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For Victorian Britons, George Bradshaw was a household name. | 0:00:04 | 0:00:08 | |
At a time when railways were new, | 0:00:08 | 0:00:10 | |
Bradshaw's guidebook inspired them to take to the tracks. | 0:00:10 | 0:00:15 | |
I'm using a Bradshaw's guide to | 0:00:15 | 0:00:17 | |
understand how trains transformed Britain, | 0:00:17 | 0:00:20 | |
its landscape, its industry, society and leisure time. | 0:00:20 | 0:00:26 | |
As I crisscross the country 150 years later, | 0:00:26 | 0:00:30 | |
it helps me to discover the Britain of today. | 0:00:30 | 0:00:33 | |
My journey from the Irish Sea to the North Sea continues by tram through | 0:00:53 | 0:00:59 | |
Manchester. The city shared with | 0:00:59 | 0:01:02 | |
Liverpool the world's first intercity | 0:01:02 | 0:01:05 | |
passenger railway and, with its cotton mills, | 0:01:05 | 0:01:08 | |
it was at the heart of the world's first Industrial Revolution. | 0:01:08 | 0:01:13 | |
But, today, I hope to discover that | 0:01:13 | 0:01:15 | |
Manchester was also a city of science. | 0:01:15 | 0:01:18 | |
Was, and still is. | 0:01:18 | 0:01:21 | |
My journey would take me across England towards East Anglia. | 0:01:26 | 0:01:32 | |
I started in the north-west and headed to Manchester, | 0:01:32 | 0:01:36 | |
the world's first industrial city and, | 0:01:36 | 0:01:39 | |
using the historic route of the | 0:01:39 | 0:01:40 | |
North Country Continental rail service, | 0:01:40 | 0:01:43 | |
I'll cross the Fens and finish in Essex at the port of Harwich. | 0:01:43 | 0:01:49 | |
'This second leg of my journey | 0:01:52 | 0:01:54 | |
'starts in Manchester and takes me to nearby Fairfield. | 0:01:54 | 0:01:57 | |
'From there, I'll head north-east, | 0:01:57 | 0:01:59 | |
'marvelling at Britain's longest canal tunnel in Marsden, | 0:01:59 | 0:02:03 | |
'before finishing at a triumph of Victorian manufacturing | 0:02:03 | 0:02:07 | |
'near Silkstone Common. | 0:02:07 | 0:02:09 | |
'On this journey, I discover | 0:02:09 | 0:02:11 | |
'Victorian grandeur deep underground...' | 0:02:11 | 0:02:14 | |
This is known as the Cathedral, | 0:02:14 | 0:02:16 | |
which has this vaulted cast iron arch. | 0:02:16 | 0:02:18 | |
'..find my travels lit by starlight...' | 0:02:18 | 0:02:21 | |
Lift it, please! Let there be light. | 0:02:21 | 0:02:24 | |
Bravo! | 0:02:24 | 0:02:26 | |
'..and take a miniature detour.' | 0:02:26 | 0:02:28 | |
Bradshaw's tells me that John Dalton here developed his great discovery | 0:02:38 | 0:02:43 | |
of atomic theory, which has done so much to give precision to science. | 0:02:43 | 0:02:49 | |
The revelation in Manchester of the | 0:02:49 | 0:02:52 | |
tiniest thing has had, for the world, | 0:02:52 | 0:02:55 | |
the most enormous consequences. | 0:02:55 | 0:02:57 | |
In the hundred years before my guidebook was published, | 0:02:58 | 0:03:01 | |
Manchester had grown from a market town of 10,000 people to become the | 0:03:01 | 0:03:06 | |
world's first industrial city, with a population of 300,000. | 0:03:06 | 0:03:11 | |
Technology drove that unprecedented expansion. | 0:03:11 | 0:03:15 | |
I'm meeting historian of technology Dr James Sumner | 0:03:15 | 0:03:19 | |
at Manchester Town Hall to learn | 0:03:19 | 0:03:21 | |
about the impact of John Dalton's work. | 0:03:21 | 0:03:25 | |
-James, hello. -Michael, pleased to meet you. | 0:03:25 | 0:03:28 | |
We meet in Manchester's famously magnificent town hall, | 0:03:28 | 0:03:30 | |
and you have a statue here of John Dalton? | 0:03:30 | 0:03:33 | |
We do indeed. | 0:03:33 | 0:03:34 | |
It's the first thing that people see as they come into the town hall. | 0:03:34 | 0:03:37 | |
It's right in the main entrance. | 0:03:37 | 0:03:39 | |
-Here he is. -Well, a massive statue of John Dalton. | 0:03:39 | 0:03:42 | |
James, what was it that he did? | 0:03:42 | 0:03:44 | |
John Dalton came up with the idea of the modern atomic theory. | 0:03:44 | 0:03:47 | |
He didn't come up with the idea of atoms, | 0:03:47 | 0:03:49 | |
these tiny unbreakable particles that make up all of matter, | 0:03:49 | 0:03:52 | |
that's an ancient idea. | 0:03:52 | 0:03:53 | |
What he did come up with was a very simple system | 0:03:53 | 0:03:56 | |
to use the atomic idea to help us understand the world. | 0:03:56 | 0:03:58 | |
So he knew about the elements that we're familiar with - hydrogen, | 0:03:58 | 0:04:01 | |
oxygen and so forth. | 0:04:01 | 0:04:03 | |
Dalton's system was all hydrogen atoms weigh the same or oxygen atoms | 0:04:03 | 0:04:06 | |
weigh the same and, | 0:04:06 | 0:04:07 | |
when you bring hydrogen and oxygen together, and combine them to make | 0:04:07 | 0:04:10 | |
water, what's happening is that | 0:04:10 | 0:04:12 | |
exactly one atom of oxygen is somehow | 0:04:12 | 0:04:15 | |
combining with exactly one atom of hydrogen or, possibly, two. | 0:04:15 | 0:04:18 | |
It took a while to work out the details. | 0:04:18 | 0:04:20 | |
Dalton created the periodic table, | 0:04:21 | 0:04:24 | |
showing the relative weights of atoms of different elements. | 0:04:24 | 0:04:27 | |
He has been hailed as the father of modern chemistry. | 0:04:27 | 0:04:31 | |
Chemists of Dalton's time really started to take notice because they | 0:04:32 | 0:04:35 | |
were getting very good at making | 0:04:35 | 0:04:37 | |
exact measurements of various chemical and physical processes, | 0:04:37 | 0:04:40 | |
and Dalton's system of simple | 0:04:40 | 0:04:41 | |
proportions allowed them to understand a lot | 0:04:41 | 0:04:43 | |
of the results that they were getting. | 0:04:43 | 0:04:44 | |
How was he regarded here in Manchester? | 0:04:44 | 0:04:46 | |
John Dalton was not only | 0:04:46 | 0:04:47 | |
Manchester's most important scientific hero, | 0:04:47 | 0:04:50 | |
he was its only scientific hero in the first half of the 19th century. | 0:04:50 | 0:04:54 | |
And so there was so much effort to commemorate Dalton, | 0:04:54 | 0:04:56 | |
even during his own lifetime. | 0:04:56 | 0:04:58 | |
What's really unusual about this statue is that it was produced while | 0:04:58 | 0:05:02 | |
Dalton was still alive, | 0:05:02 | 0:05:03 | |
so Dalton actually went down to London and modelled for this. | 0:05:03 | 0:05:06 | |
The civic leaders of Manchester were keen to establish it's not just a | 0:05:06 | 0:05:09 | |
place where people manufactured things, | 0:05:09 | 0:05:11 | |
it's a place that has culture and art and science, | 0:05:11 | 0:05:14 | |
so they needed a scientific hero. | 0:05:14 | 0:05:17 | |
When Dalton died, Manchester honoured him with a civic funeral. | 0:05:18 | 0:05:22 | |
He lay in state in the town hall for | 0:05:22 | 0:05:25 | |
four days as 40,000 people filed past his coffin. | 0:05:25 | 0:05:29 | |
His ideas transformed 19th-century science and remain | 0:05:29 | 0:05:33 | |
important for today's research. | 0:05:33 | 0:05:35 | |
I'm heading to the National Graphene Institute to meet Professor of | 0:05:37 | 0:05:41 | |
Material Science Ian Kinloch. | 0:05:41 | 0:05:43 | |
-Hello, Ian. -Hi. Welcome to Manchester. | 0:05:43 | 0:05:47 | |
Thank you very much indeed. What an almost James Bondian scene this is! | 0:05:47 | 0:05:51 | |
Manchester has the National Graphene Institute, | 0:05:51 | 0:05:54 | |
which raises the question, what is graphene? | 0:05:54 | 0:05:57 | |
Graphene is a lattice of carbon atoms where the atoms are | 0:05:57 | 0:06:00 | |
arranged in a hexagon, but the interest in graphene is because, | 0:06:00 | 0:06:03 | |
when it gets down to one atom thick, | 0:06:03 | 0:06:05 | |
it has excellent conductive properties, | 0:06:05 | 0:06:07 | |
the electrons are moving as if they're close to the speed of light, | 0:06:07 | 0:06:10 | |
it has excellent stiffness, | 0:06:10 | 0:06:12 | |
excellent strength, and a really high surface area, | 0:06:12 | 0:06:14 | |
which opens up a whole range of applications. | 0:06:14 | 0:06:16 | |
It is mind-boggling, to me, to | 0:06:16 | 0:06:18 | |
imagine a substance that is one atom thick. | 0:06:18 | 0:06:21 | |
Graphene was isolated in 2004 by physicists Konstantin Novoselov | 0:06:21 | 0:06:27 | |
and Andre Geim, | 0:06:27 | 0:06:28 | |
who received the Nobel Prize and were knighted. | 0:06:28 | 0:06:32 | |
They used a piece of sticky tape to isolate graphite by peeling it | 0:06:32 | 0:06:35 | |
backwards again and again and again until it got thinner and thinner and | 0:06:35 | 0:06:39 | |
thinner. They just had one atom thick of material left. | 0:06:39 | 0:06:41 | |
That is an extraordinary image! | 0:06:43 | 0:06:46 | |
It's the world's first | 0:06:46 | 0:06:47 | |
two-dimensional material as well as its most electro conductive. | 0:06:47 | 0:06:52 | |
It's 200 times stronger than steel | 0:06:52 | 0:06:55 | |
and a million times thinner than a human hair. | 0:06:55 | 0:06:58 | |
What uses have you found so far for graphene? | 0:06:59 | 0:07:02 | |
We are looking at putting graphene into energy storage devices such as | 0:07:02 | 0:07:05 | |
batteries to make them last longer, for them to store more power, | 0:07:05 | 0:07:09 | |
applications in aerospace. | 0:07:09 | 0:07:10 | |
Why are the people behind us wearing such a lot of protective clothing? | 0:07:10 | 0:07:14 | |
When you are working down on the atomic scale, | 0:07:14 | 0:07:16 | |
bits of dust can interfere with experiments, | 0:07:16 | 0:07:18 | |
and the biggest source of dust is ourselves, | 0:07:18 | 0:07:20 | |
so all these protective gowns you | 0:07:20 | 0:07:22 | |
can see here is actually to protect the samples from the scientists. | 0:07:22 | 0:07:25 | |
Though graphene is a substance that works at an atomic level, | 0:07:25 | 0:07:29 | |
it's possible to see it being created. | 0:07:29 | 0:07:32 | |
So what we have is we have a beaker with two graphite electrodes in it. | 0:07:32 | 0:07:35 | |
The idea is that we put a potential across this and drive ions into the | 0:07:35 | 0:07:39 | |
graphite lattice, and we expand it so the graphene falls apart. | 0:07:39 | 0:07:43 | |
So it's all set up and all we need to do is just switch on the switch. | 0:07:43 | 0:07:46 | |
Off we go and make some graphene. | 0:07:46 | 0:07:49 | |
Power on! | 0:07:49 | 0:07:50 | |
I can see that the clear solution is now being clouded with black, | 0:07:50 | 0:07:53 | |
and that is the graphene been pushed off the graphite, is it? | 0:07:53 | 0:07:56 | |
Yes, so the ions are going into the graphite and pushing the graphene | 0:07:56 | 0:07:59 | |
layers away from that graphite electrode, | 0:07:59 | 0:08:01 | |
and what we end up with this a solution such as this. | 0:08:01 | 0:08:04 | |
We end up with a nice black solution. | 0:08:04 | 0:08:06 | |
Then we can dry it even further and make a powder. | 0:08:06 | 0:08:09 | |
Can you demonstrate an application to me? | 0:08:09 | 0:08:11 | |
Of course. So we have just over here a brick, | 0:08:11 | 0:08:13 | |
which has been covered in graphene paint. | 0:08:13 | 0:08:16 | |
We've got this side is uncoated and this side you can see is coated with | 0:08:16 | 0:08:19 | |
the graphene. If we put water on here, | 0:08:19 | 0:08:21 | |
you can see the water on the brick fairly quickly goes into the brick. | 0:08:21 | 0:08:25 | |
Or if we put it over on the graphene surface here, | 0:08:25 | 0:08:28 | |
you can see how it rises up and it's hydrophobic and the water droplets | 0:08:28 | 0:08:32 | |
stay on the surface. | 0:08:32 | 0:08:33 | |
So Manchester is not any more the city of horny-handed toil, | 0:08:33 | 0:08:36 | |
but actually of science? | 0:08:36 | 0:08:38 | |
Yes, and, in fact, we are the 2016 City of Science. | 0:08:38 | 0:08:41 | |
I'm returning to Piccadilly station and taking the short hop four miles | 0:08:44 | 0:08:49 | |
west on the line which connects | 0:08:49 | 0:08:50 | |
Manchester to Leeds, via Huddersfield. | 0:08:50 | 0:08:53 | |
My next stop will be Fairfield. | 0:09:02 | 0:09:05 | |
Bradshaw's tells me that it's | 0:09:05 | 0:09:07 | |
celebrated for its extensive Moravian settlement. | 0:09:07 | 0:09:10 | |
It shows there's nothing new about immigration. | 0:09:10 | 0:09:13 | |
Moravians were, I think, a fleeing, | 0:09:13 | 0:09:15 | |
persecuted religious minority at a time when most people thought that | 0:09:15 | 0:09:19 | |
their immortal souls depended not | 0:09:19 | 0:09:22 | |
only upon being godly but on adhering | 0:09:22 | 0:09:24 | |
to a single religion which they regarded as true. | 0:09:24 | 0:09:28 | |
Today, the Moravians are still part of the Fairfield community. | 0:09:33 | 0:09:37 | |
I'm eager to learn more about the settlement from Fairfield community | 0:09:37 | 0:09:40 | |
guide Janet Waugh. | 0:09:40 | 0:09:42 | |
Janet, where is the Moravia from which Moravians come? | 0:09:44 | 0:09:47 | |
It's from the Czech Republic. | 0:09:47 | 0:09:49 | |
It has two provinces there, or did have, called Moravia and Bohemia, | 0:09:49 | 0:09:53 | |
and that's where they got their sort of nickname, if you like. | 0:09:53 | 0:09:56 | |
Why did they move out of Moravia and Bohemia? | 0:09:56 | 0:09:59 | |
Because they were being persecuted. | 0:09:59 | 0:10:01 | |
They were a Protestant church, | 0:10:01 | 0:10:03 | |
and the ruling king and queen were Catholics | 0:10:03 | 0:10:06 | |
and they couldn't freely worship as they wanted to, | 0:10:06 | 0:10:08 | |
so they decided it was best to move on. | 0:10:08 | 0:10:11 | |
The Moravians objected to many | 0:10:11 | 0:10:13 | |
doctrines and practices within the Catholic Church. | 0:10:13 | 0:10:16 | |
They criticised the behaviour of priests and the Pope, | 0:10:16 | 0:10:19 | |
in particular, the sale by the church of indulgences, | 0:10:19 | 0:10:22 | |
which amounted to selling forgiveness for one's sins. | 0:10:22 | 0:10:25 | |
Moravians also believed that | 0:10:25 | 0:10:27 | |
ordinary people should receive wine, as well as bread at Mass. | 0:10:27 | 0:10:32 | |
So are Moravians part of a | 0:10:32 | 0:10:34 | |
Protestant movement around the time of Luther and Calvin? | 0:10:34 | 0:10:38 | |
Yeah, they were actually about 50 years before Martin Luther. | 0:10:38 | 0:10:42 | |
The main person in the Czech Republic was Jan Hus. | 0:10:42 | 0:10:44 | |
He was around 1400. | 0:10:44 | 0:10:46 | |
He was asked to go and meet the Pope and he was martyred there, | 0:10:46 | 0:10:49 | |
-killed for heresy. -When did the Moravians first come to Britain? | 0:10:49 | 0:10:53 | |
About 1740. | 0:10:53 | 0:10:54 | |
They'd come from Germany. | 0:10:54 | 0:10:56 | |
They decided they wanted to go out into the world and be missionaries. | 0:10:56 | 0:10:59 | |
This extraordinary and wonderful place, | 0:10:59 | 0:11:02 | |
they built this as we see it today? | 0:11:02 | 0:11:04 | |
Yes, they started in 1783. | 0:11:04 | 0:11:06 | |
They set up kilns on-site in 1783 and used the clay that was here so | 0:11:06 | 0:11:11 | |
that all the bricks are handmade and, by 1785, | 0:11:11 | 0:11:14 | |
they'd managed to build the main Church Terrace, | 0:11:14 | 0:11:16 | |
the brethren's house and the sisters house and 13 dwellings. | 0:11:16 | 0:11:19 | |
And the rest of it was finished about 1796. | 0:11:19 | 0:11:22 | |
Though it's now been engulfed by the city of Manchester, | 0:11:23 | 0:11:26 | |
the Fairfield settlement was originally built in open fields. | 0:11:26 | 0:11:30 | |
When inaugurated in 1785, it had 110 inhabitants. | 0:11:30 | 0:11:35 | |
How many Moravians would there be, for example, in Britain? | 0:11:35 | 0:11:38 | |
There's about 2,000. 30 churches. | 0:11:38 | 0:11:41 | |
And what does it mean to you to be a Moravian and to live in a Moravian | 0:11:41 | 0:11:44 | |
-community? -I feel very privileged to live in this community because it is | 0:11:44 | 0:11:48 | |
a community, we do look after one another. | 0:11:48 | 0:11:50 | |
It is a very equal church, | 0:11:50 | 0:11:53 | |
so there's no hierarchy in at all and everybody | 0:11:53 | 0:11:57 | |
calls each other still brother and sister. | 0:11:57 | 0:12:00 | |
-Well, thank you for your welcome, sister. -Thank you, brother. | 0:12:00 | 0:12:03 | |
Though they ordain ministers, | 0:12:04 | 0:12:06 | |
Moravians believe in a personal relationship with God, | 0:12:06 | 0:12:09 | |
not one that's mediated by priests. | 0:12:09 | 0:12:11 | |
The settlement's Chapel is still in use. | 0:12:12 | 0:12:15 | |
We're just in the process here of making and assembling a star. | 0:12:16 | 0:12:19 | |
And what's that for? | 0:12:19 | 0:12:21 | |
We put these up in Advent, until the 12th night. | 0:12:21 | 0:12:25 | |
So how do you make this thing? | 0:12:25 | 0:12:27 | |
Well, we have the three different sizes of points. | 0:12:27 | 0:12:30 | |
Would you like to have a go at making one? | 0:12:30 | 0:12:32 | |
HE LAUGHS NERVOUSLY | 0:12:32 | 0:12:33 | |
I'll give it a go. | 0:12:33 | 0:12:35 | |
Hello. I'm Michael. | 0:12:35 | 0:12:37 | |
Hi. I'm Carol. How are you? | 0:12:37 | 0:12:39 | |
I'll put my spectacles on for this one. | 0:12:39 | 0:12:41 | |
Now, I imagine you've got to draw lines, haven't you? | 0:12:41 | 0:12:45 | |
What I have to remember from childhood days is to get my finger | 0:12:47 | 0:12:49 | |
and thumb out the way when I come past. | 0:12:49 | 0:12:52 | |
How long have you been doing this, Carol? | 0:12:53 | 0:12:55 | |
Well, this is the first time that the star's been done for quite a few | 0:12:55 | 0:12:58 | |
years so, hopefully, this will last us for over 25 years. | 0:12:58 | 0:13:04 | |
If I make a mess, I've got to remember that I'm in church. | 0:13:04 | 0:13:07 | |
-Yes. -No rude words! | 0:13:07 | 0:13:09 | |
Did you get it right first time or were you a bit clumsy like me? | 0:13:09 | 0:13:13 | |
Well, we had a few spare, so that's always good! | 0:13:13 | 0:13:16 | |
Absolutely brill. We'll get you back in another 25 years(!) | 0:13:17 | 0:13:21 | |
-Yes. -Hello, Sarah. | 0:13:21 | 0:13:23 | |
-Hello. -Here is my poor offering. | 0:13:23 | 0:13:25 | |
And that appears to be the slot. | 0:13:26 | 0:13:27 | |
Yeah, one last slot there. | 0:13:27 | 0:13:30 | |
-So what happens now? -It needs to go up. | 0:13:30 | 0:13:33 | |
I need to shout. Lift it, please! | 0:13:33 | 0:13:36 | |
Let there be light. | 0:13:36 | 0:13:38 | |
Bravo! | 0:13:39 | 0:13:41 | |
A star is borne aloft! | 0:13:41 | 0:13:44 | |
Leaving Fairfield, I'm re-joining the railway at Ashton-under-Lyne. | 0:13:49 | 0:13:53 | |
My next stop will be Stalybridge. | 0:14:03 | 0:14:05 | |
Bradshaw's tells me that it's part in Lancashire and part in Cheshire, | 0:14:05 | 0:14:10 | |
the two being joined by an old bridge, the rugged limestone bridge, | 0:14:10 | 0:14:15 | |
forming the backbone of England. | 0:14:15 | 0:14:18 | |
But my interest is not in the skeleton of the country. | 0:14:18 | 0:14:22 | |
I'm here for the buffet bar at Stalybridge station, | 0:14:22 | 0:14:26 | |
where travellers have slaked their thirst since 1885. | 0:14:26 | 0:14:31 | |
Good evening to you. Hello. | 0:14:40 | 0:14:42 | |
Hello. | 0:14:42 | 0:14:44 | |
Can I have a pint of Stalybridge's best, please? | 0:14:44 | 0:14:47 | |
There you go. Can I get you anything else? | 0:14:49 | 0:14:51 | |
You wouldn't have anything to eat at this time, would you? | 0:14:51 | 0:14:54 | |
What we've got, which is a kind of local speciality to this pub, | 0:14:54 | 0:14:57 | |
is something called black peas. | 0:14:57 | 0:14:59 | |
Black peas, you're on! | 0:14:59 | 0:15:01 | |
-Excellent. Portion of black peas. -Please. -Magic. | 0:15:01 | 0:15:03 | |
The buffet at Stalybridge is one of a handful of surviving | 0:15:03 | 0:15:07 | |
Victorian station bars. | 0:15:07 | 0:15:10 | |
I'm pleased to see that the walls are adorned with memorabilia from | 0:15:10 | 0:15:13 | |
the halcyon days of the railways. | 0:15:13 | 0:15:16 | |
In truth, I've never seen anything like these black peas. | 0:15:16 | 0:15:19 | |
They are about the same colour as my Bradshaw's and they look as though | 0:15:19 | 0:15:22 | |
they're about as old! | 0:15:22 | 0:15:23 | |
And yet, of course, they're delicious. | 0:15:30 | 0:15:33 | |
Ready for the day ahead, | 0:15:47 | 0:15:49 | |
I resume my journey east on the Huddersfield line, | 0:15:49 | 0:15:51 | |
skirting around the northern edge of the Peak District National Park. | 0:15:51 | 0:15:56 | |
The first stop of my new day will be Marston. | 0:16:04 | 0:16:08 | |
My guidebook directs me to the entrances, | 0:16:08 | 0:16:11 | |
to the railway and canal tunnels which run parallel with each other | 0:16:11 | 0:16:16 | |
and are the longest in the world. | 0:16:16 | 0:16:19 | |
George Bradshaw's first job was mapping canals, and he developed a | 0:16:19 | 0:16:23 | |
tremendous admiration for their brilliant civil engineers, | 0:16:23 | 0:16:27 | |
an enthusiasm which I find infectious. | 0:16:27 | 0:16:32 | |
I cross the Saddleworth viaduct, completed in 1849. | 0:16:32 | 0:16:37 | |
Its 23 arches carry the railway in a gentle curve | 0:16:37 | 0:16:40 | |
above the Huddersfield narrow canal. | 0:16:40 | 0:16:43 | |
Surrounded by the Pennines, | 0:16:47 | 0:16:49 | |
Marsden grew rich from the wool trade in the 19th century. | 0:16:49 | 0:16:53 | |
Bank Bottom Mill was one of the largest in the country, | 0:16:53 | 0:16:57 | |
and closed only in 2003. | 0:16:57 | 0:16:59 | |
Fred Carter from the Canal and River Trust | 0:17:03 | 0:17:06 | |
is my guide to the Standedge Tunnel. | 0:17:06 | 0:17:08 | |
Fred, this canal tunnel dates from | 0:17:08 | 0:17:10 | |
long before the railway age finished, | 0:17:10 | 0:17:12 | |
I think, in 1811. | 0:17:12 | 0:17:14 | |
It must've been a prodigious achievement in those days. | 0:17:14 | 0:17:17 | |
Well, you're quite right. | 0:17:17 | 0:17:18 | |
As I say, the fourth of April, 1811, when this tunnel was opened and, | 0:17:18 | 0:17:22 | |
originally, they said it would take six years to build or complete. | 0:17:22 | 0:17:27 | |
16 years later, they were still at it. | 0:17:27 | 0:17:30 | |
It's the highest, longest, deepest canal tunnel in this country. | 0:17:30 | 0:17:34 | |
So you're now 645 feet above sea-level. | 0:17:34 | 0:17:38 | |
The tunnel itself is three and a quarter miles long | 0:17:38 | 0:17:42 | |
and there's about 680 feet of Hillside above us. | 0:17:42 | 0:17:45 | |
16 years to build. | 0:17:45 | 0:17:47 | |
-What went wrong? -Unfortunately, the hit a band of millstone grit, | 0:17:47 | 0:17:51 | |
and it's one of the hardest rocks. | 0:17:51 | 0:17:53 | |
Also, when they did actually dig from both ends, | 0:17:53 | 0:17:56 | |
they actually quite managed to miss one another and, believe it or not, | 0:17:56 | 0:18:00 | |
the two tunnels were actually 50 feet out of line. | 0:18:00 | 0:18:03 | |
And, to make life interesting, | 0:18:03 | 0:18:05 | |
we've got a lovely S-bend right in the middle. | 0:18:05 | 0:18:07 | |
The engineer for the Huddersfield narrow canal was Benjamin Outram. | 0:18:09 | 0:18:13 | |
He mistakenly thought that they | 0:18:13 | 0:18:15 | |
would be tunnelling through soft rock and | 0:18:15 | 0:18:17 | |
left most of the work under the | 0:18:17 | 0:18:19 | |
control of a less experienced engineer. | 0:18:19 | 0:18:21 | |
In 1801, with costs and schedules spiralling out of control, | 0:18:22 | 0:18:26 | |
Outram resigned. | 0:18:26 | 0:18:28 | |
It wasn't until six years later that renowned engineer Thomas Telford was | 0:18:28 | 0:18:32 | |
called in to advise on the canal's completion. | 0:18:32 | 0:18:34 | |
What is so striking about it, Fred, is just how incredibly narrow it is. | 0:18:36 | 0:18:41 | |
Well, that's why they call it a narrow canal, | 0:18:41 | 0:18:44 | |
and it stays about this width all the way through, would you believe? | 0:18:44 | 0:18:47 | |
How did they build it? | 0:18:47 | 0:18:48 | |
I'll just show you some of the tools. | 0:18:48 | 0:18:50 | |
This is what we call a star drill. | 0:18:50 | 0:18:53 | |
One of the navvies would hold this against the wall. | 0:18:53 | 0:18:55 | |
Either one or two of his colleagues | 0:18:55 | 0:18:57 | |
would strike at it with sledgehammers. | 0:18:57 | 0:19:00 | |
Strike, turn, strike, turn until, eventually, this would drill a hole. | 0:19:00 | 0:19:05 | |
They'd then fill the hole with gunpowder and fire that charge. | 0:19:05 | 0:19:10 | |
Many deaths during the construction? | 0:19:10 | 0:19:11 | |
They say 50, but we think there are more. | 0:19:11 | 0:19:15 | |
The tunnel cost around £125,000, | 0:19:15 | 0:19:19 | |
one of the most expensive canal tunnels built at the time. | 0:19:19 | 0:19:23 | |
To cut costs, the engineers dispensed with a tow path. | 0:19:24 | 0:19:27 | |
No room here for an animal. | 0:19:29 | 0:19:31 | |
-What was the propulsion? -They used | 0:19:31 | 0:19:33 | |
to bring the barges through here by a method called legging. | 0:19:33 | 0:19:35 | |
Two gentleman would lie on the backs of the boats here, | 0:19:35 | 0:19:38 | |
feet out to either side. | 0:19:38 | 0:19:40 | |
They'd begin to take this sideways step like a crab. | 0:19:40 | 0:19:43 | |
For more than three miles? | 0:19:43 | 0:19:45 | |
Yeah, this took them about three to | 0:19:45 | 0:19:47 | |
three and a half hours to leg a boat through the tunnel here. | 0:19:47 | 0:19:50 | |
They must have been absolutely exhausted. | 0:19:50 | 0:19:53 | |
Absolutely shattered. | 0:19:53 | 0:19:55 | |
How they did not break their ankles or their legs in some of it, | 0:19:55 | 0:19:58 | |
-it's a wonder. -The tunnel is an awe inspiring relic of the tenacity and | 0:19:58 | 0:20:03 | |
grit of the industrial age but its heyday was brief. | 0:20:03 | 0:20:07 | |
With their vastly superior speed and power, railways superseded canals. | 0:20:07 | 0:20:13 | |
The London and North Western Railway built a bore or tunnel parallel to | 0:20:13 | 0:20:18 | |
the canal, to carry trains between Manchester and Huddersfield. | 0:20:18 | 0:20:22 | |
Network Rail's Ian Wilson has been | 0:20:22 | 0:20:24 | |
responsible for maintenance at Standedge for over 20 years. | 0:20:24 | 0:20:28 | |
My guidebook, which is about 1864, | 0:20:29 | 0:20:33 | |
refers to the longest railway tunnel in the world. | 0:20:33 | 0:20:36 | |
-Which one is that? -That would have been this one, | 0:20:36 | 0:20:38 | |
which is the Standedge Centre Bore. | 0:20:38 | 0:20:39 | |
It's just over three miles long and that was open at the time of the | 0:20:39 | 0:20:42 | |
guidebook, 1849. | 0:20:42 | 0:20:44 | |
Since then, the south bore was built, when rail traffic increased, | 0:20:44 | 0:20:48 | |
and then the twin track live bore, | 0:20:48 | 0:20:50 | |
which is this one that's still running. | 0:20:50 | 0:20:52 | |
What happened to the two tunnels that are now closed? | 0:20:52 | 0:20:55 | |
They were closed in around 1966 as part of the Beeching cuts. | 0:20:55 | 0:20:59 | |
-Can we go inside? -Yes, let's go. | 0:20:59 | 0:21:01 | |
The closed tunnels are carefully maintained to allow servicing of the | 0:21:01 | 0:21:06 | |
operating bore. They also preserve the opportunity to increase rail | 0:21:06 | 0:21:10 | |
capacity, should it ever be required. | 0:21:10 | 0:21:13 | |
The 1894 tunnel is the fifth longest on the National Rail network, | 0:21:13 | 0:21:18 | |
running for just over three miles. | 0:21:18 | 0:21:20 | |
Well, this is the midpoint of the tunnels. | 0:21:21 | 0:21:24 | |
This is known as the Cathedral, | 0:21:24 | 0:21:26 | |
which has this vaulted cast iron arch, | 0:21:26 | 0:21:28 | |
and it's the widest connecting point between the two tunnels. | 0:21:28 | 0:21:32 | |
This tunnel was built, what, more | 0:21:32 | 0:21:34 | |
than 30 years after the canal tunnel. | 0:21:34 | 0:21:37 | |
Was it of any use to these tunnel builders that the canal tunnel was | 0:21:37 | 0:21:40 | |
-already there? -Having the canal | 0:21:40 | 0:21:41 | |
meant they could create short passages | 0:21:41 | 0:21:43 | |
across from this tunnel to the canal | 0:21:43 | 0:21:45 | |
and they could take the spoil out and bring materials in, | 0:21:45 | 0:21:47 | |
which would have speeded the | 0:21:47 | 0:21:49 | |
building of the tunnel up by possibly years. | 0:21:49 | 0:21:51 | |
And, by comparison with the canal | 0:21:51 | 0:21:53 | |
tunnel, of course, this is much bigger. | 0:21:53 | 0:21:54 | |
I mean, this is a monumental piece of work. | 0:21:54 | 0:21:56 | |
It's huge. I think there's 50 | 0:21:56 | 0:21:58 | |
million bricks used to build one of these tunnels. | 0:21:58 | 0:22:00 | |
50 million bricks! | 0:22:00 | 0:22:02 | |
-50 million bricks. -And how do you | 0:22:02 | 0:22:03 | |
feel about these tunnels where you work every day? | 0:22:03 | 0:22:05 | |
I do get quite attached to them and I have been known to refer | 0:22:05 | 0:22:08 | |
to them as my babies, because every one has its own character and little | 0:22:08 | 0:22:12 | |
traits and things. | 0:22:12 | 0:22:13 | |
-So, yeah. -Your babies? | 0:22:13 | 0:22:15 | |
They're my babies, yes! | 0:22:15 | 0:22:16 | |
With my subterranean exploration at an end, | 0:22:18 | 0:22:22 | |
I'm completing my journey across the Pennines to Huddersfield. | 0:22:22 | 0:22:26 | |
From there, the railway takes me 17 miles south. | 0:22:26 | 0:22:29 | |
'The important rank,' | 0:22:37 | 0:22:39 | |
which the manufacturers of Yorkshire have long maintained in the | 0:22:39 | 0:22:43 | |
estimation of the world, the amount of patient thought, | 0:22:43 | 0:22:47 | |
of repeated experiment and happy exertion of genius, | 0:22:47 | 0:22:52 | |
by which our various manufacturers | 0:22:52 | 0:22:54 | |
have been carried to their present excellence, | 0:22:54 | 0:22:57 | |
is scarcely to be imagined. | 0:22:57 | 0:23:00 | |
When I leave this train at Silkstone Common, | 0:23:00 | 0:23:03 | |
I'm going to investigate the life of a man who added mightily to the | 0:23:03 | 0:23:07 | |
reputation of his county and his country. | 0:23:07 | 0:23:11 | |
Four miles south of Silkstone Common lies Wortley Top Forge. | 0:23:14 | 0:23:19 | |
It's the oldest surviving | 0:23:19 | 0:23:20 | |
water-powered iron forge in the country, | 0:23:20 | 0:23:23 | |
dating back to 1640. | 0:23:23 | 0:23:25 | |
It's now a museum, and I'm meeting guide Ted Young. | 0:23:27 | 0:23:30 | |
So was the history of the forge? | 0:23:32 | 0:23:33 | |
Early in the 1600s, it was set up by the Lord of the Manor, | 0:23:33 | 0:23:39 | |
Sir Francis Wortley, because he was using water power. | 0:23:39 | 0:23:42 | |
And around a third of a mile up that way, he put the weir in, | 0:23:42 | 0:23:47 | |
and that holds the water at a level, | 0:23:47 | 0:23:49 | |
giving a difference that allows you to run the water wheels. | 0:23:49 | 0:23:53 | |
During the 1870s, | 0:23:53 | 0:23:54 | |
the metallurgist Thomas Andrews | 0:23:54 | 0:23:56 | |
began to conduct experiments at the forge. | 0:23:56 | 0:23:59 | |
He focused on the strength of | 0:23:59 | 0:24:01 | |
railway axles that were used on early | 0:24:01 | 0:24:04 | |
rolling stock, whose failure could cause a catastrophe. | 0:24:04 | 0:24:07 | |
Ted, do you think that Thomas Andrews was a man who used thought | 0:24:09 | 0:24:12 | |
and experiment, and indeed genius? | 0:24:12 | 0:24:15 | |
Oh, absolutely so. | 0:24:15 | 0:24:17 | |
He was a man who committed his life to looking into the properties of | 0:24:17 | 0:24:22 | |
various metals. | 0:24:22 | 0:24:24 | |
And is it possible to see the place where he did his work? | 0:24:24 | 0:24:26 | |
Certainly. Shall we go into the forge? | 0:24:26 | 0:24:28 | |
-Thank you. -At the time Andrews conducted his experiments, | 0:24:28 | 0:24:32 | |
he was a pioneer. | 0:24:32 | 0:24:34 | |
The forge seems to be very kind of rustic, almost homely. | 0:24:34 | 0:24:38 | |
Did they have serious production going on in here? | 0:24:38 | 0:24:40 | |
Absolutely so. | 0:24:40 | 0:24:41 | |
It is, essentially, a preindustrial revolution site but, | 0:24:41 | 0:24:45 | |
by the railway era, | 0:24:45 | 0:24:47 | |
it was bringing in wrought iron bars and making 200 to 300 axles a week. | 0:24:47 | 0:24:53 | |
Extraordinary! | 0:24:53 | 0:24:55 | |
Andrews created wrought iron and subjected it to a variety | 0:24:55 | 0:24:59 | |
of strength and temperature experiments. | 0:24:59 | 0:25:02 | |
This is a bar of wrought iron. | 0:25:02 | 0:25:04 | |
This is the result of a process of taking pig iron, | 0:25:04 | 0:25:08 | |
which came from the blast furnaces. | 0:25:08 | 0:25:10 | |
The wonderful thing about this | 0:25:10 | 0:25:12 | |
material is that it has great strength. | 0:25:12 | 0:25:15 | |
So how'd you get from this to a railway axle? | 0:25:15 | 0:25:18 | |
You have to overcome one of its weaknesses, | 0:25:18 | 0:25:21 | |
and that is it can only be produced in bars of that size. | 0:25:21 | 0:25:26 | |
They got round that by fixing together 16 bars | 0:25:26 | 0:25:31 | |
in what they called a faggot. | 0:25:31 | 0:25:34 | |
The faggot is heated in the furnace up until it's white heat, | 0:25:34 | 0:25:41 | |
hung from a crane, and then swung across under the hammer. | 0:25:41 | 0:25:46 | |
And then this has begun to acquire the round shape of an axle? | 0:25:46 | 0:25:50 | |
Yes, this one is nearly complete, | 0:25:50 | 0:25:52 | |
and we can gauge it up to see that we've reached the correct diameter. | 0:25:52 | 0:25:57 | |
And I can swing it into position on this chain | 0:25:57 | 0:26:02 | |
and I can rotate it comme ca. | 0:26:02 | 0:26:05 | |
And how does the hammer get its power? | 0:26:05 | 0:26:07 | |
-From the water wheel. -Between 1840 and 1910, | 0:26:07 | 0:26:12 | |
railway axles from Wortley were exported all over the world. | 0:26:12 | 0:26:16 | |
It's said that none ever failed, a legacy to be proud of. | 0:26:16 | 0:26:21 | |
Ted, that's beautiful. A working water wheel. | 0:26:23 | 0:26:26 | |
The power of these things is extraordinary, isn't it? | 0:26:26 | 0:26:29 | |
It's producing 8-10 horsepower. | 0:26:29 | 0:26:31 | |
This was really advanced engineering. | 0:26:31 | 0:26:35 | |
A real gem from the Industrial Revolution. | 0:26:35 | 0:26:37 | |
As though to remind us of the train axles that were manufactured here, | 0:26:39 | 0:26:43 | |
the forge has its own railway. | 0:26:43 | 0:26:45 | |
Hello, Chris. What a beautiful miniature locomotive. | 0:26:46 | 0:26:50 | |
-Tell me about it. -Well, it's a quarter scale model of a locomotive, | 0:26:50 | 0:26:54 | |
-typically used in the North Wales quarries. -And it runs? | 0:26:54 | 0:26:58 | |
Strong enough to carry someone like me? | 0:26:58 | 0:27:00 | |
-Hopefully. -Shall we give it a whirl? -We'll give it a good whirl. | 0:27:00 | 0:27:03 | |
There might not seem to be much | 0:27:11 | 0:27:13 | |
connection between the arrival of Moravian | 0:27:13 | 0:27:16 | |
immigrants in the 18th century and | 0:27:16 | 0:27:18 | |
the much later development of tunnels | 0:27:18 | 0:27:21 | |
and iron forges during the Industrial Revolution. | 0:27:21 | 0:27:25 | |
But the fact that nonconformists | 0:27:25 | 0:27:28 | |
were welcome in England points to | 0:27:28 | 0:27:30 | |
the fact that the British enjoyed relative freedom of speech | 0:27:30 | 0:27:36 | |
and thought at that time. | 0:27:36 | 0:27:38 | |
People who were educated, and those who were not, | 0:27:38 | 0:27:41 | |
felt at liberty to enquire | 0:27:41 | 0:27:43 | |
into the nature and origin of things and to experiment. | 0:27:43 | 0:27:49 | |
And that led to an extraordinary British contribution to engineering, | 0:27:49 | 0:27:54 | |
science and thought. | 0:27:54 | 0:27:56 | |
Next time... | 0:28:01 | 0:28:02 | |
-Up there? -That's the one. | 0:28:02 | 0:28:04 | |
'I climb beyond my comfort zone...' | 0:28:04 | 0:28:06 | |
-Just put your other foot on the next hold. -All the way over there? | 0:28:06 | 0:28:09 | |
Yeah, you'll be fine. I've got you nice and safe. | 0:28:09 | 0:28:11 | |
'..uncover a museum of curiosities...' | 0:28:11 | 0:28:14 | |
If a predator tries to grab them, | 0:28:14 | 0:28:16 | |
they will ooze out all this slime and the predator will literally kind | 0:28:16 | 0:28:20 | |
of spit the hagfish out in disgust. | 0:28:20 | 0:28:23 | |
'..and embrace a new language with open arms.' | 0:28:23 | 0:28:26 | |
This is 'have to'. | 0:28:26 | 0:28:28 | |
-Oh, that's 'have to'? -Yeah. | 0:28:28 | 0:28:30 | |
-Yeah. -That's good, yeah. | 0:28:30 | 0:28:31 |