Manchester Piccadilly to Silkstone Common Great British Railway Journeys


Manchester Piccadilly to Silkstone Common

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For Victorian Britons, George Bradshaw was a household name.

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At a time when railways were new,

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Bradshaw's guidebook inspired them to take to the tracks.

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I'm using a Bradshaw's guide to

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understand how trains transformed Britain,

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its landscape, its industry, society and leisure time.

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As I crisscross the country 150 years later,

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it helps me to discover the Britain of today.

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My journey from the Irish Sea to the North Sea continues by tram through

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Manchester. The city shared with

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Liverpool the world's first intercity

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passenger railway and, with its cotton mills,

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it was at the heart of the world's first Industrial Revolution.

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But, today, I hope to discover that

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Manchester was also a city of science.

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Was, and still is.

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My journey would take me across England towards East Anglia.

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I started in the north-west and headed to Manchester,

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the world's first industrial city and,

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using the historic route of the

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North Country Continental rail service,

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I'll cross the Fens and finish in Essex at the port of Harwich.

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'This second leg of my journey

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'starts in Manchester and takes me to nearby Fairfield.

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'From there, I'll head north-east,

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'marvelling at Britain's longest canal tunnel in Marsden,

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'before finishing at a triumph of Victorian manufacturing

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'near Silkstone Common.

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'On this journey, I discover

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'Victorian grandeur deep underground...'

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This is known as the Cathedral,

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which has this vaulted cast iron arch.

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'..find my travels lit by starlight...'

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Lift it, please! Let there be light.

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Bravo!

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'..and take a miniature detour.'

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Bradshaw's tells me that John Dalton here developed his great discovery

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of atomic theory, which has done so much to give precision to science.

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The revelation in Manchester of the

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tiniest thing has had, for the world,

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the most enormous consequences.

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In the hundred years before my guidebook was published,

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Manchester had grown from a market town of 10,000 people to become the

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world's first industrial city, with a population of 300,000.

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Technology drove that unprecedented expansion.

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I'm meeting historian of technology Dr James Sumner

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at Manchester Town Hall to learn

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about the impact of John Dalton's work.

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-James, hello.

-Michael, pleased to meet you.

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We meet in Manchester's famously magnificent town hall,

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and you have a statue here of John Dalton?

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We do indeed.

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It's the first thing that people see as they come into the town hall.

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It's right in the main entrance.

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-Here he is.

-Well, a massive statue of John Dalton.

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James, what was it that he did?

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John Dalton came up with the idea of the modern atomic theory.

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He didn't come up with the idea of atoms,

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these tiny unbreakable particles that make up all of matter,

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that's an ancient idea.

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What he did come up with was a very simple system

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to use the atomic idea to help us understand the world.

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So he knew about the elements that we're familiar with - hydrogen,

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oxygen and so forth.

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Dalton's system was all hydrogen atoms weigh the same or oxygen atoms

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weigh the same and,

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when you bring hydrogen and oxygen together, and combine them to make

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water, what's happening is that

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exactly one atom of oxygen is somehow

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combining with exactly one atom of hydrogen or, possibly, two.

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It took a while to work out the details.

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Dalton created the periodic table,

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showing the relative weights of atoms of different elements.

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He has been hailed as the father of modern chemistry.

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Chemists of Dalton's time really started to take notice because they

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were getting very good at making

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exact measurements of various chemical and physical processes,

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and Dalton's system of simple

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proportions allowed them to understand a lot

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of the results that they were getting.

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How was he regarded here in Manchester?

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John Dalton was not only

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Manchester's most important scientific hero,

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he was its only scientific hero in the first half of the 19th century.

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And so there was so much effort to commemorate Dalton,

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even during his own lifetime.

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What's really unusual about this statue is that it was produced while

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Dalton was still alive,

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so Dalton actually went down to London and modelled for this.

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The civic leaders of Manchester were keen to establish it's not just a

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place where people manufactured things,

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it's a place that has culture and art and science,

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so they needed a scientific hero.

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When Dalton died, Manchester honoured him with a civic funeral.

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He lay in state in the town hall for

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four days as 40,000 people filed past his coffin.

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His ideas transformed 19th-century science and remain

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important for today's research.

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I'm heading to the National Graphene Institute to meet Professor of

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Material Science Ian Kinloch.

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-Hello, Ian.

-Hi. Welcome to Manchester.

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Thank you very much indeed. What an almost James Bondian scene this is!

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Manchester has the National Graphene Institute,

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which raises the question, what is graphene?

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Graphene is a lattice of carbon atoms where the atoms are

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arranged in a hexagon, but the interest in graphene is because,

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when it gets down to one atom thick,

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it has excellent conductive properties,

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the electrons are moving as if they're close to the speed of light,

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it has excellent stiffness,

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excellent strength, and a really high surface area,

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which opens up a whole range of applications.

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It is mind-boggling, to me, to

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imagine a substance that is one atom thick.

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Graphene was isolated in 2004 by physicists Konstantin Novoselov

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and Andre Geim,

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who received the Nobel Prize and were knighted.

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They used a piece of sticky tape to isolate graphite by peeling it

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backwards again and again and again until it got thinner and thinner and

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thinner. They just had one atom thick of material left.

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That is an extraordinary image!

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It's the world's first

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two-dimensional material as well as its most electro conductive.

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It's 200 times stronger than steel

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and a million times thinner than a human hair.

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What uses have you found so far for graphene?

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We are looking at putting graphene into energy storage devices such as

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batteries to make them last longer, for them to store more power,

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applications in aerospace.

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Why are the people behind us wearing such a lot of protective clothing?

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When you are working down on the atomic scale,

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bits of dust can interfere with experiments,

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and the biggest source of dust is ourselves,

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so all these protective gowns you

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can see here is actually to protect the samples from the scientists.

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Though graphene is a substance that works at an atomic level,

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it's possible to see it being created.

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So what we have is we have a beaker with two graphite electrodes in it.

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The idea is that we put a potential across this and drive ions into the

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graphite lattice, and we expand it so the graphene falls apart.

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So it's all set up and all we need to do is just switch on the switch.

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Off we go and make some graphene.

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Power on!

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I can see that the clear solution is now being clouded with black,

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and that is the graphene been pushed off the graphite, is it?

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Yes, so the ions are going into the graphite and pushing the graphene

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layers away from that graphite electrode,

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and what we end up with this a solution such as this.

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We end up with a nice black solution.

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Then we can dry it even further and make a powder.

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Can you demonstrate an application to me?

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Of course. So we have just over here a brick,

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which has been covered in graphene paint.

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We've got this side is uncoated and this side you can see is coated with

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the graphene. If we put water on here,

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you can see the water on the brick fairly quickly goes into the brick.

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Or if we put it over on the graphene surface here,

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you can see how it rises up and it's hydrophobic and the water droplets

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stay on the surface.

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So Manchester is not any more the city of horny-handed toil,

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but actually of science?

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Yes, and, in fact, we are the 2016 City of Science.

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I'm returning to Piccadilly station and taking the short hop four miles

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west on the line which connects

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Manchester to Leeds, via Huddersfield.

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My next stop will be Fairfield.

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Bradshaw's tells me that it's

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celebrated for its extensive Moravian settlement.

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It shows there's nothing new about immigration.

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Moravians were, I think, a fleeing,

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persecuted religious minority at a time when most people thought that

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their immortal souls depended not

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only upon being godly but on adhering

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to a single religion which they regarded as true.

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Today, the Moravians are still part of the Fairfield community.

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I'm eager to learn more about the settlement from Fairfield community

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guide Janet Waugh.

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Janet, where is the Moravia from which Moravians come?

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It's from the Czech Republic.

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It has two provinces there, or did have, called Moravia and Bohemia,

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and that's where they got their sort of nickname, if you like.

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Why did they move out of Moravia and Bohemia?

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Because they were being persecuted.

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They were a Protestant church,

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and the ruling king and queen were Catholics

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and they couldn't freely worship as they wanted to,

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so they decided it was best to move on.

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The Moravians objected to many

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doctrines and practices within the Catholic Church.

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They criticised the behaviour of priests and the Pope,

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in particular, the sale by the church of indulgences,

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which amounted to selling forgiveness for one's sins.

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Moravians also believed that

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ordinary people should receive wine, as well as bread at Mass.

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So are Moravians part of a

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Protestant movement around the time of Luther and Calvin?

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Yeah, they were actually about 50 years before Martin Luther.

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The main person in the Czech Republic was Jan Hus.

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He was around 1400.

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He was asked to go and meet the Pope and he was martyred there,

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-killed for heresy.

-When did the Moravians first come to Britain?

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About 1740.

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They'd come from Germany.

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They decided they wanted to go out into the world and be missionaries.

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This extraordinary and wonderful place,

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they built this as we see it today?

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Yes, they started in 1783.

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They set up kilns on-site in 1783 and used the clay that was here so

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that all the bricks are handmade and, by 1785,

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they'd managed to build the main Church Terrace,

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the brethren's house and the sisters house and 13 dwellings.

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And the rest of it was finished about 1796.

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Though it's now been engulfed by the city of Manchester,

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the Fairfield settlement was originally built in open fields.

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When inaugurated in 1785, it had 110 inhabitants.

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How many Moravians would there be, for example, in Britain?

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There's about 2,000. 30 churches.

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And what does it mean to you to be a Moravian and to live in a Moravian

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-community?

-I feel very privileged to live in this community because it is

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a community, we do look after one another.

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It is a very equal church,

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so there's no hierarchy in at all and everybody

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calls each other still brother and sister.

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-Well, thank you for your welcome, sister.

-Thank you, brother.

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Though they ordain ministers,

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Moravians believe in a personal relationship with God,

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not one that's mediated by priests.

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The settlement's Chapel is still in use.

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We're just in the process here of making and assembling a star.

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And what's that for?

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We put these up in Advent, until the 12th night.

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So how do you make this thing?

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Well, we have the three different sizes of points.

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Would you like to have a go at making one?

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HE LAUGHS NERVOUSLY

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I'll give it a go.

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Hello. I'm Michael.

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Hi. I'm Carol. How are you?

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I'll put my spectacles on for this one.

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Now, I imagine you've got to draw lines, haven't you?

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What I have to remember from childhood days is to get my finger

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and thumb out the way when I come past.

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How long have you been doing this, Carol?

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Well, this is the first time that the star's been done for quite a few

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years so, hopefully, this will last us for over 25 years.

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If I make a mess, I've got to remember that I'm in church.

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-Yes.

-No rude words!

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Did you get it right first time or were you a bit clumsy like me?

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Well, we had a few spare, so that's always good!

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Absolutely brill. We'll get you back in another 25 years(!)

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-Yes.

-Hello, Sarah.

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-Hello.

-Here is my poor offering.

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And that appears to be the slot.

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Yeah, one last slot there.

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-So what happens now?

-It needs to go up.

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I need to shout. Lift it, please!

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Let there be light.

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Bravo!

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A star is borne aloft!

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Leaving Fairfield, I'm re-joining the railway at Ashton-under-Lyne.

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My next stop will be Stalybridge.

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Bradshaw's tells me that it's part in Lancashire and part in Cheshire,

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the two being joined by an old bridge, the rugged limestone bridge,

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forming the backbone of England.

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But my interest is not in the skeleton of the country.

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I'm here for the buffet bar at Stalybridge station,

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where travellers have slaked their thirst since 1885.

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Good evening to you. Hello.

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Hello.

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Can I have a pint of Stalybridge's best, please?

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There you go. Can I get you anything else?

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You wouldn't have anything to eat at this time, would you?

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What we've got, which is a kind of local speciality to this pub,

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is something called black peas.

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Black peas, you're on!

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-Excellent. Portion of black peas.

-Please.

-Magic.

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The buffet at Stalybridge is one of a handful of surviving

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Victorian station bars.

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I'm pleased to see that the walls are adorned with memorabilia from

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the halcyon days of the railways.

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In truth, I've never seen anything like these black peas.

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They are about the same colour as my Bradshaw's and they look as though

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they're about as old!

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And yet, of course, they're delicious.

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Ready for the day ahead,

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I resume my journey east on the Huddersfield line,

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skirting around the northern edge of the Peak District National Park.

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The first stop of my new day will be Marston.

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My guidebook directs me to the entrances,

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to the railway and canal tunnels which run parallel with each other

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and are the longest in the world.

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George Bradshaw's first job was mapping canals, and he developed a

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tremendous admiration for their brilliant civil engineers,

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an enthusiasm which I find infectious.

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I cross the Saddleworth viaduct, completed in 1849.

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Its 23 arches carry the railway in a gentle curve

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above the Huddersfield narrow canal.

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Surrounded by the Pennines,

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Marsden grew rich from the wool trade in the 19th century.

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Bank Bottom Mill was one of the largest in the country,

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and closed only in 2003.

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Fred Carter from the Canal and River Trust

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is my guide to the Standedge Tunnel.

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Fred, this canal tunnel dates from

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long before the railway age finished,

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I think, in 1811.

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It must've been a prodigious achievement in those days.

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Well, you're quite right.

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As I say, the fourth of April, 1811, when this tunnel was opened and,

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originally, they said it would take six years to build or complete.

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16 years later, they were still at it.

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It's the highest, longest, deepest canal tunnel in this country.

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So you're now 645 feet above sea-level.

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The tunnel itself is three and a quarter miles long

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and there's about 680 feet of Hillside above us.

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16 years to build.

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-What went wrong?

-Unfortunately, the hit a band of millstone grit,

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and it's one of the hardest rocks.

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Also, when they did actually dig from both ends,

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they actually quite managed to miss one another and, believe it or not,

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the two tunnels were actually 50 feet out of line.

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And, to make life interesting,

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we've got a lovely S-bend right in the middle.

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The engineer for the Huddersfield narrow canal was Benjamin Outram.

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He mistakenly thought that they

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would be tunnelling through soft rock and

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left most of the work under the

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control of a less experienced engineer.

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In 1801, with costs and schedules spiralling out of control,

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Outram resigned.

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It wasn't until six years later that renowned engineer Thomas Telford was

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called in to advise on the canal's completion.

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What is so striking about it, Fred, is just how incredibly narrow it is.

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Well, that's why they call it a narrow canal,

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and it stays about this width all the way through, would you believe?

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How did they build it?

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I'll just show you some of the tools.

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This is what we call a star drill.

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One of the navvies would hold this against the wall.

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Either one or two of his colleagues

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would strike at it with sledgehammers.

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Strike, turn, strike, turn until, eventually, this would drill a hole.

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They'd then fill the hole with gunpowder and fire that charge.

0:19:050:19:10

Many deaths during the construction?

0:19:100:19:11

They say 50, but we think there are more.

0:19:110:19:15

The tunnel cost around £125,000,

0:19:150:19:19

one of the most expensive canal tunnels built at the time.

0:19:190:19:23

To cut costs, the engineers dispensed with a tow path.

0:19:240:19:27

No room here for an animal.

0:19:290:19:31

-What was the propulsion?

-They used

0:19:310:19:33

to bring the barges through here by a method called legging.

0:19:330:19:35

Two gentleman would lie on the backs of the boats here,

0:19:350:19:38

feet out to either side.

0:19:380:19:40

They'd begin to take this sideways step like a crab.

0:19:400:19:43

For more than three miles?

0:19:430:19:45

Yeah, this took them about three to

0:19:450:19:47

three and a half hours to leg a boat through the tunnel here.

0:19:470:19:50

They must have been absolutely exhausted.

0:19:500:19:53

Absolutely shattered.

0:19:530:19:55

How they did not break their ankles or their legs in some of it,

0:19:550:19:58

-it's a wonder.

-The tunnel is an awe inspiring relic of the tenacity and

0:19:580:20:03

grit of the industrial age but its heyday was brief.

0:20:030:20:07

With their vastly superior speed and power, railways superseded canals.

0:20:070:20:13

The London and North Western Railway built a bore or tunnel parallel to

0:20:130:20:18

the canal, to carry trains between Manchester and Huddersfield.

0:20:180:20:22

Network Rail's Ian Wilson has been

0:20:220:20:24

responsible for maintenance at Standedge for over 20 years.

0:20:240:20:28

My guidebook, which is about 1864,

0:20:290:20:33

refers to the longest railway tunnel in the world.

0:20:330:20:36

-Which one is that?

-That would have been this one,

0:20:360:20:38

which is the Standedge Centre Bore.

0:20:380:20:39

It's just over three miles long and that was open at the time of the

0:20:390:20:42

guidebook, 1849.

0:20:420:20:44

Since then, the south bore was built, when rail traffic increased,

0:20:440:20:48

and then the twin track live bore,

0:20:480:20:50

which is this one that's still running.

0:20:500:20:52

What happened to the two tunnels that are now closed?

0:20:520:20:55

They were closed in around 1966 as part of the Beeching cuts.

0:20:550:20:59

-Can we go inside?

-Yes, let's go.

0:20:590:21:01

The closed tunnels are carefully maintained to allow servicing of the

0:21:010:21:06

operating bore. They also preserve the opportunity to increase rail

0:21:060:21:10

capacity, should it ever be required.

0:21:100:21:13

The 1894 tunnel is the fifth longest on the National Rail network,

0:21:130:21:18

running for just over three miles.

0:21:180:21:20

Well, this is the midpoint of the tunnels.

0:21:210:21:24

This is known as the Cathedral,

0:21:240:21:26

which has this vaulted cast iron arch,

0:21:260:21:28

and it's the widest connecting point between the two tunnels.

0:21:280:21:32

This tunnel was built, what, more

0:21:320:21:34

than 30 years after the canal tunnel.

0:21:340:21:37

Was it of any use to these tunnel builders that the canal tunnel was

0:21:370:21:40

-already there?

-Having the canal

0:21:400:21:41

meant they could create short passages

0:21:410:21:43

across from this tunnel to the canal

0:21:430:21:45

and they could take the spoil out and bring materials in,

0:21:450:21:47

which would have speeded the

0:21:470:21:49

building of the tunnel up by possibly years.

0:21:490:21:51

And, by comparison with the canal

0:21:510:21:53

tunnel, of course, this is much bigger.

0:21:530:21:54

I mean, this is a monumental piece of work.

0:21:540:21:56

It's huge. I think there's 50

0:21:560:21:58

million bricks used to build one of these tunnels.

0:21:580:22:00

50 million bricks!

0:22:000:22:02

-50 million bricks.

-And how do you

0:22:020:22:03

feel about these tunnels where you work every day?

0:22:030:22:05

I do get quite attached to them and I have been known to refer

0:22:050:22:08

to them as my babies, because every one has its own character and little

0:22:080:22:12

traits and things.

0:22:120:22:13

-So, yeah.

-Your babies?

0:22:130:22:15

They're my babies, yes!

0:22:150:22:16

With my subterranean exploration at an end,

0:22:180:22:22

I'm completing my journey across the Pennines to Huddersfield.

0:22:220:22:26

From there, the railway takes me 17 miles south.

0:22:260:22:29

'The important rank,'

0:22:370:22:39

which the manufacturers of Yorkshire have long maintained in the

0:22:390:22:43

estimation of the world, the amount of patient thought,

0:22:430:22:47

of repeated experiment and happy exertion of genius,

0:22:470:22:52

by which our various manufacturers

0:22:520:22:54

have been carried to their present excellence,

0:22:540:22:57

is scarcely to be imagined.

0:22:570:23:00

When I leave this train at Silkstone Common,

0:23:000:23:03

I'm going to investigate the life of a man who added mightily to the

0:23:030:23:07

reputation of his county and his country.

0:23:070:23:11

Four miles south of Silkstone Common lies Wortley Top Forge.

0:23:140:23:19

It's the oldest surviving

0:23:190:23:20

water-powered iron forge in the country,

0:23:200:23:23

dating back to 1640.

0:23:230:23:25

It's now a museum, and I'm meeting guide Ted Young.

0:23:270:23:30

So was the history of the forge?

0:23:320:23:33

Early in the 1600s, it was set up by the Lord of the Manor,

0:23:330:23:39

Sir Francis Wortley, because he was using water power.

0:23:390:23:42

And around a third of a mile up that way, he put the weir in,

0:23:420:23:47

and that holds the water at a level,

0:23:470:23:49

giving a difference that allows you to run the water wheels.

0:23:490:23:53

During the 1870s,

0:23:530:23:54

the metallurgist Thomas Andrews

0:23:540:23:56

began to conduct experiments at the forge.

0:23:560:23:59

He focused on the strength of

0:23:590:24:01

railway axles that were used on early

0:24:010:24:04

rolling stock, whose failure could cause a catastrophe.

0:24:040:24:07

Ted, do you think that Thomas Andrews was a man who used thought

0:24:090:24:12

and experiment, and indeed genius?

0:24:120:24:15

Oh, absolutely so.

0:24:150:24:17

He was a man who committed his life to looking into the properties of

0:24:170:24:22

various metals.

0:24:220:24:24

And is it possible to see the place where he did his work?

0:24:240:24:26

Certainly. Shall we go into the forge?

0:24:260:24:28

-Thank you.

-At the time Andrews conducted his experiments,

0:24:280:24:32

he was a pioneer.

0:24:320:24:34

The forge seems to be very kind of rustic, almost homely.

0:24:340:24:38

Did they have serious production going on in here?

0:24:380:24:40

Absolutely so.

0:24:400:24:41

It is, essentially, a preindustrial revolution site but,

0:24:410:24:45

by the railway era,

0:24:450:24:47

it was bringing in wrought iron bars and making 200 to 300 axles a week.

0:24:470:24:53

Extraordinary!

0:24:530:24:55

Andrews created wrought iron and subjected it to a variety

0:24:550:24:59

of strength and temperature experiments.

0:24:590:25:02

This is a bar of wrought iron.

0:25:020:25:04

This is the result of a process of taking pig iron,

0:25:040:25:08

which came from the blast furnaces.

0:25:080:25:10

The wonderful thing about this

0:25:100:25:12

material is that it has great strength.

0:25:120:25:15

So how'd you get from this to a railway axle?

0:25:150:25:18

You have to overcome one of its weaknesses,

0:25:180:25:21

and that is it can only be produced in bars of that size.

0:25:210:25:26

They got round that by fixing together 16 bars

0:25:260:25:31

in what they called a faggot.

0:25:310:25:34

The faggot is heated in the furnace up until it's white heat,

0:25:340:25:41

hung from a crane, and then swung across under the hammer.

0:25:410:25:46

And then this has begun to acquire the round shape of an axle?

0:25:460:25:50

Yes, this one is nearly complete,

0:25:500:25:52

and we can gauge it up to see that we've reached the correct diameter.

0:25:520:25:57

And I can swing it into position on this chain

0:25:570:26:02

and I can rotate it comme ca.

0:26:020:26:05

And how does the hammer get its power?

0:26:050:26:07

-From the water wheel.

-Between 1840 and 1910,

0:26:070:26:12

railway axles from Wortley were exported all over the world.

0:26:120:26:16

It's said that none ever failed, a legacy to be proud of.

0:26:160:26:21

Ted, that's beautiful. A working water wheel.

0:26:230:26:26

The power of these things is extraordinary, isn't it?

0:26:260:26:29

It's producing 8-10 horsepower.

0:26:290:26:31

This was really advanced engineering.

0:26:310:26:35

A real gem from the Industrial Revolution.

0:26:350:26:37

As though to remind us of the train axles that were manufactured here,

0:26:390:26:43

the forge has its own railway.

0:26:430:26:45

Hello, Chris. What a beautiful miniature locomotive.

0:26:460:26:50

-Tell me about it.

-Well, it's a quarter scale model of a locomotive,

0:26:500:26:54

-typically used in the North Wales quarries.

-And it runs?

0:26:540:26:58

Strong enough to carry someone like me?

0:26:580:27:00

-Hopefully.

-Shall we give it a whirl?

-We'll give it a good whirl.

0:27:000:27:03

There might not seem to be much

0:27:110:27:13

connection between the arrival of Moravian

0:27:130:27:16

immigrants in the 18th century and

0:27:160:27:18

the much later development of tunnels

0:27:180:27:21

and iron forges during the Industrial Revolution.

0:27:210:27:25

But the fact that nonconformists

0:27:250:27:28

were welcome in England points to

0:27:280:27:30

the fact that the British enjoyed relative freedom of speech

0:27:300:27:36

and thought at that time.

0:27:360:27:38

People who were educated, and those who were not,

0:27:380:27:41

felt at liberty to enquire

0:27:410:27:43

into the nature and origin of things and to experiment.

0:27:430:27:49

And that led to an extraordinary British contribution to engineering,

0:27:490:27:54

science and thought.

0:27:540:27:56

Next time...

0:28:010:28:02

-Up there?

-That's the one.

0:28:020:28:04

'I climb beyond my comfort zone...'

0:28:040:28:06

-Just put your other foot on the next hold.

-All the way over there?

0:28:060:28:09

Yeah, you'll be fine. I've got you nice and safe.

0:28:090:28:11

'..uncover a museum of curiosities...'

0:28:110:28:14

If a predator tries to grab them,

0:28:140:28:16

they will ooze out all this slime and the predator will literally kind

0:28:160:28:20

of spit the hagfish out in disgust.

0:28:200:28:23

'..and embrace a new language with open arms.'

0:28:230:28:26

This is 'have to'.

0:28:260:28:28

-Oh, that's 'have to'?

-Yeah.

0:28:280:28:30

-Yeah.

-That's good, yeah.

0:28:300:28:31

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