Bath.

-And what do you think of Bath?

-I love Bath.

I'm going to see something today that I've never seen before. A campanile.

Built by a kind of eccentric British novelist and millionaire.

Well, that's what Britain is all about, isn't it?

-Look at the way you dress! Couldn't be more eccentric!

-Moi?

-Yeah!

Bath with its peerless neoclassical architecture is most often

associated with the Georgian period, when eccentricity

and bawdy behaviour were tolerated or even actively encouraged.

But I want to get a flavour of what the city

was like at the time of my guidebook, when Victorian values

and a strict moral code dictated behaviour - in public, at least.

So before I head off in search of Beckford's Tower, I'm going

to learn about the social graces of the Victorian upper class.

Few things are more closely associated with the British

than the custom of taking afternoon tea.

But when did the tradition begin? And what are the rules of etiquette?

I've come to meet Grant Harold, former royal butler

and etiquette expert.

-Grant, good afternoon.

-Michael, good afternoon. Welcome.

When was afternoon tea invented?

Afternoon tea was invented around about 1840 by the Duchess of Bedford.

She felt that there was a long gap between lunch and dinner.

So she felt that something had to kind of fill this gap and

she came up with this idea of asking for some tea and some sandwiches.

Afternoon tea developed as a private social

event for ladies in the higher echelons of society.

But when Queen Victoria adopted it,

the ritual became a formal occasion on a larger scale,

known as a tea reception.

I wanted to see you alone because I've got a tea booked with

some ladies and I'm a little bit worried about etiquette.

I'm a grammar school boy myself and I don't want to get anything wrong.

-Could you give me some pointers, please?

-Yes, of course.

-Milk in first or second?

-Well, it depends which class you're from.

The lower classes would put the milk in first,

because they had clay cups, which sometimes couldn't resist the

heat of the tea, so they would crack but the upstairs, they had fine bone

china which could resist the heat, so they could put the milk in after.

Now, what about topics of conversation?

With topics of conversation, there was four subjects which I could say were taboo.

That was sex, religion, money and politics.

-So you'd keep clear of those.

-Those are my four special subjects!

But the problem is, a lot of people do discuss these but what

I would say, is in somebody's home, don't you bring them up.

Go with your host. Let them take the lead.

Whatever the discussion is, then you engage in,

but if they don't discuss it, then you haven't brought it up, either.

Fortified by Grant's advice,

we're off to join a group of ladies from the Bath Preservation Trust.

-Good afternoon, ladies. ALL:

-Good afternoon.

-Do join us.

-Thank you so much.

I really don't recall a time when it was so unseasonably hot.

-Have you observed the hot weather?

-It is very hot, yes.

I hope you had a comfortable journey here.

I myself came on the railway from Chippenham.

It was a very convenient journey.

-I've learned today that the milk goes in second.

-Yes, indeed.

And the gaze is maintained on the cup of tea until it reaches the face.

HE WHISPERS: Grant, how do I eat the sandwiches?

You pick up the plate and bring it towards you.

The cucumber this season is extremely crisp.

It must be something to do with the unseasonably hot weather.

It's been such a joy to attend such a very reactionary tea party!

-And a pleasure to have you with us.

-Thank you.

Revitalised, I step out into the streets of Bath to soak up

some more of the sandstone splendour.

I'm standing in front of the Royal Crescent,

which Bradshaw's tells me was a work of John Wood

the Younger from the second half of the 18th century and apparently,

Tobias Smollett called it an antique amphitheatre turned inside out.

I think it's one of the most successful

pieces of architecture in Britain and I think, if I lived in Bath,

and I saw this every morning,

particularly kissed with this wonderful light, my heart would soar.

Not far from here, in Lansdown Crescent,

lived one of Bath's most notorious characters.

William Beckford was born in the permissive 18th century

and inherited a huge fortune founded on Jamaican sugar plantations.

He moved to Bath in 1822 and promptly purchased all the land leading

up to Lansdown Hill, giving himself a mile-long garden.

On the summit, he built an extraordinary 120-foot-high neoclassical tower.

Amy Frost is the curator of Beckford's Tower

and an expert on its contents and its owner.

I get the impression that William Beckford was a larger-than-life character.

Yeah. It all starts really, I think, cos he's born into this immense

wealth and he inherits when he's nine and a half.

And it's very well known how much money he has,

because, you know, for example, Byron,

when he writes about him in Childe Harold,

refers to him as "England's wealthiest son".

So it's an obscene amount of money and just can indulge himself

in collecting paintings, furniture, objects - books, above all.

-What about his private life?

-Just as interesting, actually.

He has a rather kind of infamous affair when he's in Venice,

when he's on his grand tour,

with the son of one of the leading families in Venice.

At the same time, he's very sort of feted in society.

People, particularly women of a certain age

with much, much older husbands, find him incredibly appealing.

-Shall we look inside?

-Yeah, come on in.

Every morning, Beckford would ride out from his house in the centre of

Bath to spend the day in his tower, which he used as a study retreat.

How did Beckford decorate these rooms?

So originally, these rooms would have been full of furniture

and above all, lots and lots of objects on every surface.

The sort of objects that you can see in these paintings and he constantly

writes about his collection, saying it's about where things are placed.

He didn't sleep here. This was not his house. This was his retreat.

It's his treasure chest and he would move objects around.

And you get the idea of him sort of putting a vase on a particular

table or surface and then not sleeping at night,

because he knows he's put that vase in the wrong place.

By the time he arrived in Bath at the age of 62, Beckford's lifestyle

was distinctly out of step with the new Victorian morality.

His scandalous past was bad enough but back in 1786,

he'd also published an infamous novel, Caliph Vathek,

a tale of an Eastern potentate of vast wealth, whose antics

still have the power to shock and horrify 200 years on.

Why did the novel cause a furore?

Partly because of the content itself - very decadent lifestyles

inside it - there's a palace of the five senses, there's all

these incredibly elaborate parties and affairs and then this

extraordinary scene involving 50 beautiful young boys, which -

best thing for you to do is to read that part for yourself

and make your own mind up.

"Vathek, who was still standing on the edge of a chasm, called out,

"'let my 50 little favourites approach me.'

"The Caliph undressed himself by degrees and raising his arm,

"made each of the prizes glitter in the air.

"But whilst he delivered it with one hand to the child who sprung

"forward to receive it, he with the other

"pushed the poor innocent into the gulph."

-Mass murder of children.

-Yes.

So you can see why it caused quite a scandal.

Am I able to go to the top of the tower?

Yes, of course, but, um, you must go on your own.

It was a tower built for one man, built for Beckford alone so

that one person could go to the top, look at the view and read a book.

I have such a book. Amy, thank you so much. Bye-bye.

Beckford had no qualms about giving free rein to his lurid

and disturbing imagination and ultimately, society ostracised him.

He died in 1844 and is buried in the cemetery at the foot of his tower.

In the end, he'd gone through most of his fortune,

but his great architectural legacy is still maintained for public use.

This tower is a monument to a man who could have whatever he wanted.

He collected women and men the way he collected vases and paintings

and from all the things that he loved and owned, he's bequeathed me

just one thing - this exquisite view of Bath.

William Beckford was born into the naughty 18th century

but died during Queen Victoria's reign,

by which time the outrageous lifestyle

and novel of his youth would not have been tolerated.

The Victorians were serious people who applied science to agriculture

and devised etiquette for taking tea.

Had I wandered into a 19th-century tea party with all my social gaffes,

I would soon have found myself snookered.

'Next time, I enter the foul-smelling world of a Victorian tannery...'

I find myself well out of my comfort zone here.

Is it dangerous?

Is pretty dangerous.

'..soak up the splendour of one of Britain's finest Gothic mansions...'

Hah! A gentleman's library indeed.

The staircase is really a gem, isn't it?

Absolutely magnificent.

'..and get in touch with my spiritual side in Glastonbury.'

-Stay bright.

-Yeah, absolutely. And you.