Hull to Malton Great British Railway Journeys


Hull to Malton

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For Edwardian Britons, a Bradshaw's was an indispensable guide

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to a railway network at its peak.

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I'm using an early 20th century edition,

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to navigate a vibrant and optimistic Britain at the height of its power

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and influence in the world.

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But a nation wrestling with political,

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social, and industrial unrest at home.

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It's easy to assume that it was the First World War

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that changed Britain, equipping it for the 20th century.

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And, on that view, the prewar period can seem like

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a long, summer's afternoon of calm before the mayhem.

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But, as I travel from the north-eastern coast of England,

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using my prewar Bradshaw's guide,

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I expect to discover that those were, in fact, tumultuous years.

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My journey starts in East Yorkshire

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and continues to the Roman city of York.

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From there, I'll move inland across the industrial heartlands

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of West and South Yorkshire, and Merseyside.

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After exploring Edwardian Liverpool,

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I'll wend my way through North Wales,

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hugging its northern coast and finishing in Caernarfon.

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The first leg of my travels

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begins in East Yorkshire and the city of Hull.

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Then I'll make my way north to the seaside resort of Scarborough.

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From there I'll head south-west to the town of Malton,

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on the River Derwent.

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On this trip, the chips are down but I'm on the up.

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Hee-hee!

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Oh, let's play again!

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LAUGHTER

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I hear a tale of wartime resilience.

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There was a rumble in the air, people thought it might be thunder,

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but it wasn't. It was the shells from the German navy.

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And I get a taste of Edwardian temperance.

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"Not even a dipsomaniac would have touched this mixture

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"of fungus and smelly liquid."

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-That's superb.

-She had a way with words.

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My Bradshaw's lists the shipping services that were available

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from my first stop, Hull.

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And they ran almost everywhere, from Yarmouth to Bombay,

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from Dundee to Montevideo.

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I should be interested to know how the port of Kingston upon Hull,

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advantageously situated on the Humber Estuary,

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where the waters of the River Hull run into it,

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became so important for fishing, cargoes and passengers.

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At the turn of the 20th century, Hull was a prosperous harbour town.

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It had been granted city status on Queen Victoria's Jubilee in 1897.

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But, as the new century unfolded, the city's economy suffered.

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In recent years, Hull might have appeared down on its luck.

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But, today, it's experiencing a renaissance.

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Hull was Britain's City Of Culture, 2017.

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There was music and dance and theatre.

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The Turner Art Prize was judged here.

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A bit of money was spent on the place

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and the city feels more optimistic about its future.

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-Ladies.

-Hello.

-Excuse me, I just wondering,

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-has the city of culture meant anything to you?

-Yeah, quite a lot.

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I definitely think it's brought a lot to the area.

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I remember right at the beginning of the year they had a light show

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on these three buildings,

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showing loads of different things throughout Hull's history,

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and I honestly actually felt quite emotional watching it.

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So, it has succeeded in making people think differently about Hull?

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-I would say so.

-Yeah, I think so, yeah.

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I mean, I think it's changed the reputation quite a lot, actually.

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-I'm pleased to hear it. Thank you so much.

-Thank you.

-Bye-bye.

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At the heart of Hull's history is its medieval harbour.

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By the time of my Bradshaw's, Edwardian travellers

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would have admired the more recent Alexandra Dock,

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named after their queen, where I'm meeting history writer,

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Robert Bell.

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Rob, there's clearly an enormous growth in the Hull port

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in the 19th century. What's driving it?

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The initial driver was wool.

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And, then, as we moved to the building

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of this particular dock in 1885,

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the Alexandra Dock, the big one's coal.

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But perhaps the most surprising money earner was actually migration.

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Hull was built on the money not of slavery, like Liverpool,

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Bristol and the like, but actually on migration.

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Migrants from Europe were attracted to land at Hull

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because of its particularly good railway connections

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that had originally been laid to transport goods and fish

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all over Great Britain.

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Two and a half million people,

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including impoverished Scandinavians in search of a better life,

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and Jews fleeing anti-Semitic persecution in Russia,

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passed through the port.

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From Hull, they took trains to Glasgow, Liverpool,

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London and Southampton,

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often to board steamships bound for the New World.

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Why, then, does the great port of Hull suffer a decline

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-in the 20th century?

-My own view is that, actually, the First World War

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was something that Hull did not, actually, recover from.

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Because, ironically, in the run-up to the First World War,

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the one port that was dealing with the Germans

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and doing extremely well on their economy booming was Hull.

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The docks are now getting a second wind,

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with a £310 million joint investment from engineering company,

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Siemens, and Associated British Ports.

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The site's being transformed into a renewable energy factory.

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Andy Sykes is head of quality here.

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Andy, we're in the old Alexandra dock. How does all this relate?

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Some of the land has been reclaimed,

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some of the old dock is being used for the purposes of both

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inward transportation and also moving blades offshore.

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I've seen offshore wind turbine farms

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but without any idea of the scale.

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This is just one blade.

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-What dimensions is this?

-This is a 75-metre long blade.

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So, if the blade is 75 metres, we must be talking about

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-a tower of what?

-Yeah, it's roughly 90 metres standing above the ocean.

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Each giant blade weighs 28 tonnes

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and is longer than the wingspan of an Airbus A380 aircraft.

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And, at its base, wide enough to hold an elephant.

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Andy, to my surprise, the construction of this enormous thing

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is essentially a handmade process.

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Yeah, it really is craft based.

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It's made of fibreglass, balsa wood and epoxy resin.

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You can see the lower packing team

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down at the root end of the mould there, meticulously placing

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each piece of fibreglass

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to get the quality that we expect of the finished product.

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Could I introduce you to Dave, one of our packing team?

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-Dave, I'm Michael.

-Hi, nice to meet you.

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How do you do? What are you doing there?

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I'm just making sure all the glass that we've laid previously

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is all nice and smooth.

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So, how are you able to work it, is the stuff hot?

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No, it's not hot, it's very much like carpeting.

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-May I have a go at that?

-Of course, you can, yeah.

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We're making sure there's no wrinkles, up to the top,

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down to the bottom,

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making sure it's completely flat.

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So, making sure that it's nice and flat against the wall here.

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Yeah, and it follows the shape.

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Tucking it in, pushing all those...

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-Yeah.

-..wrinkles and bumps out.

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Quite a light pressure, yeah.

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That's it.

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There's quite a lot to do, isn't there?

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There's a lot to do, and we've still got at least another

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-eight to 12 hours of work to get on with, so, yeah.

-Good luck.

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The precision applied to the production of the blades

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reflects the reliability expected from them.

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Each blade will last 25 years,

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performing tens of millions of rotations.

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Stepping inside one of these extraordinary wind turbine blades

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is another way of appreciating the scale.

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There's light entering from the outside

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and it seems to stretch away indefinitely,

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like an infinite railway tunnel.

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These things are a very far cry from windmills that we used to know.

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These blades will be shipped to a site off the East Yorkshire coast

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to form part of what will become the biggest wind farm in the world.

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174 turbines will generate 1.2 gigawatts,

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the equivalent of nearby Hartlepool Nuclear Power Station.

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I continue my journey with a short trip north-west of Hull,

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to the town of Cottingham.

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I noticed from my Bradshaw's that almost every ship

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sailing out of Hull is run by the Wilson Line,

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a company of which I had never heard.

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But it turns out that at the beginning of the 20th century

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it was, in fact, the world's largest privately owned shipping company.

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And this family of Hull entrepreneurs

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must have made a pile and, certainly, they built one.

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About four miles from Hull,

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Cottingham was first connected by rail in 1846.

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The Victorian middle class built their villas here,

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away from the industrial grime of the city.

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The grandest of them all was Tranby Croft.

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The house is now used by Hull Collegiate School.

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The Edwardian traveller would have known it

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in an entirely different guise.

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I'm meeting head of history, Claire Atkin.

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Claire, this is now Hull Collegiate School, but, in its time,

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the home of the Wilson family,

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of the Wilson Line Shipping Company fame, is that right?

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Yes, absolutely.

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This is the ancestral home of the Wilson family.

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This was built by Arthur Wilson and Mary Wilson.

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They were massive entrepreneurs in the city of Hull,

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and they wanted a mansion to entertain people.

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So, built Tranby Croft. It was completed in 1876.

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-So, obviously, they had made their money in trade.

-Yes.

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Did that mean that they were excluded

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from aristocratic connections?

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They were absolutely desperate to go up in the world.

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Mary Wilson, particularly, is a social climber,

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and they were keen to try and woo the upper classes.

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In September 1890, the Wilsons' prayers were answered.

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The Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII, stayed at Tranby Croft.

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Unfortunately for them, his visit brought trouble.

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He's already been associated with quite a few scandals,

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usually involving women,

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but at Tranby Croft it's something a little bit different.

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It's the temptation to play a card game, which is illegal,

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a baccarat game.

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In 1886, baccarat had been made illegal, if played for money.

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Although fortunes could be lost in a single night,

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it didn't stop the aristocracy from playing behind closed doors.

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So, Claire, their house has been quite well preserved.

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They did live a grand life, didn't they?

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-Yes, they absolutely did.

-Tell me about the game of baccarat.

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-What goes wrong?

-Well, the Prince and some of his friends

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are really rather addicted to playing cards

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and they liked to gamble.

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And the first night that they're staying here,

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one of the gentlemen who's playing,

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a decorated military man, Sir William Gordon-Cumming,

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is seemingly adding £5 counters

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every now and then to his stake and the Wilsons become suspicious.

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The following day, they have a seating plan

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so that no matter where Sir Gordon-Cumming sits,

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he'll actually be sitting next to a member of the Wilson family

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so they can see if there's any more of this suspicious

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-cheating going on.

-Is there?

-Definitely.

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The press got wind of the scandal.

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Reputations were at stake and a court case ensued.

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For the first time in 500 years,

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a British heir to the throne was called onto the witness stand.

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The future King, or "Bertie" as he was known,

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was a most reluctant witness.

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But the evidence against his friend Gordon-Cumming was convincing.

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Bertie suffers, certainly.

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The Wilson family definitely suffer.

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Mary Wilson must have just been in tatters.

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That's the end of her social climbing.

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And Gordon-Cumming is court-martialled,

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dismissed from the Army for ungentlemanly behaviour.

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He has to break off a wedding engagement,

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and he disappears effectively from society and is ostracised.

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Strictly in the cause of research,

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Claire has organised for me to try my hand at playing baccarat,

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in the room where it all happened.

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My fellow players are all staff at Hull Collegiate School.

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And Joanna Dunn is croupier for the occasion.

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The only problem is I don't know how to play.

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-We can teach you.

-Please do.

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OK, it's a very simple game.

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It's a game of chance, there's no skill involved whatsoever.

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-Perfect.

-So, you just have to bet

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on whether you want the player's cards to win,

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the banker's cards to win, or a tie.

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And it is two cards closest to nine that would win that deal.

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So, we have the player's card on this side,

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the banker's card on this side.

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Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen.

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Do you want the player's card, the banker's card

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or place for a tie in the middle, please.

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I think this one's going to win.

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OK. So, on the player's card, we have nine, so that will stand,

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that is a natural. On this side, it looks like we have 14

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but we always knock off the first digit

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so it's actually a four on this side.

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So, player wins.

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People that bet on the players, then you would double your money.

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Hee-hee!

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Oh, let's play again!

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LAUGHTER

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Having won, I see how the Prince of Wales

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might have found the game attractive.

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I expect to dream tonight of high society and winning hands.

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I start the new day by heading due north to reach the coast.

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Tickets, please.

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-There we go.

-Good morning.

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Good to see you. How long have you been on the railway?

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51 years and six months.

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-Wow! Is that a record?

-It probably is a record.

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They're calling a man who works in Doncaster

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who's got, I think, three months ahead of me.

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So I'm just hoping that, at some stage, I can beat him.

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-Outlast him.

-Yeah.

-Well, a real privilege, thank you.

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Privilege, thank you.

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My next stop will be Scarborough, which, according to the guide book,

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"has been an aristocratic resort for more than a century.

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"The spa buildings are very handsome,

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"containing theatre, picture gallery, promenade, etc,

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"with excellent orchestra.

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"The cliffs overlooking the South Bay are impressive in grandeur,

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"terminating in the promontory of Scarborough Castle."

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Now, that was published in 1913.

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What could possibly interrupt the tranquillity of this holiday spot?

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In its history, Scarborough has been invaded by Anglo-Saxons

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and raided by Vikings.

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Its 12th-century castle was besieged during the English Civil War,

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and used in defence during the Jacobite rebellion

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and the wars against Napoleon.

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By the time of my Bradshaw's,

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Edwardian travellers would have found a peaceful holiday resort.

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But, before long, Scarborough became a casualty once more.

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Mark Vesey, chairman of the Scarborough Maritime Heritage Centre,

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can shed light on the period.

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Mark, I've always had a soft spot for Scarborough

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with its fantastic topography.

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What was the place like just before the First World War?

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It was doing very well. It was a busy resort.

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A lot of people came at the weekends,

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they were bathing and paddling,

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having an ice cream, having a beer, similar to what we do today.

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My Bradshaw's says, rather surprisingly, perhaps,

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that it had been an aristocratic resort for a century.

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-What do you make of that?

-Yes, I think it was.

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The South Cliff was a very aristocratic area,

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more expensive hotels.

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But, when the railways arrived, it did become more for the masses.

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And what was it that interrupted the tranquillity of this idyllic spot?

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Well, the 16th of December 1914, eight o'clock in the morning,

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a bit of a misty day, there was a rumble in the air,

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people thought it might be thunder but it wasn't.

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It was the shells from the German Navy.

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Less than five months into the First World War,

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a British blockade of Germany's ports prevented its navy

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from accessing the North Sea.

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Frustrated, it found a gap in the minefields

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intended for fishing vessels and struck England's north-east coast.

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Scarborough was an easy target.

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Mark, we have a good view of Scarborough here.

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What was doing the shelling?

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It was two of the biggest battle cruisers the German navy had,

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the Derfflinger and the Von der Tann.

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And what munitions did the battle cruisers throw at Scarborough?

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Mostly six inch shells, over 770 of them in 30 minutes.

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The first pass was along the seafront.

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Then the German battle cruisers turned around

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and fired further into the town so more of the centre of the town

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was hit on the pass, on the way back.

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That's an extraordinary level of attack.

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How much damage did that create in Scarborough?

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It did do a lot of damage, Michael.

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And, sadly, 18 people were killed.

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In addition to those who lost their lives,

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over 100 people were injured.

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And some of the most iconic buildings in Scarborough

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were damaged.

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What was the reaction of the British public to this attack?

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Well, anger, at first, and shock.

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I think people thought it could've been an invasion.

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And we think the Germans really did it to try and shock the British

0:20:380:20:42

into keeping troops at home

0:20:420:20:43

instead of sending them to go and fight in France.

0:20:430:20:46

The German attack was counterproductive.

0:20:480:20:51

Photographs of the damage to this beautiful town

0:20:510:20:54

angered the British public.

0:20:540:20:56

Postcards of the atrocities circulated

0:20:560:20:58

and young men rushed to join Pals battalions

0:20:580:21:01

to fight alongside their friends and relatives,

0:21:010:21:04

encouraged by propaganda urging loyal citizens

0:21:040:21:08

to remember Scarborough.

0:21:080:21:10

Today, it feels apt, once more, to remember.

0:21:120:21:15

In Scarborough's very beautiful The Crescent,

0:21:190:21:21

some of the houses are still peppered with the shrapnel

0:21:210:21:25

of December 1914.

0:21:250:21:27

This population was one of the first civilian populations in the world

0:21:270:21:32

to be subjected to a terror bombardment.

0:21:320:21:35

During the course of the 20th century,

0:21:350:21:37

they would be joined by many millions of others,

0:21:370:21:40

and, of those, countless numbers would be slaughtered in their homes.

0:21:400:21:45

I'm on my way to one of Britain's great stately homes, Castle Howard.

0:22:030:22:08

I'm impressed that it was designed by Sir John Vanbrugh,

0:22:080:22:11

that it has 145 rooms,

0:22:110:22:14

that it's twice been used for adaptations

0:22:140:22:17

of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited,

0:22:170:22:20

but my Bradshaw's reveals

0:22:200:22:22

that it used to have its own railway station.

0:22:220:22:25

Now that has caught my attention.

0:22:250:22:27

-PA:

-We will shortly be arriving at Malton.

0:22:310:22:34

Today, I'm alighting at the market town of Malton.

0:22:340:22:37

Castle Howard's station ceased to handle passengers in 1930,

0:22:420:22:46

but it was in service when Queen Victoria visited the castle in 1850.

0:22:460:22:51

Castle Howard's impressive Baroque architecture

0:23:050:23:08

was conceived by Sir John Vanbrugh,

0:23:080:23:11

who is also responsible for Blenheim Palace.

0:23:110:23:14

This magnificent estate includes rose gardens,

0:23:140:23:18

follies, 13 farms,

0:23:180:23:20

and 10,000 acres of land.

0:23:200:23:23

It took over 100 years and three generations of earls

0:23:240:23:28

before it was complete.

0:23:280:23:29

At the time of my Bradshaw's,

0:23:290:23:31

this was home to a fascinating figure in the campaign

0:23:310:23:35

for women's suffrage, which was gathering momentum

0:23:350:23:38

at the beginning of the 20th century.

0:23:380:23:40

Archivist Anna Louise Mason knows more.

0:23:400:23:44

Anna Louise, I've come in pursuit of a radical Countess,

0:23:440:23:47

who I believe was the lady of Castle Howard in the Edwardian era.

0:23:470:23:50

-Who was she?

-That's right, you're referring to Rosalind Howard.

0:23:500:23:53

She was married to George Howard, the 9th Earl of Carlisle,

0:23:530:23:56

and together they raised a family of 11 children.

0:23:560:23:59

She actually managed the estates on behalf of her husband.

0:23:590:24:03

He was an artist and he wasn't really interested

0:24:030:24:06

in doing the typical earl duties.

0:24:060:24:08

There's a wonderful saying where she says,

0:24:080:24:10

"Worry kills, work does one good."

0:24:100:24:13

What made her radical?

0:24:130:24:14

Well, she did repeatedly show sympathy for striking workers.

0:24:140:24:19

In 1891, it was Scottish railway men, and in 1893, it was miners.

0:24:190:24:24

But her main passions were temperance

0:24:240:24:27

and also women's suffrage.

0:24:270:24:29

Rosalind Howard had had a political upbringing.

0:24:320:24:35

Her mother was a women's education campaigner

0:24:350:24:38

and her father served as a member of Parliament.

0:24:380:24:41

She used Castle Howard to put into practice her political convictions.

0:24:450:24:49

In her campaign against alcohol consumption,

0:24:490:24:52

she revoked the licence for the estate's pub,

0:24:520:24:55

turning it into a temperance guesthouse for women.

0:24:550:24:58

-She was famous for her temperance.

-She certainly was.

0:24:590:25:02

Yes, she was. In fact, there's one of the most famous anecdotes

0:25:020:25:06

at Castle Howard is the story of when Rosalind, the Countess,

0:25:060:25:10

threw all the wine into a hole in the ground.

0:25:100:25:13

And this was actually reported in the press,

0:25:130:25:16

where she was accused of having destroyed 1,500 bottles

0:25:160:25:20

of perfectly good wine.

0:25:200:25:22

Now, Rosalind was very quick to respond to this.

0:25:220:25:26

"The so-called wine in the 800 bottles

0:25:260:25:29

"that have been thrown away was sour stuff,

0:25:290:25:31

"condemned as worthless and undrinkable.

0:25:310:25:34

"Not even a dipsomaniac under the influence of his worst drink craving

0:25:340:25:39

"would have touched this mixture of fungus and smelly liquid."

0:25:390:25:43

That gives us a feel for the woman, doesn't it?

0:25:430:25:46

-She had a way with words.

-That's superb. Yes.

0:25:460:25:48

How would you summarise her?

0:25:480:25:50

The Times, when she died in 1921,

0:25:500:25:52

headed her obituary with "A fearless champion of causes,"

0:25:520:25:56

and that's how I like to think of her.

0:25:560:25:59

And however you view the Countess Rosalind,

0:25:590:26:02

she's an important figure in the history of Castle Howard.

0:26:020:26:04

Absolutely.

0:26:040:26:06

Castle Howard has remained in the hands of the Howard family

0:26:060:26:09

throughout its history. And, today, Rosalind Howard's direct descendent,

0:26:090:26:14

the Honourable Nicholas Howard, still lives here.

0:26:140:26:17

I've come to find out what it means to call this stunning place home.

0:26:170:26:22

-Nick, how wonderful to see you.

-How nice to meet you, Michael.

0:26:230:26:26

And here we are in the wonderful Long Gallery,

0:26:260:26:28

one of the finest rooms, I suppose, in Castle Howard.

0:26:280:26:31

Now, what on earth was it like to grow up in a place like this?

0:26:310:26:33

Well, of course, at the beginning, I didn't know anything else.

0:26:330:26:37

But, as I became older,

0:26:370:26:38

I became more and more aware of how special it is.

0:26:380:26:40

But, I mean, in this room, we used to race up and down,

0:26:400:26:43

we had some ornamental wheelbarrows, and my brother and I used to

0:26:430:26:47

push each other up and down the room in it.

0:26:470:26:49

And, now, you are responsible for Castle Howard.

0:26:490:26:52

It's a responsibility that I'm so happy to be doing,

0:26:520:26:55

and even excited at times.

0:26:550:26:56

It is a gorgeous place to be.

0:26:560:26:58

Do you see visitors being amazed by what they see?

0:26:580:27:00

Oh, I think so. I do see people in various states of amazement.

0:27:000:27:04

There is a sense of wonder and awe as people approach down the drive.

0:27:040:27:08

Well, count me in on that.

0:27:080:27:10

The commitment of the radical Countess of Castle Howard

0:27:190:27:23

to women's suffrage and striking railway men

0:27:230:27:26

gives an idea of the turbulence of the Edwardian years.

0:27:260:27:29

Those political causes had to be set aside

0:27:290:27:33

for the duration of the Great War,

0:27:330:27:35

which had an enormous impact on the north-east of England.

0:27:350:27:39

It dealt a massive blow to the port of Hull,

0:27:390:27:41

while Scarborough and other coastal towns were shelled.

0:27:410:27:46

Meanwhile, North Eastern Railway workers had set out for the front

0:27:460:27:50

in Pals battalions to get the British war effort moving.

0:27:500:27:55

Next time, I do important research in an historic tearoom.

0:27:570:28:01

-What shall we have?

-We should order some tea and some dainty cakes.

0:28:010:28:04

-And some scones?

-Absolutely.

0:28:040:28:06

I get dressed down in Leeds.

0:28:060:28:08

-How am I looking, Sir?

-Um...

-Gary, be truthful.

0:28:080:28:11

I would suggest you're wearing that slightly a bit tight,

0:28:110:28:14

-especially around here.

-It's the size of my wallet, Gary.

-Yeah.

0:28:140:28:18

LAUGHTER

0:28:180:28:19

And attend a private Edwardian concert.

0:28:190:28:22

HE SINGS

0:28:220:28:27

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