Secret Paths to Hidden Treasures Coast

Best foot forward.

What better way to explore our shore

than striding along its salty margin?

Nothing beats a coastal walk.

Thousands of miles of marked paths circle our shores...

..and plenty of secret ones, too.

I've certainly done the distance.

But I've never taken you on my favourite coastal walk until now.

I'm heading to our last great wilderness.

And the team are going that extra mile, too.

Andy attempts a walk above the water.

And over that edge is a secret path

that's haunted my imagination for years.

-What happens if I come off?

-Well, you've got big problems.

And Ruth is tracking down Victorian treasure hunters,

ladies who risked life and limb for ferns.

I've got my gathering pole, I've got my ladder.

All I've got to do now is reach that fern.

Join us off the beaten track

as we explore secret paths to hidden treasure.

My secret path lies on the extreme edge, at Cape Wrath.

Here, the mainland's tallest sea cliffs keep visitors at bay.

In Cape Wrath's mysterious heart,

there are no roads, cars, or people to drive them.

The only way to explore the isolated interior is on foot.

But glorious treasures await those willing to walk on the wild side.

I first took on Cape Wrath back in the '70s with my dad.

I was 18 and I was cutting my teeth on extreme adventures,

ready for isolation, ready for difficult challenges.

But that unpopulated wilderness out there had a surprise - a beach.

Not just any old beach, but the most beautiful beach I've ever seen.

I can't wait to show you what it's like.

I'm heading to Sandwood Bay,

but I'll begin on the other side of the cape.

After the ferry crossing,

I'll hitch a ride on a road rarely travelled to the lighthouse.

Then I'll tread my own path to my favourite beach.

A three-day adventure beginning on the tiny ferry.

-Hi, John.

-Hi.

The cape feels like an island,

disconnected to the rest of Britain and the mainland,

but it's so remote that this is the easiest way

-of getting there, taking your ferry.

-It's the main gateway, aye.

A lot of tourists think it's an island, you know.

What do you think it would have been like living out there?

It would be a hard life.

You'd need plenty of Scotch whisky about you, I'd think, at night,

to pass the nights.

The isolation of Cape Wrath doesn't only attract tourists.

Some ten years back, I witnessed how the MOD seal off the cape

to create a live firing range for 1,000lb bombs.

Now I want to discover why this wild coast

was abandoned in the first place.

Once, a handful of shepherds and their families

had crofts scattered across the cape.

To see what became of these coastal folk,

I'm with John Mackenzie, one of the last to leave.

We're exploring the MOD site.

So, this must be the edge of the range now.

That's the start of the range here, aye.

The barrier's up, so no shells flying around, no bombs dropping.

-Aye, we're OK today.

-What's that?

Is that an old building, remains of a building?

-That's the remains of the old school.

-Oh, is it?

-Can we go and have a look?

-Yeah.

-It's not very big.

No, got a photograph of it here.

Oh, aye. I've never seen

-such a small school. It's like a garden shed.

-I know.

So, that's the school, with four pupils in.

-Four? Is that how many children were here?

-Four.

-HE LAUGHS

That's the guy from the ferry.

Wow. You can see where the front door was.

Four children, so four desks.

-Four children, plenty bigger.

-NICK LAUGHS

-No hiding at the back of class.

-No, no.

These stones were the foundation of the community - the school.

But it closed in 1947.

When the school closed down, what did that mean for your family?

Well, we had to move to the mainland so I could go to school over there,

and probably that's the start of the end of people living here.

So the closure of the school was the end for a community living out here.

I would say so. I would say so.

Shortage of pupils meant the crofters' time was up.

But you can still walk in their footsteps.

John's father maintained their only road.

He looked after this road

from the middle '20s to the middle '40s.

-How long was the road?

-11 miles.

What does it feel like to be walking on your father's road?

-Aye, it's touching.

-Yeah?

I'm heading on into the heart of the cape

towards my coastal treasure.

Saving my legs for later, I'm hitching a lift

to where the road runs out.

This might feel like the road to nowhere,

but, in fact, it goes all the way out over the moorlands to the

lighthouse here at Cape Wrath - my last contact with civilisation.

After that, it's an eight-mile coast walk south through the wilderness -

a wilderness unlike any other in Britain.

But at the end of it, there's a treasure,

a glittering diamond in the rough - Sandwood Bay.

It's got a freshwater loch and a beautiful river

spilling out across the sands into the sea.

At the end of the road,

I'm on my own, and it's a lonely location,

even for a lighthouse.

You're not likely to bump into too many people out here,

but over there at the lighthouse

live the last two residents of Cape Wrath.

But who would chose to live in a place like this?

I'll discover what it's like to live here later.

But the splendid isolation of Scotland's Cape Wrath

doesn't suit everyone.

For easier going, seek out England's South West Coast Path.

Start hiking at Poole Harbour

and 630 miles of track unfold before you.

The tourist trail threading around our southernmost sea

is strung with pearls...

..natural wonders, and man-made delights.

Today, many walkers make a beeline for the golden sands,

but it wasn't always that way.

In the Victorian age, the craze wasn't for beaches,

but for botany.

A particular type of plant fascinated collectors

who flocked to Lynmouth.

Ruth is in town to take a leaf out of the Victorians' book.

In the 19th century, Devon was gripped by a strange epidemic,

with an equally strange name.

Pterodomania had taken hold of the town.

People were roaming the coastal paths wide-eyed with green fingers.

Devon was in the throes of fern fever.

We take these garden favourites for granted.

But, surprisingly, 150 years ago, fern mania

blossomed into an obsession for genteel Victorian ladies.

Fanatics grew ferns in glass cabinets,

and nurseries dedicated to the plants sprang up.

But the real action was in the wild, warm climate of these Devon cliffs.

A generation of young women was drawn to this land of the ferns.

Sowing the seeds of this growing craze

was a resident of nearby Ilfracombe, Charlotte Chanter.

It's not the greatest of pictures, but she was never one

for sitting still to have her portrait taken, and it was her book,

Ferny Combes, that really inspired a legion of followers to abandon

the regular tourist track, and go on the path of fern enlightenment.

Published in 1856, this slim volume spurred ladies on to leave

their drawing rooms and walk this coast, fern collecting.

Why were Victorians so fond of fronds?

Author Sarah Whittingham is sharing her wisdom.

The Victorian age was the heyday of the amateur naturalist.

Fern-gathering parties were usually of mixed sexes,

and as Punch said, "The rarest species usually grow

"in the least frequented spots," so you and your companion can

disappear off into the hedgerow or round the corner...

-Far away from the chaperone.

-Exactly. Exactly.

I love this picture because

she's got caught in the brambles

and she's looking up really peeved at these two, and she's saying,

"Please can you identify this fern for me?"

And she's like, "I can't get loose here!"

Well, they're too busy flirting to take any notice of her.

Ferns and flirting again, yes, definitely.

This passionate pursuit was also caught up with sexual politics.

Botany in particular was very fashionable among women.

It was one of those areas

where you were allowed to be clever, wasn't it?

Exactly. Many women were writers of books on ferns,

and they were many of the early collectors.

The freedom to study ferns helped foster early feminism

as women strode out on their own.

We're taking a walk in their shoes...

..and their skirts.

Time to hitch up our petticoats and start fern foraging.

Dressed for action,

we are well-equipped to collect our quarry.

You'd bring your baskets,

a nice, narrow, long fern trowel to really get in there

among the rocks and dig up a fern specimen.

And if it's nice and small,

you can put it in your vasculum, which is a tin collecting case.

If you're a rather unprincipled botanist,

you might be digging up vast quantities of fern.

There was one writer who actually

had to employ a man with a cart to take them home.

That's dedication and despoliation of the countryside.

I'm afraid so, yes.

For the dedicated fern hunter,

the passion didn't stop on the coastal path.

The fern lover could literally fill their home with ferns.

Not just real ones, but they could have images of ferns

from carpets to chamber pots.

-Teapot, too, covered in ferns.

-Teapot's lovely.

Custard creams. They're a bit of a sight.

Custard creams were invented around 1908,

and the pattern on them represents fern crosiers,

because ferns were so popular at the time.

And we've got a violinist here.

-I mean, this isn't fern music, as well, is it?

-It is, it is.

This is the Fern Waltz. You can have the Ferns Polka, as well.

I'm liking it. It is addictive, isn't it?

-You catching fern fever?

-I think I might be.

-Good!

But off-the-shelf souvenirs

wouldn't satisfy the really serious collector.

The damp, salty sea cliffs of Devon concealed the much sought-after

sea spleenwort.

It drove fern obsessives to extraordinary lengths.

One young fern hunter describes taking a 15ft bamboo pole

and tying a knife on the end, trying to gather her sea spleenwort.

Cutting-edge technology.

Locals took advantage of collectors, telling them it was too dangerous

to scale cliffs, but for a fee, they'd do it for them.

So it is I find myself clambering over the rocks at Lee Bay

with a lad to carry my ladder.

And botanist Maxine Putnam is my expert sea spleenwort spotter.

You do need sharp eyes, don't you?

So, we're looking for a tiny little fern somewhere in the spray zone.

There's some hart's tongue in the corners.

Is this the sort of area we should be looking?

This is the sort of place where the bracken grows well. It's drier.

I think we need to look for somewhere damper

to find the crevices where the sea spleenwort would grow.

RUTH LAUGHS

Look, just there, see? Can you see there? Is that something?

Come on, you're young and fit. Come on.

-There's something there, look.

-Oh!

-The colour is completely different from the grasses.

-Yes.

-It really is, isn't it?

-Fantastic.

-Isn't that pretty?

That's lovely. Look at that. That's a sea spleenwort.

There's little bits of it all over, actually, there and there.

There's lots of little bits. That is so pretty.

-It's too pretty to pick it, isn't it?

-Let's have a look on the back.

Yes, it's fertile, look. There are the spores.

-They like salt spray?

-It does, yes. When the Atlantic gales come in,

the spray zone is probably significant here.

Other ferns really can't handle that amount of salt.

No, it's the only one.

The success of the lady collectors in stripping the cliffs bare

would ultimately signal the end of their obsession.

As the Victorian era ended, fern-mania began to unravel.

In 1904, it became a crime in certain parts of Devon

to uproot or destroy a fern.

But it took a cataclysmic event to finally quell fern fever.

The arrival of the First World War distracted collectors

from the fripperies of ferns,

and by the time it ended, women and feminism had moved on.

We're walking around the British Isles,

seeking out secret paths to hidden treasures.

I'm exploring the most isolated edge of our mainland, Cape Wrath.

On this ragged fringe, you're free to roam as you see fit,

as long as it's on foot.

Cape Wrath's name is from the Old Norse for turning point.

The Vikings navigated by it.

The lighthouse is now home to just two permanent residents,

an intrepid couple eking out a living.

-How you doing?

-Are you John?

-Yeah.

-How do you do? I'm Nick.

-Very nice to meet you.

-Did you have a nice walk?

Yeah, well, I'm just completely gobsmacked because I remember this

as a solitary lighthouse, but to find a real cafe operating

in what must be the remote headland in Britain is a...

Yeah, it's quite well patronised with the tourists.

-They're quite glad to see it.

-NICK LAUGHS

-I bet they are!

-It can get quite harsh out here.

-Can we have a look outside and around the cafe?

-Yeah.

Surprisingly, this far-flung spot had a brief brush with fame.

It started when John's wife Kay went for supplies,

but the weather closed in.

-The nearest supermarket is 130 miles away.

-130 miles!

Inverness for a major supermarket.

A couple of Christmases ago, Kay was off to get the Christmas shopping

-and couldn't get back for five weeks. She got stranded.

-Five weeks!

-Stranded in Durness.

-It made all the papers, things like this.

-That's hilarious.

"I popped out to buy a turkey on December 19th,

-"and I've still not got home."

-HE LAUGHS

You were on your own suddenly?

Yeah. It's OK, we've got army rations and stuff put by,

so we can last for months up here without contact.

-So, you had a Christmas on army rations?

-Yeah.

I'm especially pleased to meet John

because we share a family connection - my dad.

Dad, who's in his 80s,

met John recently on his own Cape Wrath expedition.

-He told me all about it.

-Yeah, it was nice to see him.

Just after Christmas and a blizzard kind of came in.

He said he was looking around in one of your outhouses

for somewhere to lie down and go to sleep, and you found him doing it.

Yeah, fished him out and brought him in.

-Still talks about it.

-Yeah, I'm glad he does.

My dad brought me here in 1972 when I was 18.

It was a vicious January day,

the lighthouse keepers had seen us from a long way off,

and they met us at the door with mugs of tea.

-It's stayed in my memory ever since.

-That's quite surreal.

It's a very special place. Really special place.

This rugged coast is a real favourite in our family.

Knowing its moods with daylight fading,

I'm grateful for John's offer of shelter.

Like father, like son, I'm bedding down.

Basic, but very welcome.

WIND WHISTLES

We're searching for hidden treasures on shoreline tracks.

In Cardiff, you can join the coast path that's the wonder of Wales.

When the Welsh created a continuous path

around their entire coastline, it was a world's first.

And even when the sea blocks the way at Barmouth,

they walk across the rail bridge.

There's 870 miles to tread,

but some still prefer a precarious path of their own making.

One such route lies on the edge of Anglesey.

The cliffs of Gogarth are not for the faint-hearted,

but Andy Torbet is about to savour a climber's treasure.

I do enjoy making life a little bit tougher for myself.

And over that edge is a secret path

that's haunted my imagination for years.

Only seasoned climbers know

that below is a seemingly-impossible route,

hidden from view.

A route made famous by this fabled photograph.

It captures a classic moment in climbing history.

It's a moment of great drama -

a new path being put up on the cliff face.

The photo, with the wave leaping upwards,

as if to claim the two tiny figures,

earned the climb classic status.

The climbers are Dave Pearce and Ed Drummond,

young upstarts who, in 1968, dared to brave the unknown.

Some said it couldn't be done, but they made it to the top,

and because of that, they got to name this climb,

and they christened it A Dream Of White Horses,

in honour of the white-crested crashing waves

that beat the cliff beneath them.

I've dreamt of the Dream Of White Horses for years now.

Steve Long will be leading our attempt.

What have I let myself in for?

Let's sit down and have a look.

What do you think?

-It's a pretty intimidating bit of rock.

-It's amazing, isn't it?

So, what happens if I come off?

You've got big problems because you're just hanging above the sea.

Time to get on with it.

And I'm wearing a head cam,

which means you get to see what I see.

Scary, isn't it?

This big bubbling cauldron of white water at the bottom

just adds to the atmosphere.

That's the rope down, that's us completely committed,

and the only way out now is that way.

The first pitch is the hardest.

Hand and footholds are rare and small,

route finding is hard.

And just when I need to concentrate, we've got an audience -

a man who knows the secrets of the Dream of White Horses route

better than most.

Leo Dickinson took the famous photo of the original ascent back in 1968.

As I was wandering down these cliffs here,

I suddenly had this feeling that something extraordinary

was going to happen.

And I sat more or less here, and with a camera with a 28mm lens,

I looked over my shoulder,

and suddenly, this great white wave seemed to go up.

It seemed to last for seconds, it probably didn't,

and I just took a picture.

It was a one-chance shot.

For Leo, this was the start of a successful career

as an adventure photographer

which took him all around the world,

but no picture's been as influential

as the one on the Gogarth cliffs.

Leo's primed to recapture his momentous photograph, and so are we.

Right now, Andy is on one of the most exposed bits of rock

in Britain, so he's probably thinking,

"What on earth am I doing here?"

I've made it over pitch one.

Now, for the second, where the path's supposedly easier to follow.

That's not how it looks to me.

I still can't see an obvious, easy line out.

I know, and that's the great thing about this route - you know,

the more committed you get,

the more you start to wish you hadn't.

Steve forges ahead using a natural fault line in the cliff face.

Left alone here, this place is starting to play on my mind.

You can see why the climb gets its name -

that thunderous roar and wave beneath me.

It makes it more exposed, more intimidating, more scary.

I've no idea how Ed Drummond and Dave Pearce

navigated this blind for the very first time.

After Ed and Dave had gone across this great traverse,

they were quite tense because they really didn't know

what they were getting into,

and the sting in the tail is towards the end.

And it's that sting in the tail that I'm heading for now.

Dream's final pitch is not as technically difficult

as some of the earlier climbing, but it's far more intimidating.

Can't see where you're going.

Oh, yes.

The path is hard to find,

but it takes you to a place like no other...

..a terrifying overhang suspended 60m over the ocean.

Then, as you wrestle with the route,

suddenly, A Dream Of White Horses releases you.

-Oh, ho-ho!

-Nice, put it there. Well done.

-That's superb.

-Brilliant.

To prove our dream was real,

has Leo captured a picture to compare with his original 1968 shot?

Hi, guys. Did you enjoy it?

-Awesome.

-Yeah?

I've been trying hard to emulate that picture I took.

I don't think I've improved on it.

We didn't have the magical moment today.

Well, Leo might not think it's up to scratch,

but I'll never forget this day.

That makes this photograph even more special for me.

Andy's not the only one out on a limb.

We're seeking out our stunning shoreline paths.

I'm on the edge for Britain's wildest coastal walk

at Cape Wrath.

My path's taking me to the glorious beach at Sandwood Bay,

but right now, there's a peat bog in my way.

And that's not all.

It's quite dramatic, the great chasm blocking the route

south along the coast.

I'm not sure I'm going to get across this.

That's, uh...that's pretty vertical there.

It's never a good idea to down-climb a cliff

with a backpack on your back, and no rope,

so I'm looking for a way down that's less steep.

The thing is, what you have to do is follow the river upstream

until you find a less steep bit.

Now, that might do. Let's have a look.

The going's tough.

It's clear I'm not going to make it to Sandwood Bay tonight.

I need to find shelter.

In wild Cape Wrath, the only option for a roof over your head

is to make for one of the isolated bothies.

Today, the bothies are left open for walkers,

but originally, they were built for shepherds,

and until 20 years ago, this bothy had a remarkable resident.

This was the home of the man known as The Hermit Of The Highlands,

James McRory Smith,

who lived here for 30 years totally alone.

Wow, this is really, really cosy.

It's a wild, windy evening out there,

and it's completely still in here. And here's a picture of James.

That's a very kindly face in the photograph,

quite weather-beaten.

And this was his sanctuary, his little den.

Look over here, there's a Viking longship sailing out of the sea.

Perhaps, more interesting, are the things you can't see here.

There are no electrical sockets, there are no lights,

there's not even a lavatory in here,

or running water - you have to use the river outside.

It's a stone shell that James turned into a home.

There's parts of me that would quite like to, uh,

spend a while living here, find out what it's like.

Not like James. Not for 30 years. That's pretty extreme.

But I wouldn't mind trying a year maybe.

Unfortunately, I've only got one night,

so I'd best try and make myself at home.

Over the years, James captured the imagination of the press.

He became something of a local celebrity.

The people who met James came away with a much more intimate,

touching picture of this man who lived alone.

Here's an angler who called by in the 1970s.

He says, "Despite his isolation,

"he seemed to be remarkably well-informed

"on what was happening in the outside world.

"He said he'd read a lot.

"I asked him how he got hold of all the books and magazines,

"and he said, 'Most were left by visitors. All were read.'

"Some, he read again. Others ended up on the fire."

I don't think James was a hermit at all.

He relished solitude,

but he also enjoyed the company of his fellow human beings.

Tomorrow, my coastal treasure awaits at the end of the path.

Tonight, though, there's time to think of those

who've tramped this way before me.

Our rich past encourages walkers to take in the history

around our isles.

But imagine one short coastal path

that could encompass the whole timeline of our past.

Surprisingly, such a secret path can be found - on little Lundy.

Mark is taking an epic trail on a tiny scale.

Lundy Island - a wilderness where nature thrives.

Most people come to Lundy to admire the marine life and the wildlife,

but to me, as an archaeologist,

the real treasure lies beneath the soil.

I'm going to take you on a ten-mile coastal walk

that's going to take 10,000 years to complete.

Bizarrely, in this single shed, there's evidence of many waves

of people who tried to make Lundy home,

objects stretching back millennia.

This is a kind of Aladdin's cave of treasures.

Horseshoe, gaming piece,

and that could be medieval, actually.

Clay pipe fragments there,

a rotary quern stone that's probably Roman, actually.

Ooh, gosh, it's heavy.

Oh, look, look, here's the archaeology.

Some flints, worked pebbles,

8,000-10,000 years old, something like that.

Bits of old granite, look at it.

HE CHUCKLES

Why is there a propeller here?

This treasure can take me back in time.

I'm plotting a secret path linking where the objects were discovered.

These random artefacts can help me tell the story of mankind,

my journey around the island.

My path across Lundy will take me on a hike

through 10,000 years of history,

beginning in the Stone Age.

This is it,

where all those Mesolithic and Neolithic flints were found.

Remarkably, these fields concealed Stone Age secrets.

The earliest folk on Lundy fashioned flint into cutting tools.

This is an extraordinary microlith, crude from basically beach pebbles.

It's fantastic to see where they were actually found.

A piece of pottery in the attic provides a clue

to more advanced technology.

We're now in search of the Bronze Age.

This is it. Isn't that amazing?

This is a little Bronze Age hut.

You can see the stone walls round on there, both sides.

It probably would have had a turf roof on top of us here

supported by a central post, and there's a doorway.

A room with a view, if you like.

Even hardy Bronze Age settlers may only have been seasonal visitors,

harsh winters forcing them back to the mainland.

I'm leaving the exposed north, heading south

fast-forwarding 2,000 years into civilisation...

..the Romans!

In the attic was a Roman quern stone used to grind grain for bread.

Somewhere here, our quern stone was found

in the middle of what's probably a Celtic monastery.

Around AD 500, the monks were probably using the grindstone

the Romans had left behind.

Nothing goes to waste on Lundy.

My time traveller's path now takes me to the 13th century and beyond.

The castle was commissioned in 1243 by Henry III.

It was re-fortified successively until the 18th century.

However, excavations here in the parade ground

revealed lots of objects,

including our gaming board and its counter,

and this clay tobacco pipe from the Civil War.

Heading up the island's east coast, I march onwards in time.

Granite in the attic leads me on a path of short-lived folly.

The year is 1863, and we've reached the Industrial Revolution.

The Lundy Granite Company

reckoned they had 50 million tonnes of the stuff.

This is what the Victorian quarry must have looked like at its heyday.

But the management focused more on boozing than quarrying.

Just five years after starting up, the works fell silent.

Film cans in the attic are my clue

to the man who would be King of Lundy.

I've reached the 20th century and film footage of islanders.

I'm meeting Derek Green, the manager of Lundy.

-Hello, good to see you.

-Hello. These are the films?

-They are indeed.

-Fantastic.

-Shall we go and have a look?

-Yes, please.

The footage shows a man destined to become boss of the whole place.

Not Derek, but this chap, Martin Coles Harman.

He bought the island in 1925 after visiting as a young lad.

-And that's him?

-And that's him.

In his hat. The press called him the King of Lundy.

Well, they did indeed. That was a media term that was used,

uh, but I didn't hear him denying it very much either.

Lundy's "King" even tried to take on the British monarchy.

In 1929, he dismissed the Post Office from the island,

-and it was because he hated authority.

-Yes.

And he introduced his own stamps.

The currency is in puffins. One puffin is worth one penny.

He also introduced coins because he wanted his own currency.

Puffin on one side?

Yeah, and interestingly, on the other side...

-There he is.

-There he is.

Under Harman's reign, the island finally started to thrive.

Children were born, marriages celebrated,

and Harman introduced exotic animals like peacocks and wallabies.

Harman succeeded in creating his own kingdom.

The outside world would come crashing in.

Remember that propeller in the attic?

But of everything we've seen, this is my favourite bit of Lundy.

It's a frozen moment in time.

In 1941, on the 3rd of March, a German Heinkel bomber

returning from the Irish Sea crash-landed at this spot.

And what we've got is the molten aluminium from the fuselage,

the engine block.

And what's incredible is that nobody has actually

picked up the pieces.

They're still here 70 years later.

Martin Harman, the so-called King of Lundy, died in 1954.

Now, he rests in the land he loved.

As for Lundy, in 1969, the National Trust took it over,

preserving its treasures for all.

Little Lundy's precious artefacts

are a permanent reminder of our island story.

What's incredible is that it's all encapsulated

on this tiny little island.

My own hidden treasure awaits at the end of my secret path

on the northwest tip of Scotland.

I've just caught sight of the great sea stack,

the column of rock that marks the southern end of Sandwood Bay,

the coastal treasure that I'm heading towards.

It's just across this vast expanse of bog and rock.

I told you it was a treasure.

This corner of our island is as close as you can get

to wilderness in mainland Britain.

And, for me, the jewel on this section of the coast

is this place, Sandwood Bay.

But there's something here you won't find anywhere else.

It's to do with the long walk you have to take to get here -

it's the beauty of solitude.