Dover to Lewes Great British Railway Journeys

For Victorian Britons,

George Bradshaw was a household name.

At a time when railways were new, Bradshaw's guidebook

inspired them to take to the tracks.

I'm using a Bradshaw's Guide, to understand

how trains transformed Britain - its landscape,

its industries,

society and leisure time.

As I crisscross the country 150 years later,

it helps me to discover the Britain of today.

I'm beginning a journey that will carry me the length

of England's south coast. By the time of my guide book,

railways had opened up its ancient forts and beaches

to travellers of every class.

But the English Channel remained our national moat -

a broad defence against invasion -

and throughout most of the 19th century,

it was assumed that any advancing enemy would be French.

Following my Bradshaw's Guide,

this week, I'll be travelling the south coast from east to west.

Starting at the closest crossing point to France,

I'll pass through coastal defences and seaside resorts,

wind through Thomas Hardy country,

before ending up at the first, and last, place in England.

Today, I'm starting in the cross-Channel port of Dover.

From there, I travel to Hythe, visiting its mainline in miniature,

before heading to elegant Eastbourne.

My journey finishes in Lewes,

at a country house famed for its opera performances.

On this journey,

'inspired by a brave Victorian, I take the plunge...'

I can't believe I'm doing this.

..enjoy the exhilaration of steam...

At the moment, we are doing 18mph.

It's, basically, the equivalent of doing 75 on the mainline,

-cos we're nearer to the ground.

-Yeah, it absolutely creates

the illusion of great speed. It's very exciting!

..and scale the heights of the operatic world.

HE SINGS AN ERRATIC SCALE

-But you skipped the highest note!

-Oh, did I?

My first stop will be Dover. Bradshaw's says,

"It is divided from the French coast by a passage of only 20 miles.

"Advantageously situated on the margin of a picturesque bay,

"screened by its lofty cliffs from the piercing northerly winds."

Those famous white cliffs, another formidable natural defence,

would also have been a welcome sight to travellers completing

the Channel crossing, having survived its notorious tides and currents.

The South Eastern Railway Company opened a line

from London to Dover in 1844,

connecting Victorian travellers with the ferries steaming for France.

The town once had a number of stations,

but only Dover Priory remains.

The port of Dover, as the closest crossing point to the Continent,

gives access to Britain's nearest European neighbour

and, equally, represented the first point of defence.

The English Channel is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.

On a glorious day like today, you can see why Bradshaw's would talk about

"The weather-beaten features of the cliffs of Albion,

"illuminated with sunny smiles of welcome".

And in 1875, Dover gave a welcome to a man who, by his endurance

and bravery, could be regarded only as a hero.

As the trains made seaside resorts like Dover accessible,

swimming, very slowly, became more popular.

The epic achievement at Dover of one very determined man

transformed Victorian attitudes.

I am meeting local historian Jon Iveson,

to find out about Captain Matthew Webb.

What was it that Captain Matthew Webb had done, that made him a hero?

He was the first person to swim the Channel.

And how long had that taken him, in those days?

It was just under 22 hours. 21 and three-quarter hours.

-An extraordinary achievement of endurance.

-Absolutely, yes.

He believed, when he started, that he was going to do it in 14,

but the tides were against him.

Born in Dawley, Shropshire, Captain Webb had been a merchant seaman

since the age of 12. At the time of his heroic swim,

he was 27 and already had a history of courageous watery endeavours.

In 1873, he was second mate on the steamship The Russia.

A man fell overboard

and he jumped off the ship, to try and rescue him.

As a result, he was the first winner of the Royal Humane Society

gold medal for rescuing people.

That, Webb says, was the luckiest thing that ever happened to him,

because it allowed him to consider something he had been thinking about

for a while, which was trying to swim the Channel.

On 24 August, 1875, greased with porpoise oil,

Captain Webb got under way from Dover,

with a steady breaststroke of 20 to the minute.

Because of the strong tides, he ended up swimming a course

of 39 miles.

After 21 hours and 45 minutes in the cold water,

he arrived in Calais, to an ecstatic welcome.

His fame spread very rapidly and souvenirs and pictures of him

appeared everywhere and he wrote a book.

This is the book he wrote - a first edition of The Art Of Swimming.

Oh, what a beautiful thing.

"By Captain Webb, the Channel swimmer."

And here he is with his medals, as well. That's a fantastic piece.

Did all this - the Channel swim and the book -

-have an effect on the popularity of swimming?

-Yes, it did.

English swimming moved on in leaps and bounds after this.

His remarkable feat popularised swimming, but his achievement

wasn't matched for another 36 years

and, even today, fewer than 2,000 have succeeded.

More people have climbed Mount Everest.

All that talk of the heroism of Captain Matthew Webb

has stimulated me to have a go.

Whilst I'm not about to swim to France, I can receive

a few pointers from Chloe McCardel,

an Australian who is very familiar

with this infamous stretch of water.

-How often have you swum the Channel?

-Ten times now.

-Absolutely amazing.

-How long does it take you?

-Usually in the low nine hours.

It took Captain Matthew Webb nearly 22 hours.

Any idea what the change has been? Are you just better swimmers?

He swam it breaststroke, for example.

I swim it front crawl, or freestyle, which is a much faster stroke,

and the food that we eat, the nutrition, is much more developed

these days. He drank whisky, of all things, while crossing the Channel.

So, what makes a person like you want to do this?

Captain Matthew Webb himself coined the term "nothing great is easy"

and it's got that mystique, the history and it's just probably

the hardest marathon swim one could challenge oneself to do.

With Webb's mantra ringing in my ears

and facing a water temperature of just 16 degrees,

I can't put it off any longer.

I'm going to have to go in.

I can't believe I'm doing this.

-How do you feel?

-HIGH-PITCHED: Cold!

Very cold.

You're doing well, though. Keep going.

-Show me your crawl.

-OK. I'm going to put my head down, though.

-Yeah.

Chloe, what's it like when you get cold,

when you've been swimming for a long time?

Your core temperature drops, so your organs start getting cold,

your arms might start doing funny things,

you might say strange things, you may even refuse

to get out of the water if you're very hypothermic.

I don't think I'd refuse to get out of the water.

-You OK?

-Yup.

-Do you want a hand?

-Yup.

Wow, I'm glad to be back on board.

It's one of the most beautiful places you can have imagine to have a swim,

by the white cliffs, but I found it incredibly cold.

-I'm very overwhelmed.

-Yes, it takes many months to get used to that cold

so you did very well for your first time.

-Thank you, Chloe. Good luck to you.

-Thanks.

Very thankful to be back on firm ground, and warm on the train,

as I leave Dover heading west, I'm reminded by my guidebook

"to pay attention to the shrill shriek of the whistle"

as we plunge into the chalky tunnels

connecting Dover to Folkestone and beyond.

I shall be leaving this train at Westenhanger for Hythe.

Bradshaw's says, "The town of Hythe is small but clean and healthy,

"and prettily situated at the foot of a hill extending down to the sea."

It sounds divine.

From Westenhanger I make my way to Hythe,

still a small market town as pretty as Bradshaw's described it.

Before going to my next destination

I'm visiting a church that has piqued my interest.

Bradshaw's tells me that

"the church on the hill has a light tower ornamented by four turrets"

and I've been attracted up the slope towards it, as to a beacon.

This is the most macabre sight.

Everywhere I look there are skulls,

thigh bones, leg bones, arm bones, jaws -

it's as though I've stumbled upon the site of an appalling massacre.

A shock because nothing in Bradshaw's prepared me for it.

I hope that local researcher Mike Pearson can shed more light.

-Mike, hello.

-Hi, Michael.

Welcome to the crypt of St Leonard's Church, Hythe.

It looks like a charnel house or something.

-Is it actually the result of a slaughter?

-No, it's not, actually.

There were various theories on...

Danes killed in battle, even Battle of Hastings people,

but we've done some research - it's actually a normal population.

There are more females in this collection than there are males

and there are just under 10% young people

so it's actually a cross section of the population dying,

-we think, normally.

-How many heads do you have here?

We've got 1,200 skulls but it's said that there are 8,000 long bones

and that amounts to 4,000 individuals.

-Are you adding to the collection? LAUGHING:

-No, not at all!

But we do have visitors from time to time who say,

"Can I reserve a place for when I go?"

THEY LAUGH

Keeping my head when all around have lost theirs,

my next stop is curiouser and curiouser.

I often enthuse about stations,

and this one is absolutely beautiful

but somehow it's shrunk, it's not at the right size!

As though entering a wonderland,

I've arrived at the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway.

Opened in 1927, it's a fully working steam railway one third of full size.

Today it's owned by Danny Martin.

-Danny, hello.

-Hello. Nice to see you.

How did it come to be, then, that the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch railway

was built miniature?

Well, the guys that built it had a passion for model engineering

which, you might say, trains of this sort of size

and then they wanted to outdo everyone else so they wanted

the biggest model engineered railway that money could buy.

This railway wasn't open in Bradshaw's day

but the locomotives here hark back to the age of steam.

Has it ever had a serious purpose?

Yes, it has. During the war years,

the Royal Engineers commandeered the railway, they ran an armoured train

and, most importantly of all,

they were constructing PLUTO - Pipeline Under The Ocean -

and that was used to feed the D-Day landings

and it was dragged out nightly, having been wound up on our railway.

-Fantastic story. So is there a train I can take?

-There is, certainly,

this one we've got just here.

Super. Thank you very much.

Taking me on my journey is professional train driver

Mick Knight.

-Hello, Mick.

-Hello.

-Permission to come aboard?

-Oh, permission granted.

Thank you very much indeed.

Nice tight fit, isn't it?

Just slip the latch down and that's it.

-But unlike most locomotives you get to sit down.

-You do.

WHISTLE BLOWS

The line runs 13.5 miles from Hythe to Dungeness.

WHISTLE BLOWS

This locomotive, though very small, must be very powerful.

-How many people can you carry?

-Each train holds about 200-250 people.

It's the equivalent of about 40-45 tonnes.

At the moment we're doing 18mph.

It's basically the equivalent of doing 75 on the main line

because were nearer to the ground.

It absolutely creates the illusion of great speed. It's very exciting.

With half the journey completed, Mick thinks it's time for me to have a go,

so from Romney Marsh station I'll take over the controls

to complete the journey to Dungeness.

-That feels good, doesn't it?

-There we go.

-That feels good.

Amazing to me that a little pull on that lever

brings all this power into play.

So, on your left-hand side shortly you'll see a W sign.

-Yes, and then I whistle.

-Yep, give a toot for them.

I see a whistle board.

WHISTLE BLOWS

And we pass a level crossing.

What a wonderful experience. What a feeling of speed and of power

and responsibility.

-Thank you very much, Mick.

-That's OK. Well done.

Well done, we'll make a driver out of you yet.

My journey continues from Appledore

where I'm re-joining the main line crossing from Kent into Sussex.

I'm going to spend the night in Rye.

Bradshaw's tells me that,

"In the reign of King Edward III,

"Rye sent nine armed vessels to the royal fleet

"when that Monarch invaded France."

It was one of the so-called Cinque Ports

that supplied ships to the king.

And in return they received many privileges and a lot of autonomy.

I bet the people of Rye still feel very proud of that royal history.

Between the 11th and 16th centuries Rye was a port surrounded by sea

but after centuries of storms and silting,

the coastline is now three miles away.

One of Rye's most charming buildings survives from its Tudor heyday,

The Mermaid Inn.

Built in the 15th century it was the infamous haunt of smuggling gangs

but today it offers my bed for the night.

Ship-shape and ready to go, I'm heading out of Rye.

The next leg of my travels is a 45-minute journey

along the coastline to an important resort in East Sussex.

My next stop will be Eastbourne.

My guidebook tells me that, "It has within a very few years

"become fashionable as a watering place

"and offers the beauty of country scenery

"and stately trees close to the sea."

At the time of my Bradshaw's guide

there was a corner of the county of Sussex

that became forever Devonshire.

The 7th Duke of Devonshire owned much of the land

on which the small town of Eastbourne stood.

The Victorian vogue for seaside holidays offered him an opportunity.

He campaigned for a railway to Eastbourne

and after it opened in 1849 he developed a high-class resort.

He employed architect Henry Currey to fulfil his grand designs.

I'm meeting an architect and local historian, Richard Crook,

by Currey's Winter Garden.

-Richard.

-Good morning.

-Very good to see you.

What was the character of the Eastbourne that he wanted?

Well, Henry Currey had been on the grand tour of Europe as a student.

He loved Italian architecture

and in particular the architecture of Venice.

So we get this wonderful Italianate feel to the town centre.

And he wanted it to be a very high-class resort.

A town built by a gentleman for gentlemen.

But presumably the town did have a working class population?

Oh, yes, it did. Eastbourne was quite fortunately placed

for a zoning of the resort.

And there's a nice phrase that came down that's been quoted -

"Don't go east of the pier, my dear."

And the idea was that the pier was the cut-off point

from the high-class hotels from the boarding houses and the laundries

and the service industries,

which were in the east end of town on the lower lying marshy areas.

Currey's Queen's Hotel is set forward as a visual and geographical barrier

between the two zones, building the class divide into the town's fabric.

Henry Currey also designed a three-tiered promenade

running the length of the bay,

which perpetuated the resort's class consciousness.

The local paper of the day pointed out the fact that it took on

an unwritten social status about which level you were walking on,

and it actually quoted that the promenaders on the upper level

would look down like true born hidalgos on the motley crowd

of nondescripts sauntering along the lower parade.

Extraordinary Victorian snobbery.

One thing that Currey omitted from his town plan was an opera house

because opera was mainly confined to a short season in the capital.

All the more remarkable that in the 1930s a highly successful opera house

opened remote from any metropolitan population.

Bradshaw's tells me that the station at Glynde is just half a mile

from the village of Glyndebourne.

But I've decided to leave this train at Lewes and I'm dressing

because I believe I may be able to blend in with the crowd scene there.

OPERA MUSIC PLAYS

Lewes is the rail gateway to the Glyndebourne Opera Festival.

As an opera lover I'm a frequent visitor

and coming by train is part of the experience.

From the station a complimentary bus service whisks us to the theatre.

-Do you feel excited to be going to Glyndebourne?

-Very much so.

-Yeah?

-Yeah.

-Absolutely. I've never done something like that before

and it sounds like a lot of fun.

-Where are you guys from?

-I'm from the Czech republic.

-I'm from Belarus.

-Oh, I hope you have a wonderful time.

-Enjoy the show.

-Thank you.

OPERA MUSIC PLAYS

This really is the most British scene -

people dressed up to the nines in the heat of the summer,

bearing great burdens, their picnics,

but they're going to have a really British experience -

opera and picnic and champagne.

Hello, everybody. How are you enjoying your picnic, may I ask?

-We're just about to start.

-You look as if you're very well prepared.

How many courses are you serving today?

Well, we're going to have lunch now

and then we'll have our three courses in the long interval.

Have a wonderful day. By the way, there's an opera as well.

THEY LAUGH

-Now, how important is the opera to you?

-It's extremely important.

-Far more than the picnic.

-Oh, I don't know!

THEY LAUGH

I suppose it would go opera, champagne, picnic.

I hope you all enjoy a wonderful performance

and that your picnic will be extremely successful.

-ALL:

-Cheers!

The Glyndebourne opera season

dominates the house all through the summer

and yet it remains the family home of Gus Christie.

-Gus, lovely to see you.

-Very nice to see you, Michael.

My Bradshaw's refers to Glynde Place which is a different house, I think,

belonging to J Langham. Is there any connection with you?

Yes, they were cousins of ours.

Glyndebourne came into our family around the 1830s.

And whose idea was it to attach to this lovely house an opera house?

My grandfather was mad about opera, so he actually built this room,

initially, in the '20s,

and they would stage scenes from operas and a few professionals

he'd get in, one of whom was my grandmother.

And then he wanted to extend this room make it bigger but she said,

"If you're going to spend all that money,

"for God's sake do the thing properly."

So he built her an opera house in the garden. Right from the beginning

my grandfather set the quality bar extremely high.

His motto was not the best that we can do

but the best that can be done anywhere.

Which is a very high bar to set

and we still aspire to that same level nowadays.

I'm lucky enough to be invited behind the scenes

to meet one of tonight's stars, Edgaras Montvidas.

Edgaras.

-Hello, Michael.

-Good to see you.

I spotted you on the train.

Not many people would think of a great opera star

coming down to the opera house by train, is that a regular thing?

-Absolutely, yes.

-Now, you have to perform this afternoon.

You were doing your warm-up, do you mind if I stay for a second

-while you continue?

-Not at all.

-What were you doing?

I would normally sing a couple of exercises.

You must be baritone and so I'll do it a bit lower.

HE SINGS SCALES

Michael?

HE SINGS SCALES

-But you skipped the highest note!

-Oh, did I?

HE SINGS SCALES

HE SINGS SCALES

HE SQUEAKS AT HIGH NOTES

That's why I skipped the high ones.

-Well, a few lessons wouldn't harm!

-THEY LAUGH

-Let's hear a piece from the opera.

-OK.

HE SINGS OPERATICALLY

-That's higher than...

-Beautiful.

I just want to wish you a fantastic performance

and many happy years at Glyndebourne.

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you very much.

The production is Mozart's Die Entfuhrung Aus Dem Serail,

in a performance which demonstrates

that the highest standards are being maintained.

And it brings today's journey to a close.

OPERA MUSIC PLAYS

MUSIC AND SINGING ENDS

APPLAUSE

The Duke of Devonshire created in Eastbourne

the ideal of a high-class seaside resort.

Similar attention to detail went into the ultimate model railway

running between Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch.

The opera at Glyndebourne has prospered against the odds

because of an uncompromising commitment to excellence

and I want to pay tribute to Captain Matthew Webb,

a Victorian hero whose motto was "nothing great is easy"

and who endured 22 hours in the English Channel.

Whereas I found it difficult to survive for ten minutes.

Next time, I marvel at exquisite railway engineering...

That is an extraordinary view,

almost as though we were in a gothic cathedral or something.

..take my pick in a temple of red fruit...

All aboard for the Tomato Express!

-Another go?

-Yeah.

..and test my patience against the southerly wind.

If at first you don't succeed...

-try, try again.

-That's the mantra of kite flying if ever there was one.