London to Antwerp Coast

All Aboard!

Coast is embarking on a new quest...

connecting the capital to Cornwall,

linking Scottish Isles to Welsh Valleys

and taking us far beyond home waters

to the Baltic Sea and to the shores of Sweden.

For this, our first adventure, we're bound for Belgium, but setting out from London's commercial heart.

This is Coast and Beyond.

We're heading for one of Europe's most prosperous ports,

crossing the Channel to Antwerp. But our journey starts in our own trading capital - London.

Tidal rivers bring the coast into the heart of many of our big cities

and with the water comes wealth.

For as long as we've been a trading nation, the sea's been our commercial highway

and the winding Thames links London directly with that global thoroughfare.

It was sea trade that made the Capital rich.

The Thames shaped the city and its influence still runs deep.

Now, in the Docklands of London, ships have been replaced by skyscrapers.

It's a story of spectacular rise and fall that may yet have a twist in its tale.

The world once unloaded its goods in London.

Now, could that trade be re-invented by a new generation?

The 19th century businessmen

who carved out these huge enclosures were bold entrepreneurs.

Sometimes they built before they had customers.

London's docks helped make Britain a superpower.

And London's geography also changed.

Around the docks grew the East End.

But as fast as the docks grew...

..the ships would outgrow them.

Once there were ocean liners berthed at the end of the road.

Now there's London City Airport.

It was container ships, those great seagoing warehouses that changed everything.

In the '60s, when containers first appeared on the commercial seaways,

many of London's docks simply couldn't cope.

Eventually the cargo ships stopped coming.

But there's a new bid to bring the big ships back to the Capital, 20 miles downstream.

MUSIC: "London Calling" by The Clash

# London calling Through the far away towns... #

This is Mariake, a dredger laying the foundations for a brand new port.

The first of its kind for 20 years.

This ship is sucking up 12,000 cubic metres of sand and gravel from the estuary every day.

The Mariake is a giant vacuum cleaner, clearing a channel in the bed of the Thames,

a passage deep enough to accommodate supersized container ships.

This dredged material is being pumped onto an ever-growing artificial island.

Eventually it's going to be a wharf some two miles long for loading and unloading ships.

A colossal project, at least a decade in the making - London Gateway.

Its builders are taking their cue from those early 19th century entrepreneurs.

Confident that if they build the dock, the ships will eventually come.

London's aiming to catch up with huge European ports like Antwerp, where I'm heading on my journey.

It'll reconnect the capital with the mighty estuary

that brought wealth and power into the heart of Britain.

Curious things grow up along this coast.

At the mouth of the Thames Estuary is Canvey Island.

Once a popular holiday destination, traces of its heyday are treasured now,

like the recently restored Labworth Cafe.

It's a real gem, designed by the architect behind Sidney Opera House.

But Canvey Island couldn't match the glamour of foreign shores.

And when the holidaymakers stopped coming to Canvey in the 1970s, the oil companies moved in.

Against this backdrop emerged four local lads who shook up the world of rock.

Liverpool has The Beatles, Canvey has Dr Feelgood.

# I saw you out the other night... #

35 years ago, Dr Feelgood helped kick-start a musical revolution

that became known as Punk.

My name's Wilko Johnson.

I'm a musician, a guitar player.

I was born on Canvey Island, I grew up on Canvey Island.

I'm one of the baby-boom generation, yeah, after the war.

Canvey Island then was a kind of a swamp with some shacks on it, I think.

And Dr Feelgood, we came from Canvey Island.

The island is surrounded by oil refineries.

It gives a kind of ferocity to the landscape. Flames glowing in the night time and so forth,

and in many ways that kind of music seemed suited to it.

I think the music in the early '70s was, I don't know, a lot of hippies, really...

PROG ROCK MUSIC

-..People wearing frocks...

-# I'll see you burn. #

..Singing about pixies and goblins.

Yeah. Nonsense.

You know who I'm talking about.

Dr Feelgood were playing a kind of rhythm and blues music.

What you want is, you know, a bit of rock 'n roll.

# London's burning!

# London's burning! #

I became friends with many of these punk musicians, you know, the Pistols and The Clash and that.

And most of them had in fact seen Dr Feelgood and been inspired, if you like, by Dr Feelgood.

When we where kids, we used to go fishing for crabs along this wooden jetty down here.

You can do it with a piece of string and a lump of bread,

and you hang it over the side and the crabs catch it

and you pull them up. They're fairly stupid creatures, crabs.

I've been all around the world, and I've seen a lot of things,

but there's just something, some spirit, something beautiful

about this estuary, and I think it's wonderful.

The Channel has always been our great natural border.

A barrier in times of war, but also our link

to the trading ports of Northern Europe.

I've crossed the Channel to Dunkirk.

The most northerly French port, its name evokes British fighting spirit.

Its beaches still bear the scars of conflict.

In the aftermath of two World Wars, a new trade alliance

grew up along these shores, dedicated to breaking down borders.

It would become the European Union.

The founding principle of the original union was to make war

not only unthinkable but materially impossible.

It's made it rather difficult to find any borders.

I'm about six miles northeast of Dunkirk,

and I'm looking for the border that marks the edge of France.

You'd think they might have put a flag up or something.

I've got the co-ordinates of where the border should be in this

little GPS unit, it's telling me to go up here.

This cannot possibly be a border post.

I think I'm on a wild border chase here.

OK, I've seen something but on the wrong side of the fence.

This is the border marker, there's an F on this side for France...

A broken N, that must be the Netherlands, and here, a date, 1819.

Well, that is not the Netherlands any more.

190 years ago when this marker was put in the sand,

the country you're about to enter didn't even exist.

If that seems a bit confusing, the change in the landscape at least

leaves you in no doubt you've entered a new country,

as wild open spaces transform into something a little more concrete.

Welcome to Belgium.

Looks like they've had the builders in.

One of Europe's most densely populated coastal countries,

it also has one of its shortest coastlines,

less than 50 miles.

But boy, do the Belgians make the most of it!

# Ca plane pour moi Ca plane pour moi

# Ca plane pour moi, moi, moi, moi... #

There are no fewer than 16 major holiday resorts

packed in along this tiny coast.

And what links it all is the Kusttram - the coast tram.

Starting near the border town of De Panne,

the track runs more or less the length of the Belgian coast

loops around and comes back down again.

85 miles, all told, making it the longest single-track tram in the world.

No need for walking boots when you're taking the tram.

I think a change of outfit is in order.

I'm curious to know how the tramline helps the Belgians

cram so much into their coast,

so at a station in a rare break between high-rises,

I'm meeting tram man Dirk Schockaert.

-You must be Nick.

-I am Nick.

This is one of the most extraordinary rail stations

I've ever been to in the world. It's on a beach!

Yes, it's a tram stop in the middle of nowhere.

Yeah. Why was the tramline built, and when?

The tramline was created in 1885. In the beginning,

we had three train stations at the coast, so all the rich tourists came

from the inside of the country to do their holiday here at the coast,

and they were stuck at their place.

So, they were thinking, "Well, we will create a tramline,

"so that we can transport people," mostly rich tourists.

And for example, I have here an old poster, touristic poster.

That's wonderful! The image in the picture

is very much of a seaside paradise waiting to be opened up.

It was the Kusttram that really shaped the Belgian coast.

The resorts just grew up along it.

But the arrival of the tram did squeeze out a simpler way of life.

For generations a band of horse-riding fishermen

have hunted shrimps in the sandy shallows off the Belgian coast.

Today, horseback fishing is a dying art.

Miranda's off to see how it's done, before it's too late.

These days, if you want to find the homes of the shrimp fishermen

and their horses, you have to head inland.

Coastal construction has forced the shrimp men to live miles from

the beach, but they still work to the sea's traditional rhythms.

Catching the tide means an early start.

-Morning, Dominique. How are you doing?

-Very good, thank you. And you?

'At 21, Dominique Vandendriessche is the youngest

'of the remaining shrimp fishermen, and part of this local tradition which has gone on for generations.

'Fishing from horseback was begun by local farmers who used the leftovers as fertiliser.

'Once there were almost 100 shrimp fishermen - now only a handful cling on in this concrete jungle.

'This is one of the last places anywhere that they fish like this.'

How does it work?

Those two boards, they are used to open the net in the water, seven metres.

One side floating on the water,

and the other side stays on the ground

because of the weight of the chain.

-Yeah.

-But the chain is really used to wake up the shrimps,

because the shrimps live under the sands,

and what happens is the chain makes a noise, and all the shrimps they jump up and they get caught

between the two sides of the net,

they get pushed there in the end of the net, you see?

'But working in the shallows with this heavy gear would be impossible without the right horse.

'It takes the exceptional strength of these huge Brabant draft horses to drag the nets through the wet sand.'

'I'm used to riding, but these giants are incredibly difficult

'to control in the water, so I've got to hitch a ride with Dominique.'

Ha-ha!

So...

HE CALLS TO THE HORSE

Tell me a bit about Jim - how old is he, what's he like?

He is seven years old, he's a really relaxed horse,

he never worries about anything and he never complains.

So what's it like for Jim in the water. Is it really hard work?

Yes, the faster he goes, the harder it gets, because the water has not

time enough to escape out of the net.

But after a couple of times, the horse realises if he goes slower, it's easier.

And you obviously have an amazing bond with Jim.

-Yes, we know each other by heart and soul.

-Yeah.

Wow!

This is what we've been catching, little grey shrimps.

Dominique, what's this sort of catch worth, then?

-This, maybe two euros.

-Two euros?

-That's not even enough money to feed your horse for the day.

-No, no!

'Their meagre catch doesn't make for a living, but a profitable sideline is opening up.

'Their novelty has made the horsemen into a local attraction -

'while fishing for shrimps, they're also being paid to haul in the tourists.'

-So I can try one, yeah?

-Yeah.

Those are really good.

-That's about as fresh a shrimp as I've ever eaten.

-Yes.

'On this coastline, embracing tourism and the changes

'that come with it helps this traditional way of life to survive.'

We're on the Belgian coast, riding the tram towards the pretty town of De Haan.

This small coastal retreat grew up as a quiet alternative

to Belgium's bustling resorts, the station unchanged since 1902.

Stepping onto the platform, you get the feeling that time is standing still.

It certainly did for De Haan's most celebrated visitor,

who was kicking his heels here some 80 years ago.

In 1933, this sleepy stretch of coast was

the unlikely destination for one of the most famous men in the world.

He was the face of physics, the image of genius.

Why was Albert Einstein here in De Haan?

By 1933, at the age of 54, Einstein was world famous.

His theory of relativity had revolutionised physics.

It would lead to the concept of the big bang and black holes.

He'd won the Nobel prize.

But the world his physics described was undergoing violent change.

Fascism was on the rise in Europe.

Hitler had become dictator of Germany.

Persecution of the country's Jews had begun, sanctioned by the new Nazi government.

Einstein, both German and Jewish, was in America when Hitler came to power.

A lifelong peace campaigner, the physicist had spoken out

against the Nazis, calling for economic sanctions.

He returned to Europe in 1933, stateless, unable to go home to

Germany, his life under threat and wondering how, as a man of peace, to respond to the violent times.

So how did he end up in this small Belgian seaside resort?

I'm hoping Brigitte Baeten can tell me -

she's the town's unofficial guardian

'of all things Einstein, including a statue dedicated to the physicist.'

-Very nice to meet you. Are you just dusting him down?

-Yes, a little bit!

I like to have his hands clean.

Ha-ha!

How did De Haan come to be looking after the great man?

Well, actually, it was the royal family.

As he was a good friend of the royal Belgian family,

which is our King Albert I, and the Queen Elizabeth,

it is them who said he would better stay for a while in Belgium.

It was the friendship with the royal family that bought Einstein to Belgium.

But it was the need for a quiet place to think,

a refuge from the turmoil in Europe, that brought him to De Haan.

This is the house of Einstein.

-This one here?

-This one.

-There's a plaque on the front.

-Look, look at the window, there he is.

-Oh, yes, how funny!

-Isn't that wonderful?

-And the doors are unchanged.

Yes, it's all unchanged.

Excuse me - I'm so sorry to interrupt your supper, but we were

just looking at the plaque on the front of your home. What's it like living in Einstein's house?

Do you get fed up with people coming and leaning over the gate?

Most of them being Belgian, they're pretty polite, so it's not that much of a problem.

So what about this photograph - could we go inside and try and match

it up with you? Might be quite interesting.

-Absolutely, be invited, just follow me.

-Thank you.

Wow.

Yes! Brigitte's already done it!

-Yeah, I think you recognise that part of the house!

-Yes!

But the fireplace is the same one, isn't it?

Yes, must be the same, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It seems that sitting in this living room almost 80 years ago,

Einstein the pacifist became

an advocate of war - albeit a war against oppression and dictatorship.

Einstein told an American professor, to prevent the greater evil it is necessary for the lesser evil,

the hated military, to be accepted for the time being.

After a six-month stay, Einstein left Belgium in September 1933

for a new life in America, committed to fighting tyranny in whatever way he could.

What he couldn't have known is the part his physics would play in the coming struggle.

30 years earlier, Albert had written an equation, a formula for the conversion of matter into energy.

E for energy equals M for mass times C for the speed of light squared.

Now the speed of light squared is a huge number, so you only need

a tiny amount of mass to equal a lot of energy.

Cram that mass into a bomb and the results are devastating.

Ideas change the fate of nations,

and nature changes the fate of the coast.

Now the city of Bruges is connected to the port of Zeebrugge by a mighty canal.

But 700 years ago it was a different story.

Mark is exploring how mediaeval Bruges

once had a much closer connection to the coast, and to us.

For me, this is a very emotional journey.

I first came here to Bruges aged 13.

I was obsessed with medieval history.

Now I'm back to rekindle my old passion for the place,

but also to explore an intriguing connection to England I discovered all those years ago.

The city's canals give us a clue to its rich maritime past.

Sea trade made the burghers of Bruges very rich in the 13th and 14th centuries.

Believe it or not, this was once the main canal

into the heart of Bruges, where ships from all round the world

came and unloaded their cargos in the water hall

in the middle of the town square.

700 years ago, a bird's-eye view of Bruges

would have been radically different.

A sea inlet reached the outskirts of the city,

linking is directly to the North Sea

and historic ports like Ipswich and King's Lynn.

Bricks were in big demand 700 years ago in England,

because back then we weren't making any of our own.

I'm hoping historian David Andrews can tell me why.

Well, the Romans of course, had made bricks,

but with the collapse that came after the fall of the Roman Empire

the technology was lost throughout much of Northern Europe,

maybe parts of the Mediterranean as well.

So when is brick-making rediscovered?

In the 12th century, the Cistercians are making bricks,

and the Cistercians built this wonderful barn here.

-It's like a cathedral, isn't it, with a sort of east window in brick?!

-With tracery in brick, yes.

Cistercian monks may have revived the art of brick-making,

but in England we're a bit slow on the uptake.

Rather than make our own, we bought them from the Low Countries.

We had ceramic technologies, we could make pottery, we could make roof tile

but we don't seem to have bothered with brick.

And what do these Flemish bricks actually look like?

Well, I've got one from Essex here.

So these are really grotty, I mean, you can see how soft they are.

You could put the powder everywhere.

Yes, they aren't marvellous bricks, but they work

and they're quite long-lasting and durable.

'After 700 years, this Essex brick has come home'

to where it was made from the polder clay, the layer of mud

left behind when the sea retreated from the land.

'Art Vandendorpe is going to show me how to turn clay into bricks.'

He's restored some of Bruges' most ancient buildings

using the oldest instruction book there is.

So this is the original description of how bricks were made in those days.

They take the clay and they mixed them with sand,

they put it on the table and they make the brick.

And then they put them here in the clamp.

-One million.

-In one clamp? So that's from the polders.

-Yes, from here.

-Just from underneath the riverbank.

-Yes, yes, yes.

# Bricks, lay 'em down in a straight line

# Bricks, build them into a wall

# Bricks, very useful objects and they're not expensive at all. #

Perfect! Bits of old brick, the odd shell -

that's what makes the brick strong.

'After several hundred years of the Flemish showing the way,

'English brick-makers had just about got the hang of it.'

Oh, this is an English brick!

'Unlike me!'

But it was the clay, the very stuff the bricks of Bruges

were made of, that finally cut the city off from the sea.

When the inlet silted up, gone went that trading route to Europe.

Leaving Bruges high and dry,

but preserved in all this medieval splendour!

The end of Belgium's coastal tramline delivers me to Knokke.

It looks pretty conventional on the outside, the seafront dominated by this grand 1930s casino.

I'm told all is not what it seems here -

apparently there's something surreal to see.

And it's tucked away in a back room.

-Hello.

-Hello.

-I'm Nick.

-Delphine. Nice to meet you.

-Very nice to meet you.

In the 1950s, Belgian surrealist Rene Magritte came to stay in Knokke.

And this is what he left behind.

LAUGHS

My goodness! My goodness!

If you don't know Magritte's name, you might well recognise his images.

This 360-degree mural displays some of his best-known work.

It's a dreamscape, isn't it?

Not necessarily a very healthy dream - we've got a woman with

a fish's head, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa restring on a feather.

How did the citizens of Knokke react?

They rather like it, I think.

In 1953,

the casino owner here persuaded the surrealist and former wallpaper designer

to make a rare visit to the coast and decorate the walls of this establishment.

Magritte called the end result the enchanted domain.

Enchanting maybe, odd certainly, but look closer.

Magritte's vision seems strangely in tune with the Belgium we've experienced.

The surrealist re-imagined the world in the name of art.

But another local visionary who reimagined the world for

practical reasons is waiting at the end of my journey.

Because it was along this coast that a 16th-century map-maker

of huge significance spent his formative years.

He also happens to be a hero of mine. His name - Gerard Mercator.

Ships like this navigate safely today because of a method of

map-making devised by Mercator.

Even in here, surrounded by all this hi-tech equipment, this modern map

carries the name of a man born 500 years ago.

Mercator cracked a complex puzzle.

Paper maps are flat, but as you step back from the world,

it's clear the planet isn't flat at all.

He worked out the maths

to project the 3D world onto a two-dimensional sheet.

Mercator's projection meant seafarers could for the first time

navigate precisely around the three-dimensional globe.

In Antwerp, you can see the original chart that changed the world.

This is it, this is the map that turned Mercator

into the first modern map-maker, it was completely revolutionary.

It's really a navigational device.

What he did was to keep all the lines of longitude parallel.

Of course, normally on the globe they all converge at the two poles,

but what he did was prise them apart and straighten them.

What you end up with is quite a distorted map, but the sheer

brilliance of this map is in what it does with the use of compasses.

If you lie a compass on this map for example between Bristol and Cuba,

and want to get the bearing, you take your bearing off the map,

and then you can stand on the deck of your ship and the identical

bearing will take you straight from Bristol to Cuba.

No other map projection will do that.

It was a work of sheer brilliance.

Mercator called it the squaring of the circle.

Mercator's genius vision, his projection of the earth onto

accurate navigation charts, opened up the globe to Europeans.

Trade blossomed and mighty estuaries became gateways to the world.

People, goods and ideas flow between nations connected by their coastlines.

It gives us a common bond with our neighbours, stories we continue to explore around our coast and beyond!