0:00:06 > 0:00:09We love to be beside the sea.
0:00:09 > 0:00:15It's where we're free to express ourselves,
0:00:15 > 0:00:20and it's shaped our lives through thousands of years of trade,
0:00:20 > 0:00:21migration and war.
0:00:23 > 0:00:26But it's the mix of people in Britain
0:00:26 > 0:00:29that really connects us to the wider world.
0:01:06 > 0:01:10From Beachy Head to Brighton, the chalk cliffs form a barrier
0:01:10 > 0:01:12with only a few natural breaks.
0:01:16 > 0:01:20One chink in this coastal armour is at Rottingdean.
0:01:24 > 0:01:29It's been an obvious temptation to invaders and marauders for centuries,
0:01:29 > 0:01:34but Mark Horton has been drawn here by Rottingdean's hidden treasures.
0:01:35 > 0:01:40For me one of the best things about the coast
0:01:40 > 0:01:45is the way low tide reveals lost secrets of the sea.
0:01:45 > 0:01:50I'm looking for clues to a mad piece of Victorian engineering.
0:01:52 > 0:01:56An electric railway that ran under the sea.
0:01:57 > 0:02:02It was built by engineer Magnus Volk in 1896.
0:02:02 > 0:02:05He wanted to create an electric railway
0:02:05 > 0:02:09that could run along the beach, even at high tide.
0:02:11 > 0:02:13Quite how he did it
0:02:13 > 0:02:17would only become clear to me once the tide has gone out.
0:02:19 > 0:02:23So I've time to look into why he would want to build it here
0:02:23 > 0:02:26in the first place.
0:02:26 > 0:02:29Volk, the son of a German emigre,
0:02:29 > 0:02:33wasn't the first person with foreign connections
0:02:33 > 0:02:35to influence the town.
0:02:37 > 0:02:41By the Saxon pond, next to a Norman church,
0:02:41 > 0:02:44the connections go even further.
0:02:45 > 0:02:50Sue, Glenda and Catherine from the local Preservation Society
0:02:50 > 0:02:52want me to see the former home
0:02:52 > 0:02:55of a celebrated son of the British Empire
0:02:55 > 0:03:00who put Rottingdean in the public eye.
0:03:00 > 0:03:03I look like a rubbernecking tourist!
0:03:03 > 0:03:05- So who's house is that? - Rudyard Kipling's.
0:03:05 > 0:03:08- Did they really bring ladders to look inside?- No, no.
0:03:08 > 0:03:11One of the local pubs ran a double-decker horse-drawn omnibus
0:03:11 > 0:03:14for the tourists, and they came round,
0:03:14 > 0:03:18parked outside the wall, the tourists rushed to the top deck
0:03:18 > 0:03:21and looked over the wall at Kipling, and this is where he was standing.
0:03:21 > 0:03:27Kipling arrived in 1897, already a household name.
0:03:27 > 0:03:30His most famous work, The Jungle Book,
0:03:30 > 0:03:33had been published three years before.
0:03:33 > 0:03:37And did Kipling living here, did it make a more famous place?
0:03:37 > 0:03:41Absolutely, he brought all his famous friends, artistic friends,
0:03:41 > 0:03:43and suddenly tourism started,
0:03:43 > 0:03:46people wanted to see them, so they flocked here.
0:03:47 > 0:03:50Rottingdean, popular with day-trippers,
0:03:50 > 0:03:56now had celebrity status, a boon for Volk and his electric railway.
0:04:03 > 0:04:08And now, exposed by the tide, is what I've come to see.
0:04:10 > 0:04:14Ian Gledhill has written a history of Volk's eccentric railway.
0:04:14 > 0:04:16Ian, this is completely mad!
0:04:16 > 0:04:20It is unbelievable that there should be a railway along the beach.
0:04:20 > 0:04:23The track ran on these concrete blocks, this is one set of tracks
0:04:23 > 0:04:26and there was another set further over.
0:04:26 > 0:04:27Hang on.
0:04:29 > 0:04:32- You can see its line running along here.- Yes, four rails,
0:04:32 > 0:04:35two rails on here, and two over there, 18 feet between the two,
0:04:35 > 0:04:38it had the widest track gauge of any railway ever built.
0:04:38 > 0:04:42It stretched for three miles towards Brighton.
0:04:42 > 0:04:45The track was underwater at high tide,
0:04:45 > 0:04:47so what sort of train could run on it?
0:04:47 > 0:04:51This is a model made by Magnus Volk in 1893.
0:04:51 > 0:04:54The final one looked somewhat different from that,
0:04:54 > 0:04:56but that was his first idea of it.
0:04:56 > 0:05:01Isn't that wonderful? It must have been an extraordinary sight.
0:05:01 > 0:05:04It was absolutely enormous.
0:05:04 > 0:05:07It stood on legs 24ft high, the deck was 50ft long,
0:05:07 > 0:05:11on the top was a cabin that could carry 30 passengers in comfort
0:05:11 > 0:05:14with stained-glass windows, chandeliers.
0:05:14 > 0:05:17Can I just ask the simple question?
0:05:17 > 0:05:19- It operated by electricity.- Yes.
0:05:19 > 0:05:22It's going underwater. How did it work?
0:05:22 > 0:05:26Well, there was an overhead wire mounted on posts alongside the track,
0:05:26 > 0:05:30the current came through the motor and the return was through the rail,
0:05:30 > 0:05:33so that meant at high tide, it was through the sea itself,
0:05:33 > 0:05:36but there wasn't a Health & Safety Executive in those days.
0:05:36 > 0:05:39I don't know what they'd have said if he'd proposed it now.
0:05:39 > 0:05:47And this is the only footage of Volk's creation, the Daddy Longlegs,
0:05:47 > 0:05:50as it came to be known, at high tide.
0:05:52 > 0:05:57But the Daddy Longlegs was created as an extension
0:05:57 > 0:06:02to a railway Volk was already operating in Brighton.
0:06:02 > 0:06:06This is him on the footplate on its opening day.
0:06:07 > 0:06:09Over 125 years later,
0:06:09 > 0:06:14it's still running along the seafront in Brighton.
0:06:16 > 0:06:18I'm curious to know about Volk the man.
0:06:20 > 0:06:24His granddaughter, Jill Cross, remembers him from the 1920s.
0:06:26 > 0:06:28He was a very inventive person.
0:06:28 > 0:06:34His house was the first one in Brighton to be lit with electricity.
0:06:34 > 0:06:39Also he was an honorary radiographer
0:06:39 > 0:06:41at the Children's Hospital.
0:06:41 > 0:06:45As a teenager, Jill used to visit her grandfather
0:06:45 > 0:06:49at his workshop, which is still being used by the railway today.
0:06:49 > 0:06:51Such a small door.
0:06:51 > 0:06:54Well, he wasn't very big himself.
0:06:54 > 0:06:58About 80 years since I came here last.
0:07:01 > 0:07:03What was this space used for?
0:07:03 > 0:07:06They had the dynamos here
0:07:06 > 0:07:08to power the electric railway.
0:07:10 > 0:07:11Nearly there.
0:07:11 > 0:07:15So, Jill, do you almost expect to see your grandfather there?
0:07:15 > 0:07:20Yes, sitting at his desk, and keeping an eye on things out there,
0:07:20 > 0:07:22watching the trains go up and down.
0:07:22 > 0:07:24That's wonderful.
0:07:24 > 0:07:27You can see why he chose this spot for his office.
0:07:27 > 0:07:29Oh, yes, to see what's going on.
0:07:29 > 0:07:30That's good.
0:07:30 > 0:07:36So Volk's original railway is still here, but what happened to his Daddy Longlegs?
0:07:36 > 0:07:41MAN: There was the most appalling storm in 1896.
0:07:41 > 0:07:44Daddy Longlegs fell over and was totally destroyed,
0:07:44 > 0:07:47and it had only run for six days.
0:07:47 > 0:07:50Imagine the frustration Magnus Volk must have felt!
0:07:50 > 0:07:53But he re-built it, and it ran for another four years after that.
0:07:53 > 0:07:56That must have cost investors a huge sum of money?
0:07:56 > 0:08:00It was probably half a million pounds in modern terms to re-build it,
0:08:00 > 0:08:04and it never made money after that, which was one of the reasons why it didn't last.
0:08:07 > 0:08:12In the end, Volk had to abandon the Daddy Longlegs,
0:08:12 > 0:08:16because he couldn't afford to move the tracks to make way
0:08:16 > 0:08:18for new coastal defences.
0:08:19 > 0:08:25His electrifying attempts to conquer the waves were claimed by the sea.
0:08:29 > 0:08:32Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
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