Browse content similar to London to Antwerp 1. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
Line | From | To | |
---|---|---|---|
All aboard! | 0:00:18 | 0:00:19 | |
Coast is embarking on a new quest... | 0:00:21 | 0:00:24 | |
connecting the capital to Cornwall, | 0:00:24 | 0:00:28 | |
linking Scottish Isles to Welsh Valleys | 0:00:28 | 0:00:32 | |
and taking us far beyond home waters | 0:00:32 | 0:00:35 | |
to the Baltic Sea and to the shores of Sweden. | 0:00:35 | 0:00:39 | |
A new journey with familiar faces. | 0:00:41 | 0:00:45 | |
For this, our first adventure, we're bound for Belgium, but setting out from London's commercial heart. | 0:00:45 | 0:00:53 | |
Alice is in search of the British seaside landlady. | 0:00:53 | 0:00:58 | |
So did you all have loads of rules? | 0:00:58 | 0:01:00 | |
-Only if people were late. -Late for what? -Meals. | 0:01:00 | 0:01:04 | |
In beautiful Bruges, a seaport stranded by time and tide, | 0:01:05 | 0:01:11 | |
Mark is hunting down the bricks that built Britain. | 0:01:11 | 0:01:14 | |
-Perfect! -Miranda is riding her luck to go fishing. | 0:01:14 | 0:01:18 | |
A surprise attack by Hitler is keeping Neil occupied in the channel. | 0:01:20 | 0:01:25 | |
We might as well been out there in a rowing boat with peashooters for all the use we were. | 0:01:25 | 0:01:29 | |
And at Albert Einstein's coastal hideaway, I'm getting fired up by atom power. | 0:01:29 | 0:01:35 | |
This is Coast and Beyond. | 0:01:37 | 0:01:40 | |
We're heading for one of Europe's most prosperous ports, | 0:01:57 | 0:02:01 | |
crossing the Channel to Antwerp. But our journey starts in our own trading capital - London. | 0:02:01 | 0:02:08 | |
Tidal rivers bring the coast into the heart of many of our big cities | 0:02:15 | 0:02:22 | |
and with the water comes wealth. | 0:02:22 | 0:02:25 | |
For as long as we've been a trading nation, the sea's been our commercial highway | 0:02:25 | 0:02:31 | |
and the winding Thames links London directly with that global thoroughfare. | 0:02:31 | 0:02:37 | |
It was sea trade that made the Capital rich. | 0:02:47 | 0:02:50 | |
The Thames shaped the city and its influence still runs deep. | 0:02:50 | 0:02:56 | |
Now, in the Docklands of London, ships have been replaced by skyscrapers. | 0:02:56 | 0:03:03 | |
It's a story of spectacular rise and fall that may yet have a twist in its tale. | 0:03:03 | 0:03:10 | |
The world once unloaded its goods in London. | 0:03:11 | 0:03:16 | |
Now, could that trade be re-invented by a new generation? | 0:03:16 | 0:03:20 | |
The 19th century businessmen who carved out these huge enclosures were bold entrepreneurs. | 0:03:20 | 0:03:29 | |
Sometimes they built before they had customers. | 0:03:29 | 0:03:32 | |
London's docks helped make Britain a superpower. | 0:03:32 | 0:03:37 | |
They were the engine room of an Empire. | 0:03:38 | 0:03:42 | |
Sugar and hardwood from the Caribbean. | 0:03:44 | 0:03:46 | |
Tea from China. | 0:03:46 | 0:03:49 | |
Even, in the days before refrigeration, ice from Norway. | 0:03:49 | 0:03:53 | |
It all landed here. | 0:03:53 | 0:03:56 | |
"Being in the docks," said one worker in the 1960s, "was like geography come to life." | 0:03:56 | 0:04:02 | |
And London's geography also changed. | 0:04:08 | 0:04:11 | |
Around the docks grew the East End. | 0:04:11 | 0:04:15 | |
But as fast as the docks grew... | 0:04:19 | 0:04:22 | |
..the ships would outgrow them. | 0:04:23 | 0:04:27 | |
Once there were ocean liners berthed at the end of the road. | 0:04:27 | 0:04:31 | |
Now there's London City Airport. | 0:04:31 | 0:04:33 | |
It was container ships, those great seagoing warehouses that changed everything. | 0:04:37 | 0:04:43 | |
In the '60s, when containers first appeared on the commercial seaways, | 0:04:45 | 0:04:48 | |
many of London's docks simply couldn't cope. | 0:04:48 | 0:04:51 | |
Eventually the cargo ships stopped coming. | 0:04:53 | 0:04:56 | |
But there's a new bid to bring the big ships back to the Capital, 20 miles downstream. | 0:04:59 | 0:05:06 | |
MUSIC: "London Calling" by The Clash | 0:05:06 | 0:05:09 | |
# London calling Through the far away towns... # | 0:05:17 | 0:05:20 | |
This is Mariake, a dredger laying the foundations for a brand new port. | 0:05:20 | 0:05:27 | |
The first of its kind for 20 years. | 0:05:27 | 0:05:31 | |
This ship is sucking up 12,000 cubic metres of sand and gravel from the estuary every day. | 0:05:31 | 0:05:38 | |
The Mariake is a giant vacuum cleaner, clearing a channel in the bed of the Thames, | 0:05:43 | 0:05:49 | |
a passage deep enough to accommodate supersized container ships. | 0:05:49 | 0:05:54 | |
This dredged material is being pumped onto an ever-growing artificial island. | 0:05:58 | 0:06:05 | |
Eventually it's going to be a wharf some two miles long for loading and unloading ships. | 0:06:05 | 0:06:11 | |
A colossal project, at least a decade in the making - London Gateway. | 0:06:13 | 0:06:19 | |
Its builders are taking their cue from those early 19th century entrepreneurs. | 0:06:23 | 0:06:28 | |
Confident that if they build the dock, the ships will eventually come. | 0:06:28 | 0:06:33 | |
London's aiming to catch up with huge European ports like Antwerp, where I'm heading on my journey. | 0:06:34 | 0:06:40 | |
It'll reconnect the capital with the mighty estuary | 0:06:44 | 0:06:48 | |
that brought wealth and power into the heart of Britain. | 0:06:48 | 0:06:52 | |
Crossing The Thames Estuary, we find the Kent Coast. | 0:07:04 | 0:07:09 | |
This is home to some of Britain's first seaside resorts | 0:07:11 | 0:07:15 | |
and the jewel in its crown - the golden sands of Margate. | 0:07:15 | 0:07:21 | |
Most see the beach as a place to relax, but others see a business opportunity. | 0:07:27 | 0:07:32 | |
Alice is seeking out the story of some seaside entrepreneurs | 0:07:32 | 0:07:36 | |
who sparked a sexual revolution around British shores. | 0:07:36 | 0:07:40 | |
I'm in search of the mysterious, almost mythical seaside landlady. | 0:07:40 | 0:07:45 | |
In the late 19th century, the seaside landlady was a pioneer, | 0:07:45 | 0:07:49 | |
breaking down the social barriers that prevented women from owning businesses, | 0:07:49 | 0:07:55 | |
decades before the women's rights movement. | 0:07:55 | 0:07:58 | |
In 1938, the Holiday With Pay Act changed workers' lives. | 0:08:01 | 0:08:06 | |
By the 1950s, 17 million people a year came to the coast. | 0:08:06 | 0:08:12 | |
From Bridlington to Brighton, working class families were able to afford their week on the beach, | 0:08:15 | 0:08:21 | |
thanks largely to the seaside boarding houses and their tireless landladies. | 0:08:21 | 0:08:27 | |
I've been running this boarding house now for 13 years. | 0:08:27 | 0:08:30 | |
I do all the cooking, washing and ironing. | 0:08:30 | 0:08:33 | |
As for the food, I get sick of the sight of the food. | 0:08:33 | 0:08:35 | |
But there's no getting away from it, | 0:08:35 | 0:08:38 | |
landladies had a bit of an image problem. | 0:08:38 | 0:08:42 | |
They were characterised as rule-making, | 0:08:47 | 0:08:50 | |
clock-watching tyrants, the butt of seaside humour. | 0:08:50 | 0:08:54 | |
So do they deserve this dragon image? | 0:08:58 | 0:09:02 | |
Time to meet the ladies. | 0:09:02 | 0:09:04 | |
Between them, these ladies have more than 100 years' experience of running guest houses. | 0:09:13 | 0:09:18 | |
-Hello. -Lovely to meet you, you must be Patsy, hello. | 0:09:18 | 0:09:21 | |
So, first things first, were they the kind of landladies that laid down the law to their guests? | 0:09:21 | 0:09:28 | |
Only if people were late. | 0:09:28 | 0:09:30 | |
-Late for what? -Meals. | 0:09:30 | 0:09:32 | |
Because we had it on a set time, it was dead-on one o'clock, five o'clock. | 0:09:32 | 0:09:37 | |
'Tough love maybe, but their guests couldn't get enough of it.' | 0:09:37 | 0:09:41 | |
That's Maude and Hubert, they came year after year. | 0:09:41 | 0:09:44 | |
-Maude and Hubert. -Yes. | 0:09:44 | 0:09:45 | |
Maude and Hubert said to my mum, "We love coming here, | 0:09:45 | 0:09:48 | |
"we're very fond of Brenda and Steve, they look after us so well" | 0:09:48 | 0:09:53 | |
My mother said, "Well, I wouldn't go to the same place every year". | 0:09:53 | 0:09:57 | |
We went everywhere with some of the people, | 0:09:57 | 0:09:59 | |
they just treated us like holidaymakers. | 0:09:59 | 0:10:02 | |
They took us on day trips to France, any entertainment. | 0:10:02 | 0:10:06 | |
We were one of THEIR family, you know. | 0:10:06 | 0:10:08 | |
I've got some photographs here, what I really like about them | 0:10:08 | 0:10:11 | |
is that the guests are all lined up on the steps of the guest houses. | 0:10:11 | 0:10:15 | |
So was there great camaraderie amongst the guests? | 0:10:15 | 0:10:18 | |
-Oh, yes, of course there was. -They'd be very shy Saturday night, but by Sunday afternoon, they... | 0:10:18 | 0:10:23 | |
you couldn't get in the dining room for the noise. | 0:10:23 | 0:10:25 | |
It wasn't just Mum and Dad in one room, it was Mum, Dad, | 0:10:25 | 0:10:29 | |
two children or three children in one room, | 0:10:29 | 0:10:31 | |
because it was desperate after the war. | 0:10:31 | 0:10:34 | |
People would say, "Can't you just put a bed up in the bathroom?" | 0:10:34 | 0:10:38 | |
-Really? -Which we have done. | 0:10:38 | 0:10:40 | |
We did have a dead body once, and it was a bit like Fawlty Towers. | 0:10:40 | 0:10:44 | |
Get it out of the way, quick, you know. | 0:10:44 | 0:10:46 | |
Actually it was a relation, | 0:10:46 | 0:10:47 | |
a distant relation had come to stay, and we'd given him bacon and eggs | 0:10:47 | 0:10:51 | |
in our quarters, and he suddenly fell forward into my bacon and eggs. | 0:10:51 | 0:10:57 | |
No! Were they that bad, your bacon and eggs? | 0:10:57 | 0:11:00 | |
He was dead. Yeah, there you are! | 0:11:00 | 0:11:02 | |
-Look at the size of our kitchen. -Tiny! | 0:11:02 | 0:11:05 | |
But we used to cater for 25 meals in that. | 0:11:05 | 0:11:08 | |
Really? Do you miss it, Hazel? | 0:11:08 | 0:11:11 | |
No, the day we sold up, I didn't miss a thing. | 0:11:11 | 0:11:15 | |
I didn't realise until I took an office job | 0:11:15 | 0:11:17 | |
and I'd finished that I'd worked so hard. | 0:11:17 | 0:11:20 | |
The seaside dreams of millions were built on that hard work. | 0:11:30 | 0:11:33 | |
But the delights of the B&B couldn't compete with cheap breaks abroad, | 0:11:36 | 0:11:41 | |
and increased regulations brought the golden era of the seaside landladies to a close. | 0:11:41 | 0:11:47 | |
Yet for so many, our holiday memories are inseparable | 0:11:47 | 0:11:51 | |
from the redoubtable women who made them possible. | 0:11:51 | 0:11:54 | |
They gave us all a home from home by the sea. | 0:11:54 | 0:11:58 | |
Even on this busy coast there are open spaces, | 0:12:08 | 0:12:11 | |
where the rich and famous have come to get away from it all. | 0:12:11 | 0:12:15 | |
In the 1950s, novelist Ian Fleming bought one of these houses | 0:12:22 | 0:12:27 | |
on St Margaret's Bay from the previous owner... | 0:12:27 | 0:12:30 | |
Noel Coward. | 0:12:30 | 0:12:31 | |
Whatever secret schemes Fleming may have dreamt up, looking out over the Channel, | 0:12:33 | 0:12:39 | |
Mr Bond's fictional cliffhangers couldn't match the reality | 0:12:39 | 0:12:43 | |
of one daring mission played out just around the corner, | 0:12:43 | 0:12:48 | |
off the coast of Dover. | 0:12:48 | 0:12:50 | |
Today, taking the ferry to France is as easy as catching the bus, | 0:12:56 | 0:13:00 | |
but, 70 years ago, a Channel crossing was a deadly affair. | 0:13:00 | 0:13:04 | |
As Britain looked out on Europe under German occupation, | 0:13:04 | 0:13:08 | |
the Channel at least seemed secure. | 0:13:08 | 0:13:11 | |
But at the height of the war, an entire German fleet sailed | 0:13:11 | 0:13:15 | |
past the guns of Dover and survived to tell the tale. | 0:13:15 | 0:13:19 | |
Neil is on the trail of the Nazis' Channel Dash. | 0:13:19 | 0:13:24 | |
It's 12th February 1942. Out there in the Channel, | 0:13:26 | 0:13:30 | |
three of the German navy's most fearsome battleships | 0:13:30 | 0:13:33 | |
are steaming at full speed | 0:13:33 | 0:13:34 | |
just a few miles off the south coast of England. | 0:13:34 | 0:13:37 | |
The Scharnhorst, the Gneisenau, and the Prinz Eugen. | 0:13:39 | 0:13:44 | |
They'd been wreaking havoc in the North Atlantic, | 0:13:44 | 0:13:47 | |
responsible for destroying 22 Allied ships. | 0:13:47 | 0:13:51 | |
Not surprisingly, British Naval Intelligence had been keeping a close eye on them. | 0:13:51 | 0:13:57 | |
They thought the ships were undergoing repairs, | 0:13:59 | 0:14:01 | |
berthed at the French port of Brest, | 0:14:01 | 0:14:04 | |
almost 500 miles away from Dover. | 0:14:04 | 0:14:07 | |
But they weren't. | 0:14:07 | 0:14:08 | |
In a breathtakingly audacious move, | 0:14:10 | 0:14:12 | |
the Germans had somehow managed to sail up the Channel, | 0:14:12 | 0:14:15 | |
in broad daylight, right under the nose of Britain's defences. | 0:14:15 | 0:14:19 | |
In the aftermath of the ensuing battle, The Times reported, | 0:14:23 | 0:14:26 | |
"Nothing more mortifying to the pride of British sea power | 0:14:26 | 0:14:30 | |
"has happened in home waters since the 17th century". | 0:14:30 | 0:14:33 | |
So, how WERE the British so badly caught out? | 0:14:33 | 0:14:37 | |
Historian Nick Hewitt and I | 0:14:37 | 0:14:39 | |
are plotting the events that led up to this remarkable episode. | 0:14:39 | 0:14:42 | |
So, Nick, where were these German ships coming from? | 0:14:46 | 0:14:49 | |
They're coming from here in Brest. | 0:14:49 | 0:14:51 | |
The German navy would like to refit them and keep them in Brest | 0:14:51 | 0:14:54 | |
where they can threaten Allied trade out in the Atlantic. | 0:14:54 | 0:14:57 | |
Adolf Hitler wants them brought home to Germany and sent to Norway. | 0:14:57 | 0:15:00 | |
-What Adolf wants, Adolf gets? -Adolf gets, absolutely. | 0:15:00 | 0:15:03 | |
By late 1941, Hitler feared an Allied invasion of Norway. | 0:15:03 | 0:15:09 | |
He believed his warships at Brest were essential to prevent this attack. | 0:15:09 | 0:15:13 | |
With German troops engaged across Europe, Russia and North Africa, | 0:15:13 | 0:15:18 | |
he needed his battle ships back, right away. | 0:15:18 | 0:15:21 | |
The decision is taken to get them home | 0:15:22 | 0:15:24 | |
by the shortest, dirtiest route possible, | 0:15:24 | 0:15:27 | |
straight through the English Channel and the Straits of Dover. | 0:15:27 | 0:15:31 | |
But it's only three battleships, you'd think they could slip through. | 0:15:31 | 0:15:35 | |
You need to remember, at this point, it's not just three battleships. | 0:15:35 | 0:15:38 | |
What the Germans had been doing | 0:15:41 | 0:15:42 | |
is they'd been bringing through escorting ships, | 0:15:42 | 0:15:45 | |
so by the time that heavy ships sail from Brest, | 0:15:45 | 0:15:48 | |
there are 63 warships around the fleet. | 0:15:48 | 0:15:50 | |
And it's not just ships, at no point is there anything less | 0:15:52 | 0:15:55 | |
than 16 aircraft over the top of the ships from dawn to dusk every day. | 0:15:55 | 0:15:59 | |
So this is a huge force moving through the Channel. | 0:15:59 | 0:16:02 | |
Hitler's aim was bold. | 0:16:05 | 0:16:07 | |
Drive his battle fleet through the Channel at full speed, | 0:16:07 | 0:16:11 | |
right under Britain's big guns. | 0:16:11 | 0:16:14 | |
The Nazi propaganda machine, | 0:16:17 | 0:16:19 | |
confident of success, put cameras on the ships. | 0:16:19 | 0:16:22 | |
This is the film they shot. | 0:16:22 | 0:16:25 | |
Surprise was vital. Preparations were so secret, | 0:16:25 | 0:16:28 | |
even the German crews didn't know the plan. | 0:16:28 | 0:16:32 | |
We're going to find out what happened next, | 0:16:33 | 0:16:36 | |
that stormy day in February 1942. | 0:16:36 | 0:16:38 | |
Our historian Nick Hewitt has tracked down | 0:16:41 | 0:16:43 | |
a remarkable eyewitness. | 0:16:43 | 0:16:45 | |
It's the first time August Brunmyer has visited British soil, | 0:16:48 | 0:16:52 | |
but he has seen Dover Castle once before, | 0:16:52 | 0:16:54 | |
from the deck of the Prinz Eugen. | 0:16:54 | 0:16:56 | |
How did you feel when you were told you were going through the English Channel? | 0:16:58 | 0:17:02 | |
TRANSLATED FROM GERMAN: | 0:17:02 | 0:17:04 | |
If the mission was a surprise to the German crews, | 0:17:17 | 0:17:20 | |
it sent the British defenders into a panic. | 0:17:20 | 0:17:23 | |
They'd been caught on the hop. | 0:17:24 | 0:17:27 | |
The German ships had left port undetected. | 0:17:27 | 0:17:29 | |
The British Admiralty were convinced the Germans | 0:17:29 | 0:17:32 | |
wouldn't venture into the Channel in daylight. | 0:17:32 | 0:17:35 | |
Shrouded by fog, the fleet was just an hour from Dover before it was spotted. | 0:17:37 | 0:17:42 | |
Britain's defences were already stretched to breaking point. | 0:17:44 | 0:17:47 | |
Now, with the Germans on their doorstep, | 0:17:47 | 0:17:50 | |
they scrambled all they had. | 0:17:50 | 0:17:52 | |
A handful of small ships and six extraordinary biplanes. | 0:17:52 | 0:17:57 | |
This is a Swordfish. | 0:18:01 | 0:18:03 | |
Now, it might look like a throw-back to the First World War, | 0:18:03 | 0:18:06 | |
but this old-fashioned biplane packed a deadly punch. | 0:18:06 | 0:18:10 | |
A torpedo dropped from one of these could hurt even the biggest battleship. | 0:18:10 | 0:18:14 | |
In fact, a Swordfish attack had crippled The Bismarck | 0:18:14 | 0:18:17 | |
earlier in the war. | 0:18:17 | 0:18:19 | |
The pride of the German fleet had been left | 0:18:23 | 0:18:25 | |
dead in the water by the flimsy biplanes. | 0:18:25 | 0:18:28 | |
Lieutenant Commander Eugene Esmonde was the leader of that sortie against the Bismarck. | 0:18:31 | 0:18:35 | |
He'd been decorated for his bravery. | 0:18:35 | 0:18:38 | |
Now Esmonde was facing the largest German flotilla of the war. | 0:18:38 | 0:18:42 | |
The plan was to protect his Swordfish attack | 0:18:42 | 0:18:46 | |
with five Spitfire squadrons. | 0:18:46 | 0:18:48 | |
But the Spitfires are late, | 0:18:50 | 0:18:51 | |
and the German battleships are steaming beyond range | 0:18:51 | 0:18:55 | |
at a rate of knots. | 0:18:55 | 0:18:56 | |
Against overwhelming odds, Esmonde presses on with the attack. | 0:18:56 | 0:19:01 | |
As the German ships slipped into the Channel, the fog lifted, | 0:19:06 | 0:19:11 | |
and they could almost touch the white cliffs. | 0:19:11 | 0:19:14 | |
TRANSLATED FROM GERMAN: | 0:19:14 | 0:19:16 | |
All too clearly, Esmonde and his men | 0:19:25 | 0:19:27 | |
were now the frontline of Britain's defence. | 0:19:27 | 0:19:30 | |
From a British torpedo boat, Reg Mitchell witnessed the battle. | 0:19:34 | 0:19:38 | |
Reg saw the powerful German fighters | 0:19:39 | 0:19:42 | |
begin to pick off the British biplanes. | 0:19:42 | 0:19:44 | |
The Fokker Wolfs were coming up behind them | 0:19:46 | 0:19:49 | |
with their flaps down | 0:19:49 | 0:19:51 | |
and their wheels down, and they were revving up all the time | 0:19:51 | 0:19:54 | |
to try and stop themselves stalling so they could get a good burst in, | 0:19:54 | 0:19:58 | |
and we would watch them, watch the tracers going into the.. | 0:19:58 | 0:20:02 | |
into the Swordfish, and they got shot down one after the other. | 0:20:02 | 0:20:06 | |
TRANSLATED FROM GERMAN: | 0:20:12 | 0:20:14 | |
The German flotilla sailed past Dover unharmed. | 0:20:22 | 0:20:26 | |
Left in the water, all six Swordfish, | 0:20:26 | 0:20:29 | |
13 of their crew dead, among them, Eugene Esmonde. | 0:20:29 | 0:20:34 | |
The boldness and power of the German fleet found Britain ill-prepared. | 0:20:38 | 0:20:44 | |
But those few who did press home the attack were not forgotten. | 0:20:44 | 0:20:47 | |
Esmonde was awarded the Victoria Cross. | 0:20:47 | 0:20:49 | |
This is the citation, together with the stamp | 0:20:56 | 0:21:00 | |
of King George VI that accompanied the medal. | 0:21:00 | 0:21:02 | |
"He flew on, cool and resolute, serenely challenging hopeless odds | 0:21:03 | 0:21:08 | |
to encounter the deadly fire of the enemy". | 0:21:08 | 0:21:10 | |
"Undismayed, he led his squadron on, | 0:21:10 | 0:21:13 | |
"straight through this inferno of fire". | 0:21:13 | 0:21:16 | |
The Channel has always been our great natural border. | 0:21:31 | 0:21:35 | |
A barrier in times of war, but also our link | 0:21:35 | 0:21:38 | |
to the trading ports of Northern Europe. | 0:21:38 | 0:21:40 | |
I've crossed the Channel to Dunkirk. | 0:21:42 | 0:21:45 | |
The most northerly French port, its name evokes British fighting spirit. | 0:21:47 | 0:21:53 | |
Its beaches still bear the scars of conflict. | 0:21:53 | 0:21:56 | |
In the aftermath of two World Wars, a new trade alliance | 0:22:00 | 0:22:03 | |
grew up along these shores, dedicated to breaking down borders. | 0:22:03 | 0:22:09 | |
It would become the European Union. | 0:22:09 | 0:22:11 | |
The founding principle of the original union was to make war | 0:22:12 | 0:22:16 | |
not only unthinkable but materially impossible. | 0:22:16 | 0:22:21 | |
It's made it rather difficult to find any borders. | 0:22:21 | 0:22:24 | |
I'm about six miles northeast of Dunkirk, | 0:22:26 | 0:22:29 | |
and I'm looking for the border that marks the edge of France. | 0:22:29 | 0:22:33 | |
You'd think they might have put a flag up or something. | 0:22:33 | 0:22:36 | |
I've got the co-ordinates of where the border should be in this | 0:22:36 | 0:22:40 | |
little GPS unit, it's telling me to go up here. | 0:22:40 | 0:22:43 | |
This cannot possibly be a border post. | 0:22:46 | 0:22:48 | |
I think I'm on a wild border chase here. | 0:22:50 | 0:22:53 | |
OK, I've seen something but on the wrong side of the fence. | 0:22:53 | 0:22:57 | |
This is the border marker, there's an F on this side for France... | 0:22:59 | 0:23:04 | |
A broken N, that must be the Netherlands, and here, a date, 1819. | 0:23:06 | 0:23:12 | |
Well, that is not the Netherlands any more. | 0:23:12 | 0:23:16 | |
190 years ago when this marker was put in the sand, | 0:23:16 | 0:23:19 | |
the country you're about to enter didn't even exist. | 0:23:19 | 0:23:24 | |
If that seems a bit confusing, the change in the landscape at least | 0:23:24 | 0:23:28 | |
leaves you in no doubt you've entered a new country, | 0:23:28 | 0:23:31 | |
as wild open spaces transform into something a little more concrete. | 0:23:31 | 0:23:36 | |
Welcome to Belgium. | 0:23:38 | 0:23:41 | |
Looks like they've had the builders in. | 0:23:43 | 0:23:45 | |
One of Europe's most densely populated coastal countries, | 0:23:53 | 0:23:56 | |
it also has one of its shortest coastlines, | 0:23:56 | 0:24:00 | |
less than 50 miles. | 0:24:00 | 0:24:01 | |
But boy, do the Belgians make the most of it! | 0:24:01 | 0:24:06 | |
# Ca plane pour moi Ca plane pour moi | 0:24:06 | 0:24:09 | |
# Ca plane pour moi, moi, moi, moi... # | 0:24:11 | 0:24:13 | |
There are no fewer than 16 major holiday resorts | 0:24:13 | 0:24:17 | |
packed in along this tiny coast. | 0:24:17 | 0:24:20 | |
And what links it all is the Kusttram - the coast tram. | 0:24:22 | 0:24:28 | |
Starting near the border town of De Panne, | 0:24:31 | 0:24:34 | |
the track runs more or less the length of the Belgian coast | 0:24:34 | 0:24:38 | |
loops around and comes back down again. | 0:24:38 | 0:24:41 | |
85 miles, all told, making it the longest single-track tram in the world. | 0:24:41 | 0:24:48 | |
No need for walking boots when you're taking the tram. | 0:24:49 | 0:24:52 | |
I think a change of outfit is in order. | 0:24:52 | 0:24:55 | |
I'm curious to know how the tramline helps the Belgians | 0:24:58 | 0:25:01 | |
cram so much into their coast, | 0:25:01 | 0:25:03 | |
so at a station in a rare break between high-rises, | 0:25:03 | 0:25:07 | |
I'm meeting tram man Dirk Schockaert. | 0:25:07 | 0:25:09 | |
-You must be Nick. -I am Nick. | 0:25:09 | 0:25:11 | |
This is one of the most extraordinary rail stations | 0:25:11 | 0:25:14 | |
I've ever been to in the world. It's on a beach! | 0:25:14 | 0:25:17 | |
Yes, it's a tram stop in the middle of nowhere. | 0:25:17 | 0:25:20 | |
Yeah. Why was the tramline built, and when? | 0:25:20 | 0:25:23 | |
The tramline was created in 1885. In the beginning, | 0:25:23 | 0:25:27 | |
we had three train stations at the coast, so all the rich tourists came | 0:25:27 | 0:25:32 | |
from the inside of the country to do their holiday here at the coast, | 0:25:32 | 0:25:36 | |
and they were stuck at their place. | 0:25:36 | 0:25:39 | |
So, they were thinking, "Well, we will create a tramline, | 0:25:39 | 0:25:44 | |
"so that we can transport people," mostly rich tourists. | 0:25:44 | 0:25:48 | |
And for example, I have here an old poster, touristic poster. | 0:25:48 | 0:25:52 | |
That's wonderful! The image in the picture | 0:25:52 | 0:25:55 | |
is very much of a seaside paradise waiting to be opened up. | 0:25:55 | 0:25:58 | |
Yes, at that time our coast was like that. | 0:25:58 | 0:26:01 | |
And now, there are everywhere buildings. | 0:26:01 | 0:26:06 | |
I'd better give you that. | 0:26:06 | 0:26:07 | |
Oh...it shot past. | 0:26:07 | 0:26:09 | |
We missed that one! | 0:26:09 | 0:26:11 | |
It was the Kusttram that really shaped the Belgian coast. | 0:26:17 | 0:26:20 | |
The resorts just grew up along it. | 0:26:20 | 0:26:23 | |
But the arrival of the tram did squeeze out a simpler way of life. | 0:26:23 | 0:26:29 | |
For generations a band of horse-riding fishermen | 0:26:29 | 0:26:32 | |
have hunted shrimps in the sandy shallows off the Belgian coast. | 0:26:32 | 0:26:37 | |
Today, horseback fishing is a dying art. | 0:26:37 | 0:26:40 | |
Miranda's off to see how it's done, before it's too late. | 0:26:40 | 0:26:44 | |
'This is one of the last places anywhere that they fish like this.' | 0:26:52 | 0:26:56 | |
How does it work? | 0:26:56 | 0:26:57 | |
Those two boards, they are used to open the net in the water, seven metres. | 0:26:57 | 0:27:04 | |
One side floating on the water, | 0:27:04 | 0:27:06 | |
and the other side stays on the ground | 0:27:06 | 0:27:08 | |
because of the weight of the chain. | 0:27:08 | 0:27:10 | |
-Yeah. -But the chain is really used to wake up the shrimps, | 0:27:10 | 0:27:15 | |
because the shrimps live under the sands, | 0:27:15 | 0:27:18 | |
and what happens is the chain makes a noise, and all the shrimps they jump up and they get caught | 0:27:18 | 0:27:23 | |
between the two sides of the net, | 0:27:23 | 0:27:24 | |
they get pushed there in the end of the net, you see? | 0:27:24 | 0:27:29 | |
'But working in the shallows with this heavy gear would be impossible without the right horse. | 0:27:29 | 0:27:34 | |
'It takes the exceptional strength of these huge Brabant draft horses to drag the nets through the wet sand.' | 0:27:34 | 0:27:40 | |
-What's your horse called? -Jim. | 0:27:40 | 0:27:42 | |
This is Jim. He's huge, isn't he? | 0:27:42 | 0:27:45 | |
He's really built for the job. How on earth am I going to get up there? | 0:27:45 | 0:27:49 | |
You've got longer legs than I have, though! | 0:27:49 | 0:27:51 | |
'I'm used to riding, but these giants are incredibly difficult | 0:27:55 | 0:27:58 | |
'to control in the water, so I've got to hitch a ride with Dominique.' | 0:27:58 | 0:28:02 | |
Ha-ha! | 0:28:05 | 0:28:07 | |
So... | 0:28:07 | 0:28:08 | |
HE CALLS TO THE HORSE | 0:28:09 | 0:28:13 | |
Tell me a bit about Jim - how old is he, what's he like? | 0:28:15 | 0:28:18 | |
He is seven years old, he's a really relaxed horse, | 0:28:18 | 0:28:21 | |
he never worries about anything and he never complains. | 0:28:21 | 0:28:24 | |
So what's it like for Jim in the water. Is it really hard work? | 0:28:24 | 0:28:27 | |
Yes, the faster he goes, the harder it gets, because the water has not | 0:28:27 | 0:28:31 | |
time enough to escape out of the net. | 0:28:31 | 0:28:33 | |
But after a couple of times, the horse realises if he goes slower, it's easier. | 0:28:33 | 0:28:39 | |
The only thing they get scared of is when the waves come towards them. | 0:28:39 | 0:28:43 | |
When that happens and they are frightened, | 0:28:43 | 0:28:47 | |
you turn them around and you make them go backwards to the sea, so | 0:28:47 | 0:28:51 | |
they don't see the waves, and once they're in it, their fear is over. | 0:28:51 | 0:28:54 | |
And you obviously have an amazing bond with Jim. | 0:28:54 | 0:28:58 | |
-Yes, we know each other by heart and soul. -Yeah. | 0:28:58 | 0:29:02 | |
Wow! | 0:29:11 | 0:29:13 | |
This is what we've been catching, little grey shrimps. | 0:29:14 | 0:29:17 | |
Dominique, what's this sort of catch worth, then? | 0:29:18 | 0:29:21 | |
-This, maybe two euros. -Two euros? | 0:29:21 | 0:29:25 | |
-That's not even enough money to feed your horse for the day. -No, no! | 0:29:25 | 0:29:28 | |
'Their meagre catch doesn't make for a living, but a profitable sideline is opening up. | 0:29:28 | 0:29:36 | |
'Their novelty has made the horsemen into a local attraction - | 0:29:36 | 0:29:40 | |
'while fishing for shrimps, they're also being paid to haul in the tourists.' | 0:29:40 | 0:29:45 | |
-So I can try one, yeah? -Yeah. | 0:29:49 | 0:29:51 | |
Those are really good. | 0:29:53 | 0:29:55 | |
-That's about as fresh a shrimp as I've ever eaten. -Yes. | 0:29:55 | 0:29:59 | |
'On this coastline, embracing tourism and the changes | 0:29:59 | 0:30:03 | |
'that come with it helps this traditional way of life to survive.' | 0:30:03 | 0:30:07 | |
We're on the Belgian coast. | 0:30:19 | 0:30:21 | |
Now the city of Bruges is connected to the port of Zeebrugge by a mighty canal. | 0:30:25 | 0:30:31 | |
But 700 years ago it was a different story. | 0:30:32 | 0:30:35 | |
Mark is exploring how mediaeval Bruges once had a much closer connection to the coast, and to us. | 0:30:35 | 0:30:44 | |
For me, this is a very emotional journey. | 0:30:44 | 0:30:48 | |
I first came here to Bruges aged 13. | 0:30:48 | 0:30:53 | |
I was obsessed with medieval history. | 0:30:53 | 0:30:58 | |
Now I'm back to rekindle my old passion for the place, | 0:31:00 | 0:31:04 | |
but also to explore an intriguing connection to England I discovered all those years ago. | 0:31:04 | 0:31:10 | |
The city's canals give us a clue to its rich maritime past. | 0:31:10 | 0:31:16 | |
Sea trade made the burghers of Bruges very rich in the 13th and 14th centuries. | 0:31:16 | 0:31:23 | |
Believe it or not, this was once the main canal | 0:31:23 | 0:31:28 | |
into the heart of Bruges, where ships from all round the world | 0:31:28 | 0:31:33 | |
came and unloaded their cargos in the water hall | 0:31:33 | 0:31:37 | |
in the middle of the town square. | 0:31:37 | 0:31:39 | |
700 years ago, a bird's-eye view of Bruges | 0:31:41 | 0:31:45 | |
would have been radically different. | 0:31:45 | 0:31:47 | |
A sea inlet reached the outskirts of the city, | 0:31:47 | 0:31:51 | |
linking is directly to the North Sea | 0:31:51 | 0:31:54 | |
and historic ports like Ipswich and King's Lynn. | 0:31:54 | 0:31:59 | |
Those links between East Anglia and Bruges I discovered for myself as a 13-year-old | 0:32:01 | 0:32:08 | |
armed only with a roll of paper and a wax crayon. | 0:32:08 | 0:32:12 | |
Sint-Salvator Cathedral is a wonderful place for a spot of brass rubbing. | 0:32:16 | 0:32:23 | |
Unfortunately, it's now discouraged in Belgium. | 0:32:28 | 0:32:31 | |
But I did a few earlier - 40 years earlier. | 0:32:33 | 0:32:38 | |
The thing about these brasses is they show the sheer wealth and | 0:32:39 | 0:32:44 | |
prosperity of Bruges. This is a brass of one of these merchants. | 0:32:44 | 0:32:50 | |
There he is with his wife and his daughter, | 0:32:50 | 0:32:53 | |
and you can see down at the bottom there | 0:32:53 | 0:32:55 | |
is an image of a ship. | 0:32:55 | 0:32:58 | |
But these brasses also tell us about trade between England | 0:32:58 | 0:33:02 | |
and Bruges, because in Ipswich there's an almost identical brass. | 0:33:02 | 0:33:07 | |
It shows Thomas Pownder, | 0:33:07 | 0:33:10 | |
a cloth merchant, a very wealthy man. There's his merchant's mark. | 0:33:10 | 0:33:15 | |
He was not satisfied with inferior English brasses, | 0:33:15 | 0:33:18 | |
but went all the way here to Bruges to get his memorial, and this is it. | 0:33:18 | 0:33:24 | |
The link between Bruges and Eastern England I'd stumbled upon as a boy was centuries old, | 0:33:28 | 0:33:35 | |
part of a trade alliance known as the Hanseatic League. | 0:33:35 | 0:33:39 | |
This enormous medieval room | 0:33:42 | 0:33:45 | |
would have been a warehouse stacked high with East Anglian wool. | 0:33:45 | 0:33:51 | |
On their return the empty ships were so unstable, | 0:33:51 | 0:33:54 | |
they had to be filled with Flemish bricks. | 0:33:54 | 0:33:58 | |
Bricks were in big demand 700 years ago in England, | 0:34:02 | 0:34:07 | |
because back then we weren't making any of our own. | 0:34:07 | 0:34:11 | |
I'm hoping historian David Andrews can tell me why. | 0:34:11 | 0:34:16 | |
Well, the Romans of course, had made bricks, | 0:34:17 | 0:34:19 | |
but with the collapse that came after the fall of the Roman Empire | 0:34:19 | 0:34:23 | |
the technology was lost throughout much of Northern Europe, | 0:34:23 | 0:34:26 | |
maybe parts of the Mediterranean as well. | 0:34:26 | 0:34:28 | |
So when is brick-making rediscovered? | 0:34:28 | 0:34:30 | |
In the 12th century, the Cistercians are making bricks, | 0:34:30 | 0:34:34 | |
and the Cistercians built this wonderful barn here. | 0:34:34 | 0:34:36 | |
-It's like a cathedral, isn't it, with a sort of east window in brick?! -With tracery in brick, yes. | 0:34:36 | 0:34:41 | |
Cistercian monks may have revived the art of brick-making, | 0:34:41 | 0:34:46 | |
but in England we were a bit slow on the uptake. | 0:34:46 | 0:34:50 | |
Rather than make our own, we bought them from the Low Countries. | 0:34:50 | 0:34:56 | |
We had ceramic technologies, we could make pottery, we could make roof tile | 0:34:56 | 0:35:00 | |
but we don't seem to have bothered with brick. | 0:35:00 | 0:35:03 | |
And what do these Flemish bricks actually look like? | 0:35:03 | 0:35:06 | |
Well, I've got one from Essex here. | 0:35:06 | 0:35:09 | |
So these are really grotty, I mean, you can see how soft they are. | 0:35:09 | 0:35:13 | |
You could put the powder everywhere. | 0:35:13 | 0:35:15 | |
Yes, they aren't marvellous bricks, but they work | 0:35:15 | 0:35:18 | |
and they're quite long-lasting and durable. | 0:35:18 | 0:35:20 | |
'After 700 years, this Essex brick has come home' | 0:35:20 | 0:35:25 | |
to where it was made from the polder clay, the layer of mud | 0:35:25 | 0:35:30 | |
left behind when the sea retreated from the land. | 0:35:30 | 0:35:34 | |
'Art Vandendorpe is going to show me how to turn clay into bricks.' | 0:35:34 | 0:35:40 | |
He's restored some of Bruges' most ancient buildings | 0:35:40 | 0:35:45 | |
using the oldest instruction book there is. | 0:35:45 | 0:35:48 | |
So this is the original description of how bricks were made in those days. | 0:35:51 | 0:35:55 | |
They take the clay and they mixed them with sand, | 0:35:55 | 0:35:59 | |
they put it on the table and they make the brick. | 0:35:59 | 0:36:02 | |
And then they put them here in the clamp. | 0:36:02 | 0:36:05 | |
-One million. -In one clamp? So that's from the polders. | 0:36:05 | 0:36:09 | |
-Yes, from here. -Just from underneath the riverbank. -Yes, yes, yes. | 0:36:09 | 0:36:12 | |
# Bricks, lay 'em down in a straight line | 0:36:14 | 0:36:15 | |
# Bricks, build them into a wall | 0:36:15 | 0:36:17 | |
# Bricks, very useful objects and they're not expensive at all. # | 0:36:17 | 0:36:22 | |
Perfect! Bits of old brick, the odd shell - | 0:36:22 | 0:36:26 | |
that's what makes the brick strong. | 0:36:26 | 0:36:28 | |
'After several hundred years of the Flemish showing the way, | 0:36:29 | 0:36:33 | |
'English brick-makers had just about got the hang of it.' | 0:36:33 | 0:36:37 | |
Oh, this is an English brick! | 0:36:37 | 0:36:39 | |
'Unlike me!' | 0:36:40 | 0:36:42 | |
But it was the clay, the very stuff the bricks of Bruges | 0:36:42 | 0:36:45 | |
were made of, that finally cut the city off from the sea. | 0:36:45 | 0:36:50 | |
When the inlet silted up, gone went that trading route to Europe. | 0:36:50 | 0:36:55 | |
Leaving Bruges high and dry, | 0:36:55 | 0:36:58 | |
but preserved in all this medieval splendour! | 0:36:58 | 0:37:02 | |
The end of Belgium's coastal tramline delivers me to Knokke. | 0:37:17 | 0:37:21 | |
It looks pretty conventional on the outside, the seafront dominated by this grand 1930s casino. | 0:37:26 | 0:37:33 | |
I'm told all is not what it seems here - | 0:37:35 | 0:37:38 | |
apparently there's something surreal to see. | 0:37:38 | 0:37:41 | |
And it's tucked away in a back room. | 0:37:46 | 0:37:50 | |
-Hello. -Hello. -I'm Nick. | 0:37:51 | 0:37:53 | |
-Delphine. Nice to meet you. -Very nice to meet you. | 0:37:53 | 0:37:56 | |
In the 1950s, Belgian surrealist Rene Magritte came to stay in Knokke. | 0:37:56 | 0:38:02 | |
And this is what he left behind. | 0:38:02 | 0:38:06 | |
LAUGHS | 0:38:06 | 0:38:09 | |
My goodness! My goodness! | 0:38:09 | 0:38:12 | |
It's quite a thing if you see it for the first time. | 0:38:12 | 0:38:14 | |
Erm, yeah, it certainly is, isn't it? | 0:38:14 | 0:38:17 | |
If you don't know Magritte's name, you might well recognise his images. | 0:38:21 | 0:38:25 | |
This 360-degree mural displays some of his best-known work. | 0:38:25 | 0:38:31 | |
It's a dreamscape, isn't it? | 0:38:33 | 0:38:35 | |
Not necessarily a very healthy dream - we've got a woman with | 0:38:35 | 0:38:40 | |
a fish's head, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa resting on a feather. | 0:38:40 | 0:38:44 | |
How did the citizens of Knokke react? | 0:38:44 | 0:38:45 | |
They rather like it, I think. | 0:38:45 | 0:38:47 | |
In 1953, | 0:38:50 | 0:38:52 | |
the casino owner here persuaded the surrealist and former wallpaper designer | 0:38:52 | 0:38:57 | |
to make a rare visit to the coast and decorate the walls of this establishment. | 0:38:57 | 0:39:01 | |
Magritte called the end result the enchanted domain. | 0:39:01 | 0:39:05 | |
Enchanting maybe, odd certainly, but look closer. | 0:39:07 | 0:39:11 | |
Magritte's vision seems strangely in tune with the Belgium we've experienced. | 0:39:19 | 0:39:23 | |
The surrealist re-imagined the world in the name of art. | 0:39:26 | 0:39:31 | |
But another local visionary who reimagined the world for | 0:39:31 | 0:39:34 | |
practical reasons is waiting at the end of my journey. | 0:39:34 | 0:39:39 | |
Because it was along this coast that a 16th-century map-maker | 0:39:41 | 0:39:45 | |
of huge significance spent his formative years. | 0:39:45 | 0:39:50 | |
He also happens to be a hero of mine. His name - Gerard Mercator. | 0:39:50 | 0:39:56 | |
Ships like this navigate safely today because of a method of | 0:39:57 | 0:40:02 | |
map-making devised by Mercator. | 0:40:02 | 0:40:03 | |
Even in here, surrounded by all this hi-tech equipment, this modern map | 0:40:03 | 0:40:08 | |
carries the name of a man born 500 years ago. | 0:40:08 | 0:40:12 | |
Mercator cracked a complex puzzle. | 0:40:12 | 0:40:15 | |
Paper maps are flat, but as you step back from the world, | 0:40:15 | 0:40:19 | |
it's clear the planet isn't flat at all. | 0:40:19 | 0:40:22 | |
He worked out the maths | 0:40:22 | 0:40:24 | |
to project the 3D world onto a two-dimensional sheet. | 0:40:24 | 0:40:28 | |
Mercator's projection meant seafarers could for the first time | 0:40:29 | 0:40:33 | |
navigate precisely around the three-dimensional globe. | 0:40:33 | 0:40:37 | |
In Antwerp, you can see the original chart that changed the world. | 0:40:37 | 0:40:43 | |
This is it, this is the map that turned Mercator | 0:40:44 | 0:40:47 | |
into the first modern map-maker, it was completely revolutionary. | 0:40:47 | 0:40:51 | |
It's really a navigational device. | 0:40:51 | 0:40:53 | |
What he did was to keep all the lines of longitude parallel. | 0:40:53 | 0:40:58 | |
Of course, normally on the globe they all converge at the two poles, | 0:40:58 | 0:41:02 | |
but what he did was prise them apart and straighten them. | 0:41:02 | 0:41:05 | |
What you end up with is quite a distorted map, but the sheer | 0:41:05 | 0:41:09 | |
brilliance of this map is in what it does with the use of compasses. | 0:41:09 | 0:41:13 | |
If you lie a compass on this map for example between Bristol and Cuba, | 0:41:13 | 0:41:17 | |
and want to get the bearing, you take your bearing off the map, | 0:41:17 | 0:41:20 | |
and then you can stand on the deck of your ship and the identical | 0:41:20 | 0:41:24 | |
bearing will take you straight from Bristol to Cuba. | 0:41:24 | 0:41:26 | |
No other map projection will do that. | 0:41:26 | 0:41:28 | |
It was a work of sheer brilliance. | 0:41:28 | 0:41:31 | |
Mercator called it the squaring of the circle. | 0:41:31 | 0:41:33 | |
Mercator's genius vision, his projection of the earth onto | 0:41:40 | 0:41:44 | |
accurate navigation charts, opened up the globe to Europeans. | 0:41:44 | 0:41:50 | |
Trade blossomed and mighty estuaries became gateways to the world. | 0:41:50 | 0:41:54 | |
People, goods and ideas flow between nations connected by their coastlines. | 0:42:07 | 0:42:12 | |
It gives us a common bond with our neighbours, stories we continue to explore around our coast and beyond! | 0:42:12 | 0:42:19 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:42:40 | 0:42:44 | |
E-mail [email protected] | 0:42:44 | 0:42:48 |