North Rivers with Griff Rhys Jones


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Transcript


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'We are a watery nation.

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'Rivers shape our landscape and they made our history.

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'But today they seem like forgotten highways into the back garden of Britain.

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'This week, I'm crossing from coast to coast.

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'I'll be steering an Olympic medal winning yacht.'

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We've got the main up,

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and Humber Bridge is approaching at great speed.

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'Feeling the force of nature at one of England's grandest country estates.' Aargh!

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'And discovering toxic beauty beneath a great city.'

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That looks like the whole of doom down there!

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'As I explore the working rivers of the north of England.'

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It's five in the morning and we are, at the moment, a few miles off Anglesey.

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We're about to make our way up and into one of the major rivers of Britain

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and we're going to do it on a container ship over there.

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This is one of the biggest ships on the Atlantic,

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the 58,000-tonne Atlantic Conveyor.

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Zero eight zero.

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'I'm going aboard in the company of Jeff Rafferty,

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'whose job it is to pilot the ship safely into the port of Liverpool.'

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-Good morning, sir.

-Morning.

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-We go in the lift and up ten decks.

-Where we meet the master who is steering the boat.

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'The Atlantic Conveyor is carrying 15,000 tonnes of cargo from three different countries.

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'This is the most critical phase of her entire voyage, as we enter the mouth of the Mersey.

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OK.

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The river reaches right out to the sea.

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Its waters create treacherous sandbanks and as this ship crosses the bar,

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she has just under two feet of water beneath her.

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But for Jeff, the most difficult bit is still to come.

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The lock is 130 feet wide and the ship is 106.

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In simple terms, there's about 12 feet on either side.

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Now I can only see one side.

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We don't really have any brakes either!

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HORN BLOWS

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So we've got a bit of breeze now, Griff, just on the starboard quarter, blowing us off a little bit.

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-There's our mark on the quay there.

-And what will you line it up with?

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There's a stripe painted on the side of this ship!

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Oh, I can see the stripe. Do you want me to tell you when it's there?

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You need a lot of loose change to park here.

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The conveyor is charged by the foot and by the hour.

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Overstaying your welcome can be an expensive business.

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-Ease right down now, she's got about ten metres to go.

-Phew!

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Yes, OK, thank you.

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So there we are. Dead on time, absolutely snug in the lock.

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We are still two miles from the harbour that was once one of the most important in the world.

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But it's as far as this mammoth ship needs to go.

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Well, a very neat job of getting us here, Jeffrey, I must say!

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Thank you very much. 10 o'clock tonight she'll be leaving here for Halifax.

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'Once, cargo ships would have gone further into the Mersey itself and unloaded over a period of weeks.

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'Now, thanks to the clever concept of containerization, everything is done in a matter of hours.

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'This port actually handles more cargo than the old docks ever did.

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'40 million tonnes a year.

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'Does this mean that the working life of the rivers of the north is finished?

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'To find out, I'm going to Manchester, across the Pennines,

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'following the furious Derwent to the Trent

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'and effectively taking what was once one of the most important short cuts in Britain

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'to the port of Hull on the east coast.

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'But before I leave Liverpool, I want to ask engineer Dave Sandman

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'about another aspect of the working life of this river.'

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For a long time, the Mersey was not just a working river in terms of being a transportation river

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and there were lots of ships going up and down it, it was a very useful drain.

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It was just an open sewer, basically.

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You just pull the lever and this is where it came to, there was nothing at all that stopped it.

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Any waste, at all, throw it in the river.

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'Dave is part of a 25 year campaign dedicated to cleaning up the Mersey.

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'In fact, he's now so confident of its success,

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'he's invited me to join him in one of his favourite sporting pastimes.'

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It doesn't look sort of sparkling, does it?

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It's not your Mediterranean, I'll give you that!

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We're going for a swim.

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-How many times have you swum across this river Dave?

-I've done it about nine or ten times now.

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-Right the way across?

-Right the way across.

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-Rain or shine.

-And how long does it take you?

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Between sort of 24 minutes, 40 minutes, depending on the tide and how rough it is.

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Even the best of swimmers can get swept up the river so to speak.

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Is it cold?

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It's cool. 15, 16 degrees maybe. I've got a special thermal cap for you.

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How marvellous! One part of my... one part of my body will be reasonably warm. What a good idea.

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Actually, the head is where you lose all the heat, don't you?

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-Honorary cap.

-Thank you. I'm going to stick this on now.

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That means we can see you when you're drowning!

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Most people that you've swum with have made it OK, have they?

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There's a few that haven't. There's some that have to be taken out.

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Sometimes they get motion sickness.

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The sea's moving around and one thing and another,

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or the cold will get them, they'll take a little too long to get across.

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Really? And the cold gets them.

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-Got to put some Vaseline on just to stop things chafing and...

-Just to stop things chafing.

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Five million people live in the catchment area.

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They used to throw their sewage into this river directly.

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But it's not just that, it's the bleach and the pesticides, persistent organic contaminants.

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There are things called endocrine disrupters,

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which come from plastics, which change the sex of fish.

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50 years ago, if you jumped into this river, you were basically jumping into a lake of poison

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and the only place you were going was to hospital.

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-Take me to the water!

-Follow me.

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'All the way across means between Monks Ferry at Birkenhead and the Albert Dock.

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'That's just over a mile.

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'A powerful swell, water the colour of a dead rat,

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'and three safety boats only makes it even more terrifying.'

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Aargh!

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I'm trying...

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to get used...

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to this, um...

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..coldness.

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Some big ships coming down, aren't there?

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'We've got to get across before the tide turns and washes us out to sea like any other rubbish.

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'And as my body finally accepts the cold and lets me swim a little,

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'here comes another danger that Dave forgot to mention.

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'And it doesn't look like it's going to give way to pedestrians.'

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The first thing we encounter on our attempt to swim across the Mersey,

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is the biggest...

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-Yes?

-..tanker...

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I've ever seen!

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'Under instructions from the Harbour Master, it is unfortunately time to vacate the area.'

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We've had to give up. Very busy river.

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There are lots of things coming and going.

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Ferries, tankers, lifeboats, coastguard, cruise ships.

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It's a difficult thing to point out to them, "Look out, we're trying to swim across the Mersey."

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LAUGHTER

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Did you get a taste of the lovely Mersey?

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Yeah, yeah, yeah! I swallowed enough of it to get the idea. Yeuch!

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'I've had a close encounter with an interesting fact -

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'the docks may have moved away, but plenty of ships still use this river.

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'Liverpool was originally an important dock because the cargo boats couldn't get further inland.

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'The upper Mersey is shallow and treacherous.

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'Or it was, until they built a little detour called the Manchester Ship Canal.'

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The canal was built in order to be able to open a port in Manchester,

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because the river itself was totally unreliable

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for taking boats of this size, or in fact much smaller than this.

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And now things which are over 170 feet in length

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can easily get all the way to Manchester.

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'Completed in 1894, the canal is a highly efficient artificial river.

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'A stark contrast to the meandering, tidal Mersey at its side.

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'And it runs all the way to the old industrial heart of Manchester at Salford Quays.

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'Manchester, the world's first and principal industrial city,

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'owes its importance to a confluence of rivers and waterways,

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'although today's inhabitants may not be aware of their existence.'

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There are quite a lot of other rivers that run through Manchester than we actually see.

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Have you heard of the Croal?

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I've not heard of that one.

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-The Glaze? Have you heard of the Glaze?

-No.

-No? Heard of the Goyt?

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-No.

-The Spodden? Have you heard of the Spodden?

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No, no.

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-Have you heard of the Etherow?

-The who?

-The Etherow.

-No!

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'Where are they all? These rivers once built Manchester's wealth.

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'Rushing out of the nearby Pennines,

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'they drove the original wool and linen mills, and ushered in king cotton.'

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When that textile industry turned to another source of power,

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the steam engine and coal, then these rivers became redundant.

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They were tuned into sewers, drains, waste disposal ditches.

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In fact, the Irwell here grew by 5cm every year

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because of the amount of rubbish that was simply dumped in it.

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If I want to find out more about these rivers, I have to go where they went,

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which is underground.

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'Manchester's rivers are still at work.

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'They're kept flowing by the Environment Agency.

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'Mark Whittaker heads a specialist team which maintains 7,000 culverts and a multitude of confined spaces,

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'pump wells and chambers all across the north west.'

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-Hello, pleased to meet you.

-I'm Mark Whittaker.

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Ah! I'm just looking around, this is extraordinary.

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This looks like we're involved in some major operation.

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We are because the space we're going to is classed as a high risk activity.

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'Moston Brook provides a valuable function as a flood overflow.

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'But it has also been contaminated by more dangerous industrial and sewer waste.

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'So I have to be put into a fully sealed dry suit.'

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-Oh, yes, I'm still a bit Michelin man, I've got air in my...

-If you bend down...

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That was a very attractive experience. As I sat down, a great sort of rubbery fart came up.

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And already, look, we've got bicycle wheels, we've got every conceivable form of rubbish down here already.

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It stinks.

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'Not only is it pitch black, but the ground underfoot is treacherous,

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'with rocks, rubble and dangerous waste.

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'Underground is a world of chemical beauty.

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'The legacy of heavy industry above ground has leaked through the topsoil,

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'concentrating toxins here, in the darkness.'

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The water itself can be pretty hazardous, can it? There are bad diseases?

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There is a disease to watch, given by rats, called Weil's disease.

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That's a disease which simply comes from rats' urine, is it?

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Exactly. One of our colleagues got contaminated from Weil's disease and he was off work for four months.

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It's a serious disease and you can actually die from it.

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-If I were to fall over into this water, what should I do?

-Stand up straight away.

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Any residues of water on your face, we need to leave straight away, get you washed off.

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Because there's a good chance it could get into your tear ducts, through your mouth, up your nose.

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-So you need to get out, get washed off.

-I'd better keep my footing, hadn't I?

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'It looks strangely beautiful, but chemical deposits like this can poison and kill.

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'And crumbling them depletes the oxygen in the air.'

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-It's quite deep in here. Watch your feet.

-Yeah.

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Yeah, I'm all right.

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Aah!

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-You got wet?

-No, no. No, I haven't.

-You all right?

-Yeah, I'm all right.

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-Did you hurt yourself?

-Not really, no, I don't think I've cut anything.

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-Just catch your breath.

-I just tripped over on these footings under floor.

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The torch has gone, but, luckily, I think all this has held, just gone up my glove a bit.

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It's just impossible.

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'The difficult conditions sadly obscure the real wonder of these lost working rivers,

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'the legacy of the men who built them, the Victorian engineers.'

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-And what is this?

-Well, this, Griff, is a sluice gate.

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So what happens is when we close that, the water builds up, cascades over the side,

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there's another 60 foot drop and the culvert carries on elsewhere.

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-60 foot drop!

-60 foot drop.

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That looks like the hole of doom down there!

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And you go down just because things have gone down them and plugged them up?

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-Yes.

-Your job here, you're like the sort of the guardians of the underworld for Manchester.

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We are, yes, it's what we get out of bed for in the mornings, it's a good job.

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Our 200-metre trip has taken over two hours.

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Luckily our journey back to the surface will be a bit quicker.

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OK, winch out!

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Now I'm going up...

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..in a rather straight forward way.

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Out, as it were, of the underworld.

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Leaving the smell,

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the flies,

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the gurgling water, and Mark behind.

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-Bye!

-Bye-bye.

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'We may have hidden some rivers, turning them into a vision of Hades,

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'but we've created others which feel more like a garden of Eden.

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'Manchester is enveloped in a network of small canals.

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'Originally built in the 18th and 19th centuries as a cheap way to transport industrial goods,

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'they are working on, but today as a waterborne playground for boaty folk.'

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Two little ducks just squeezed through between the boats, taking their opportunity.

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Two tiny little ducks making their way through.

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Oh, there's one - whoops.

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Almost everything about this man-made network of rivers

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is utterly, utterly satisfying.

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I think it's partly because it is man-made, because you can still see

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the marks of the chisels on every block of stone that was put here.

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It was at the very beginning of the industrial age so the whole thing is

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an act of craftsmanship and I think partly because it has a sense of dignity

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and propriety and fitness for purpose that comes from the time it was built,

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the end of the 18th century. They built it to last.

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'In those days it was three times cheaper to transport goods by water than by land.

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'A madness for canal building swept the nation.

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'A little bit of that mania seems to remain, albeit in gentler form.

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'I'm hitching a lift with Chris Leah on this next leg of my trip.

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'He'll take me from the outskirts of Manchester

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'and out onto the Huddersfield Narrow Canal, as I head up towards the Pennines.'

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-If you pull that lever there...

-Yeah, like that?

-Yeah.

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..and rotate that in an anti-clockwise direction.

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Push your tiller over and give her a bit of revs.

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I've just realised I'm on the wrong side of my tiller here.

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-Yeah, don't do that.

-Whoa.

-The thing is to stay in the...

-Stand in the step.

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That's it! And then you don't get pushed off by the tiller.

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'Chris's family skippered horse-drawn narrow boats in the 19th Century.

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'His boat, Forget Me Not, still works the canals, collecting scrap.'

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So, Chris, what sort of speed do you expect to move around the countryside in a narrow boat?

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-The speed limit is four miles an hour on most canals.

-Is it?

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But on most canals you'd be lucky to reach four miles an hour.

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People think if they put more and more power on, they're going faster,

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and they're not. When people are making loads of wash, they're not going much faster than 3 mph.

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'The canal engineers, skippers and navvies worked at the cutting edge of technology.

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'4,500 miles of working waterways connected the great industrial centres of England.'

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All the way along here

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we've passed the remnants

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of an industrial complex,

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mill after mill after mill, all abandoned.

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Gosh!

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Look at that.

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Like a cork in a bottle.

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'At the height of the canal boom, no obstacle seemed too big.

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'To connect Manchester with West Yorkshire,

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'engineers drove the Huddersfield Narrow Canal straight through the Pennines.'

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Come on, hurry up!

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'So I could carry on by canal under the Pennines.

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'But I'm not going to take its tunnels and bridges,

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'instead I'm going to make a detour to see another way in which water has worked for man.'

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-Cheerio, then.

-See ya! Have a good trip.

-Thank you.

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Of course, water down there in a canal is a rather sluggish entity.

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If I want to encounter water as a living, powerful, working force,

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then I have to go up.

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'I'm going to leave the industrial northwest of England,

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'cross the Peaks and discover other ingenious ways in which rivers have been harnessed.

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'I'm looking for what Daniel Defoe called "a terrible river,

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' "a frightful creature when the hills load her current with water."

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'I'm looking for the River Derwent.

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'And it all starts in the mossy bogs of the mountain moors.'

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There we are! There's the Derwent, looking nicely furious today.

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The Derwent is only 50 miles long until it reaches the Trent

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and it's a gorgeous rural river celebrated in poems.

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'But it's been fully employed throughout its history.

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'16 miles further downstream sits the Duke of Devonshire's palatial home, Chatsworth House.

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'Even here, the river has to earn its keep.

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'For centuries, Chatsworth has had a very special working relationship with the Derwent

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'and the landscape that surrounds it.

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'I'm hoping to discover exactly how, as a guest of the duke and duchess.'

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-Welcome, very nice to see you.

-Very nice to be here.

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'Yes, lovely, in fact, because I'll be sleeping in the Sabine Suite,

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'Chatsworth's version of the spare bedroom.'

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Fantastic is a word that I use far too often, but this is fantastical!

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It's the sort of room where I'm going to feel embarrassed to get undressed.

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I don't think my own naked body will live up to the naked bodies that I'm surrounded by,

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painted on all sides.

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And I have a terrific view.

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Look at that,

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there's the Derwent.

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And I'm walking from one mythical representation here in the room, painted mythology,

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to another mythological representation out in front of me,

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again a completely artificial creation.

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It just shows what God would do if only he had the money.

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With their wealth, the Chatsworth dukes could afford home improvements on the monumental scale.

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These are three pictures going this way of the development of the house

0:24:390:24:43

and its relationship with the river because this bridge is not the bridge I crossed, that's gone.

0:24:430:24:48

The river was completely different, much straighter and more of a ditch,

0:24:480:24:52

and a working river with a big weir and a mill feeding into what were essentially the back gardens.

0:24:520:24:58

And then along came Capability Brown and he cleared away all of the gardens in front of it.

0:24:580:25:05

They moved the bridge right up to here, made it a more rustic affair,

0:25:050:25:10

and they opened up the landscape to make it look more natural, but in fact it's artificial.

0:25:100:25:17

The river was dammed in order to get wider

0:25:170:25:19

and the course of the Derwent was shifted

0:25:190:25:22

so that it looked...

0:25:220:25:25

more...beautiful.

0:25:250:25:29

And today, when they did a survey,

0:25:290:25:32

they asked people what they most liked about Chatsworth,

0:25:320:25:36

most people say that it's the setting in the landscape

0:25:360:25:40

except that the landscape, which is made to look like natural river scenery,

0:25:400:25:46

is in fact a fantasy river scenery.

0:25:460:25:49

'Water is in fact central to Chatsworth.

0:25:520:25:56

'Successive dukes have made great use of this liquid resource

0:25:560:25:59

'that rolls off the moors and through their back garden.

0:25:590:26:03

'Chatsworth even has its own spring which supplies the house and restaurants.

0:26:030:26:08

'Both the Duke and myself drink a lot of the stuff.

0:26:110:26:13

'We consider ourselves bottled water aficionados.

0:26:130:26:17

'Now we're going to find out how much we really know.

0:26:170:26:22

'Jonathan, our water sommelier, is going to test our geological palates.'

0:26:250:26:31

Have a slurp of that.

0:26:310:26:33

'On its journey from earth to surface,

0:26:330:26:36

'spring water filters through bedrock, which helps give the water a flavour.'

0:26:360:26:41

And then we've got our second water here.

0:26:410:26:44

-Hard pressed to tell any difference.

-As near as damn it identical.

0:26:490:26:52

If you swapped them, I don't think I'd be able to tell the difference between them,

0:26:520:26:56

but they're both very nice and wet.

0:26:560:26:58

Well, I think that's a little...

0:26:580:27:00

this is a rather weird idea, but I think that's a little flatter than that one.

0:27:000:27:05

That is to say that first water we drank seems to me to be... tarter.

0:27:050:27:11

First one was bottled near Balmoral. It comes through granite and the pH is quite low,

0:27:110:27:17

which means it tastes quite acid, so you were absolutely right.

0:27:170:27:20

The second one comes from just down the road from here, Buxton.

0:27:200:27:23

There you're looking at a more alkaline water, so it tastes much less sharp.

0:27:230:27:27

-That's come through limestone.

-And this one's come through granite.

0:27:270:27:30

That has an extremely strong chemical taste.

0:27:370:27:41

That is pure H2O.

0:27:410:27:43

It's for batteries and steam irons. This is water that they've stripped everything out of.

0:27:430:27:51

Everyone says, "Ah, well, you know, all waters taste the same..."

0:27:510:27:56

But if they didn't have something in them, they'd taste like this.

0:27:560:27:58

I'd have to say that against all the odds I thought that was quite nice

0:27:580:28:02

so I should put that on order at my wine merchants.

0:28:020:28:06

I should say, "I'll have some of your finest sparkling water

0:28:060:28:09

"and send up some top-up de-ionised water for steam irons and batteries, whilst you're at it, as well."

0:28:090:28:16

'Chatsworth also boasts 27 baths, 55 wash-hand basins,

0:28:190:28:25

'29 sinks, six wash-ups and 56 lavatories,

0:28:250:28:29

'which, after a day's water tasting, is a useful statistic.'

0:28:290:28:34

One of the most demanding and mystifying elements

0:28:340:28:37

of any visit to a country house is undoubtedly the plumbing.

0:28:370:28:42

In this case, earlier, when I used the loo,

0:28:420:28:46

I found the business of flushing it extremely complicated indeed.

0:28:460:28:50

I worked out that this was the handle that releases what I need.

0:28:500:28:55

TOILET DOESN'T FLUSH

0:28:550:28:57

But...

0:28:570:28:58

RUMBLING

0:29:000:29:03

TOILET FLUSHES

0:29:030:29:05

Dramatic, isn't it?

0:29:090:29:11

And that's because... that water is coming...

0:29:110:29:16

from about five miles away... on the east moor,

0:29:160:29:22

and the process that it comes here is one of the miracles of Chatsworth.

0:29:220:29:27

And tomorrow, I'm going to go and see how it works.

0:29:300:29:34

'The source of Chatsworth's spring water is a sandstone ridge high above the house.

0:29:460:29:52

'Here, three great lakes store water which is put to ingenious uses.'

0:29:520:29:57

All the water is used several times on its journey

0:29:570:30:01

from here to the river.

0:30:010:30:03

'The biggest of these lakes is called the Emperor,'

0:30:030:30:06

built by the 19th century master architect, Joseph Paxton.

0:30:060:30:11

There are six fountains at Chatsworth, but the eight-acre Emperor Lake

0:30:110:30:16

feeds the daddy of them all -

0:30:160:30:18

what was once the highest fountain in the world, powered purely by gravity.

0:30:180:30:23

How high up are we here?

0:30:230:30:26

381 feet above the actual canal pond where

0:30:260:30:31

the Emperor fountain sits.

0:30:310:30:33

-The pressure from this lake shoots down that pipe.

-For half a mile.

0:30:330:30:36

It emerges through a four-inch jet.

0:30:360:30:40

How high does it pressurise the fountain to go?

0:30:400:30:43

267 feet in height, which is 81 metres.

0:30:430:30:46

The spray from it drifts about half a mile.

0:30:460:30:50

It drenches everybody so we've got to be really careful

0:30:500:30:53

whenever we have it on full that visitors don't get drenched.

0:30:530:30:56

Oh, of course! That's one of the things they come here for, if not to be drenched!

0:30:560:31:01

-This here, that's the flow from the lake we've just been at.

-Yeah.

0:31:020:31:06

And this is the magic sluice that opens to take it down the hill.

0:31:060:31:10

-Come on, Griff.

-So I've got to get hold of this, have I?

0:31:100:31:14

Oh, I see. Oh, my God, I can't get...

0:31:140:31:17

HE GRUNTS

0:31:170:31:20

-That's it.

-OK, come on.

0:31:240:31:26

We've got to run down and see it.

0:31:260:31:29

Paxton started work in 1843.

0:31:300:31:32

This is it coming in now.

0:31:340:31:35

-Are we going to be able to chase it?

-Yes, let's go.

0:31:350:31:38

'It seems the duke wanted something more splendid than his waterfall.

0:31:380:31:43

'He wanted something more picturesque than his classical aqueduct.'

0:31:500:31:55

And the water's going to tip... Whoa!

0:31:550:31:57

He even wanted to outshine his baroque cascade.

0:32:060:32:10

In fact, he wanted something so impressive,

0:32:170:32:21

it would drive Tsar Nicholas I of Russia mad with jealousy.

0:32:210:32:26

Each bay is a different length to give this illusion of a babbling brook.

0:32:270:32:31

'Sadly, the Tsar never got to see it.

0:32:310:32:34

'I, on the other hand, one-and-a-half centuries later, get to turn on

0:32:340:32:38

'this marvellous garden ornament.'

0:32:380:32:40

Whoa, whoa. Yes, it is, er... I can hear something.

0:32:400:32:45

HISSING

0:32:450:32:47

Thar she blows!

0:32:540:32:56

Look at that! That is spectacular.

0:33:110:33:15

Paxton made the gardens at Chatsworth the most famous in England,

0:33:150:33:21

by using water and gravity to create pressure.

0:33:210:33:26

This is something the humble miller had been doing for hundreds of years already.

0:33:260:33:31

The 11th century Doomsday Book recorded 5,500 water mills in England.

0:33:330:33:38

That's one mill for every 300 people.

0:33:380:33:41

Just like Paxton's lake, millers built ponds and leats

0:33:430:33:48

with sluice gates, to channel river water and then drop it with the maximum power.

0:33:480:33:53

Now here we are, this is a classic leat.

0:33:550:33:58

It's a tiny channel, seems such a small amount of water,

0:33:580:34:02

but in fact there's a massive amount backed up there

0:34:020:34:05

in order to be led through to service one mill.

0:34:050:34:09

And that mill's been working here for 700 years.

0:34:090:34:13

Stainsby is one of the few working mills left in the country today.

0:34:140:34:19

So there's the big wheel turning by the weight of water, more than anything,

0:34:220:34:27

which is turning that great big wheel there.

0:34:270:34:30

And that is now being transferred, that slow progress,

0:34:300:34:34

to a cog which is whirring around there and turning an axle.

0:34:340:34:40

So, look at this, this is the definition of sustainable power from the water.

0:34:400:34:45

It's turning these massive cogs here, that's being transferred

0:34:450:34:51

to this little cog here, and then taken upstairs, where it's going to be put to use.

0:34:510:34:57

Now, that power is transferred up here

0:35:000:35:04

and used to drive these mill stones here, hugely heavy things,

0:35:040:35:08

but actually, that's not the only thing the power is used for.

0:35:080:35:12

It's a sort of engine that drives other things in the mill.

0:35:120:35:17

And if we're going to make flour, we need some grain.

0:35:170:35:20

'This mill is now run by volunteers, and Mack is going to show me the ropes - or should I say, chains.'

0:35:220:35:29

Here we go, Mack, there's my bag of grain. Where's it going now?

0:35:290:35:32

It's going through these trap doors to the bin floor, the top floor.

0:35:320:35:36

-How are we going to do that?

-We're going to haul it up on this chain.

0:35:360:35:39

-Right-o.

-Pull this cord,

0:35:390:35:41

transfer power from the water wheel to a chain drum on the top floor

0:35:410:35:44

and that will haul this sack up through the floors to the bin floor.

0:35:440:35:48

And the reason that mills are often so tall

0:35:480:35:53

is because they essentially use the system

0:35:530:35:57

of starting the product at the top, as it were,

0:35:570:36:00

-and working its way back down.

-Gravity feeds all the systems,

0:36:000:36:03

to the ground floor again. It's gone through.

0:36:030:36:05

Oh, I see! So what you do, it opens the hatch automatically

0:36:050:36:09

and then it can sit back down on that hatch.

0:36:090:36:12

Yes, that's what a trap door does, it traps it above.

0:36:120:36:14

So the sack can't fall down on top of our heads again.

0:36:140:36:18

-That's right.

-And it's been trapped!

0:36:180:36:20

-Correct.

-By a trap door!

-Exactly.

0:36:200:36:23

-That's why it's called a trap door!

-Yes, exactly.

-I never knew that before, that's terrific!

0:36:230:36:27

'Having hauled the sack up to the top floor by water power,

0:36:270:36:31

'it's then the turn of gravity to send it back down to the hopper.'

0:36:310:36:35

So, Mack, here's our grain.

0:36:480:36:49

That's right, it's come down the sleeve from above.

0:36:490:36:52

You actually need grain in these stones all the time.

0:36:520:36:57

Always. The stones are dressed with a pattern called a harp

0:36:570:37:02

which carries the grain from the eye to the rim, milling it all the time.

0:37:020:37:06

-It's literally shooting it out bit by bit.

-Yes.

0:37:060:37:09

Here is the flour.

0:37:090:37:12

At the birth of the industrial revolution,

0:37:130:37:15

the first factory owners recognised the potential of the water wheel

0:37:150:37:20

and they put it to good use, powering spinning machines in cotton mills.

0:37:200:37:25

They changed the course of the water and of history.

0:37:250:37:29

And it happened here on the banks of the Derwent, ten miles south of Chatsworth, at Cromford.

0:37:290:37:35

# ..builded here

0:37:350:37:38

# Among those dark Satanic mills. #

0:37:380:37:47

When William Blake wrote those words,

0:37:470:37:49

the dark satanic mills he was talking about were water mills,

0:37:490:37:55

and by the end of the century there were 30 cotton mills

0:37:550:38:00

powered by water along this stretch of the valley,

0:38:000:38:04

and the industrial revolution was off.

0:38:040:38:08

Richard Arkwright's cotton mill was just the first wave of mechanisation,

0:38:120:38:17

bursting free of this valley, out across Britain and then the world.

0:38:170:38:22

I'm leaving the Derwent

0:38:240:38:27

to continue my journey along another working river - the Trent.

0:38:270:38:32

The two rivers converge near the town of Shardlow,

0:38:330:38:37

where the Trent gathers size to flow towards my ultimate destination,

0:38:370:38:42

the Humber estuary.

0:38:420:38:43

But first, I'm taking a small detour a few miles up river.

0:38:430:38:48

And now we're on the mighty Trent.

0:39:060:39:08

This is the third longest river in Britain.

0:39:080:39:15

It takes a great sweep

0:39:150:39:18

across the top of England.

0:39:180:39:21

The River Trent really was a massive barrier, and for a hundred years, in the Middle Ages,

0:39:210:39:28

this side of the river was known as citra Trent and that side was known as ultra Trent.

0:39:280:39:33

That side was THIS side of the Trent and the other side was known as the OTHER side.

0:39:330:39:39

Well, I'm going to try and cross now from the other side.

0:39:390:39:43

And I believe

0:39:430:39:45

I'm going to do it by an extremely dangerous method.

0:39:450:39:49

Swarkestone Bridge and its medieval causeway is an extraordinary piece of engineering.

0:39:510:39:58

It has been one of the main routes across the Trent since the 13th century.

0:39:580:40:02

First it snakes its way three quarters of a mile on land,

0:40:020:40:06

across the Trent's boggy flood plain, before finally bridging the river itself.

0:40:060:40:11

I'm going to try to do what people for seven centuries have done,

0:40:110:40:15

and simply walk the footpath along the bridge.

0:40:150:40:21

But it's not as easy as it sounds, and I've enlisted some local assistance.

0:40:210:40:26

They are going to give me some modern pilgrims' protection.

0:40:260:40:29

You'll need to wear one of those for safety's sake.

0:40:290:40:32

There's quite a lot of traffic.

0:40:320:40:34

It is taking in excess of 20,000 vehicles a day.

0:40:340:40:39

It's like the Great Wall of China stretching away there.

0:40:390:40:42

It's a grade-one listed building, it's a scheduled ancient monument

0:40:420:40:45

and if somebody time-travelled from the 14th century, they would recognise it instantly.

0:40:450:40:51

Medieval bridges are amongst our most important national monuments.

0:40:510:40:55

But, unlike other heritage treasures, they still have a hard job to do.

0:40:550:41:00

-It's not a pavement - it's more like a ledge, isn't it?

-Yeah.

0:41:000:41:05

-Oops!

-It's the wing mirrors you've got to watch for.

-Yes, I know!

0:41:050:41:10

-We're lucky to have survived so far.

-We are indeed.

0:41:130:41:16

Aaah! Look out, there's one coming at us at 100 miles an hour.

0:41:160:41:20

Yes, look at that.

0:41:200:41:21

He looks as if he's going to do us damage. Gracious!

0:41:210:41:25

This is obviously the scene of some former accident.

0:41:250:41:28

'People like Barbara think we are asking the bridge to do too much.

0:41:280:41:31

'She's campaigning to preserve Swarkstone before it gets bashed down altogether.'

0:41:310:41:36

-Oh, look out for this one! Whoa!

-Whoa!

0:41:420:41:45

I feel any moment I'm going to topple into the road. Meet my doom.

0:41:470:41:52

'The fabric is in a poor state in places and needs constant maintenance.'

0:41:520:41:56

Here, there's obviously restoration work going on - so there is SOME restoration work.

0:41:560:42:00

Oh, yes.

0:42:000:42:02

Not before time.

0:42:020:42:05

Swarkstone has outlived the Black Death, Bonnie Prince Charlie and two world wars.

0:42:050:42:11

The Historic Buildings Officer for Derbyshire Council thinks the old warrior may be flagging.

0:42:110:42:17

-We are putting quite a lot of trust in medieval stonemasons here, aren't we?

-Indeed, indeed we are.

0:42:170:42:23

Some of it, I think, is not going to stay together for much longer.

0:42:230:42:26

It's unique in England, it's the longest causeway

0:42:260:42:29

of its type in England, and it's been here for 700 years.

0:42:290:42:33

It's got to be absolutely priceless in those terms.

0:42:330:42:35

Maybe you should re-introduce the idea, cos when they built

0:42:350:42:38

this bridge, the ownership of this bridge was quite a lucrative thing.

0:42:380:42:42

Oh, yes, taking tolls. 50 pence for every car that's crossing here now, we'd take in quite a lot of money.

0:42:420:42:47

Just this afternoon would probably pay for this section of wall to be repaired.

0:42:470:42:51

I'll put it to the bosses!

0:42:510:42:53

On the hill, overlooking the causeway,

0:42:530:42:56

I walk straight up another aspect of the medieval transport system.

0:42:560:43:00

This is an original...

0:43:000:43:03

medieval trackway leading away from the bridge.

0:43:030:43:08

And it shows us how rivers effectively...

0:43:080:43:13

influenced not just river transport, but also road transport,

0:43:130:43:17

because, as you can see, it heads straight away from the bridge

0:43:170:43:22

up towards the high ground.

0:43:220:43:26

Most major medieval roads went upwards as quickly as they could, to where they were well drained

0:43:260:43:33

and safer for travellers than boggy, overgrown low roads liable to flooding.

0:43:330:43:39

Which is why I am, perhaps, now walking on the original "high way".

0:43:390:43:44

And from up here, I get an excellent view down the valley.

0:43:460:43:51

Swarkestone Causeway

0:43:510:43:53

crosses a great flood plain carved at the end of the Ice Age,

0:43:530:43:58

when the Trent was a vast and rambling river of meltwater.

0:43:580:44:03

It carried huge amounts of sediment, which today we quarry as gravel.

0:44:030:44:09

That's why gravel pits can be found all along this river plain.

0:44:090:44:14

These pits have become home to a very particular kind of monster.

0:44:140:44:19

'And now I'm after the biggest freshwater fish in Britain.'

0:44:190:44:25

-Hello, Jonny.

-Hello!

-Hello, how are you?

0:44:250:44:29

-How you doing, Griff?

-I'm all right, mate.

0:44:290:44:30

-Nice to see you.

-And you.

-Good stuff.

0:44:300:44:33

I'm joining a company of determined men for whom the elusive carp is the greatest prize of all.

0:44:330:44:38

Landing it can become a little bit of an obsession.

0:44:380:44:43

It's a giant fish pond, is it?

0:44:430:44:46

It's more than a fish pond. It's a very natural environment out there.

0:44:460:44:51

You would think it's stocked with fish, the owners look after it,

0:44:510:44:55

you would think it was very easy to catch. But you could be on here for weeks and weeks

0:44:550:44:59

without catching anything.

0:44:590:45:00

A few years ago, I did 300 nights in one year, trying to catch one fish.

0:45:000:45:05

Really? Did you catch others on the way?

0:45:050:45:07

Um, I caught about three, so...

0:45:070:45:10

-That's a lot of dedication for one fish.

-No, it's madness.

0:45:100:45:14

'Luckily, I may have access to a secret weapon.

0:45:140:45:17

'It's a gourmet chef for carp.

0:45:180:45:22

'Jonny's mate, Gary, makes a fishy delicacy known as a "boilie" to try and get the edge.

0:45:220:45:29

This is Griff, Gary.

0:45:290:45:31

I won't shake hands!

0:45:310:45:33

What you've created is something so strong tasting, they can barely resist it.

0:45:330:45:37

Yeah. We've got eggs, we've got flavours which give the smell and the promise of food.

0:45:370:45:43

There's an intense sweetener to improve the taste,

0:45:430:45:46

like salt improves the taste of fish and chips.

0:45:460:45:49

There's a really creamy flavour, there's a liver flavour.

0:45:490:45:55

And in cooked maize, a vitamin and mineral supplement added,

0:45:550:46:00

into that, also I'm putting what is a bird-food conditioner.

0:46:000:46:04

Makes your canaries shine brighter.

0:46:040:46:06

-Does it?

-Yeah. And then we've got the food source itself,

0:46:060:46:10

which is a reasonably complicated mixture of powders and additives.

0:46:100:46:14

And what does boiling do, then? They like cooked food?

0:46:140:46:18

Yeah, oh, yeah. The better the food you give 'em, the more likely you are of them eating it.

0:46:180:46:23

It's just such a funny idea that you go to all this trouble to cook food for a fish!

0:46:230:46:29

They actually taste better than something that Delia Smith might have made.

0:46:290:46:33

I'll take your... Go on, give me that then.

0:46:330:46:36

They're not offensive at all, are they?

0:46:420:46:45

No.

0:46:460:46:48

'The boilie has to reach the carp via a hollow throwing stick.'

0:46:480:46:53

Oh, there it goes - oh, wow!

0:46:540:46:56

It's just like throwing but you don't let go.

0:46:560:46:59

HE LAUGHS

0:47:000:47:02

'Carp apparently also like peaches, bananas...'

0:47:020:47:07

-Hup! There!

-Yeah! There you go.

0:47:070:47:11

'..and curry.'

0:47:110:47:12

If you do the 100 metres, you always want to run quicker.

0:47:120:47:15

With fish, you catch a tench, it might be five or six pound,

0:47:150:47:19

then you see a carp that's 20 or 30 pounds. You think, "You know, I really would like to catch that."

0:47:190:47:25

Maybe we're fishing in the wrong place.

0:47:590:48:02

There's a picture here of the last sturgeon recorded on the Trent,

0:48:020:48:08

caught in 1902, and it weighed 250 lbs.

0:48:080:48:13

So it makes these carp absolutely tiddlers.

0:48:150:48:19

Shows the size of fish they used to catch in the river!

0:48:190:48:23

It's hardly surprising, given that it take 300 nights, on average,

0:48:320:48:35

to catch one of these things, that I'm leaving empty-handed.

0:48:350:48:39

We launched huge quantities of scrumptious boilies

0:48:390:48:43

in their direction but the denizens of this particular gravel pit

0:48:430:48:48

stayed exactly where they were.

0:48:480:48:51

'Alas, I can't do the same.'

0:48:510:48:53

I've got an appointment with some gravel.

0:48:540:48:58

At Besthorpe pit, just up the road from the carp fishery, they are still excavating.

0:48:580:49:03

A half-mile conveyor belt loads gravel into barges for transportation down the Trent.

0:49:030:49:09

Each barge can carry up to 400 tonnes,

0:49:130:49:16

the equivalent capacity of 16 lorries.

0:49:160:49:20

Skipper Ian and crewmate Alan are taking this cargo up to Castlefield in South Yorkshire,

0:49:200:49:26

and they've offered to give me a lift as far as the Humber -

0:49:260:49:29

my final stage.

0:49:290:49:32

I'm starting as...sea-going or barge-going apprentices start.

0:49:370:49:41

I'm starting by sweeping the decks.

0:49:410:49:43

Griff! You missed a bit here!

0:49:510:49:54

Heading north towards the Humber, the Trent seems to reflect its hard-working life.

0:49:590:50:04

This is a bare and functional river.

0:50:040:50:08

Coal was once a major freight. There was so much electricity generated

0:50:080:50:13

on this stretch of water, it used to be known as Megawatt Valley.

0:50:130:50:18

Fantastic sight, the cooling towers.

0:50:220:50:25

That's a redundant power station now,

0:50:250:50:28

but power stations were always built by rivers or near water

0:50:280:50:32

because they guzzle up the most extraordinary quantity of water

0:50:320:50:38

to cool their operations.

0:50:380:50:40

Apart from the gravel barges, there's little commercial traffic left.

0:50:540:50:59

Ships become more frequent only as we emerge into the estuary at Trent Falls.

0:51:140:51:20

To our left is the River Ouse, and to the right, the mighty Humber.

0:51:230:51:28

Hull, the principle port on this estuary,

0:51:340:51:37

will be my final destination.

0:51:370:51:39

The first port I encounter, Liverpool, once dominated Atlantic commerce.

0:51:390:51:44

At the end of my trip, Hull, facing the other way,

0:51:440:51:47

has historically served the trade to northern Europe.

0:51:470:51:51

Before I get there, I must pass under 2km of flying roadway.

0:51:510:51:56

The Humber Bridge is the only link between the East Riding of Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire.

0:51:560:52:02

Over 100 years of wrangling were needed to create this arc of magnificence,

0:52:020:52:07

involving 480,000 tonnes of concrete and uncountable other statistics.

0:52:070:52:13

And seeing as I've walked Swarkestone...

0:52:130:52:16

The pylons here are further apart at the top

0:52:320:52:35

than they are at the bottom because of the curvature of the earth.

0:52:350:52:40

The bridge is constantly on the move.

0:52:400:52:42

In high winds, it bends more than three metres in the middle.

0:52:420:52:47

The whole bridge weighs about half a million tonnes.

0:52:470:52:50

That's about the same as the weight of seven million people.

0:52:500:52:54

That's about the population of Switzerland, as long as the population of Switzerland

0:52:540:53:00

don't eat too much cheese and chocolate and go for a 2km run every day.

0:53:000:53:05

100,000 vehicles use the bridge each week.

0:53:060:53:10

This place was going to cost 28 million when it was built in 1981,

0:53:130:53:20

which rose to 98 million before they finished,

0:53:200:53:23

and 151 million before they finally opened it!

0:53:230:53:27

And in fact, they've now estimated

0:53:270:53:29

they're going to finish paying for it in 2032!

0:53:290:53:35

These great waterways only seem to get busy at all at these bridges.

0:53:370:53:42

Roads now do the work in Britain.

0:53:420:53:46

And like so much on the river, even this symbol of modernity

0:53:460:53:50

is scheduled to become redundant in about 100 years' time.

0:53:500:53:54

Luckily, some things are eternal.

0:53:570:54:01

Under the shadow of the bridge,

0:54:030:54:05

just as they have done for thousands of years,

0:54:050:54:09

they're making wooden boats.

0:54:090:54:11

-Hello, Joe.

-Hello.

0:54:120:54:15

'Wooden boats are unique as they can be restored piece by piece.

0:54:150:54:20

'Joe Irving brings old boats back to new life.'

0:54:200:54:24

So it used to be that all boats were built of wood...

0:54:240:54:27

There was a yard in every creek in Humber...

0:54:270:54:30

years ago.

0:54:300:54:32

Building barges and what have you, trading vessels, fishing boats.

0:54:320:54:36

I mean, Hull was one of the biggest ports around.

0:54:360:54:40

Are you the last of a dying breed, then, on the Humber?

0:54:400:54:44

There's a few boat builders around, um, but not many.

0:54:440:54:48

This is like those Airfix kits I used to do when I was a kid,

0:55:010:55:05

-only even more mad cos you're making the bits yourself.

-Yeah.

0:55:050:55:09

If everything goes well, I can make two planks and get them on in a week.

0:55:090:55:12

Two planks a week, that's a year's work.

0:55:120:55:15

Well, a little bit less, yeah.

0:55:150:55:17

Joe treats every boat with painstaking reverence.

0:55:210:55:24

But there's one restoration he's particularly proud of.

0:55:240:55:28

Gentlemen, good afternoon.

0:55:300:55:32

'This exquisite sleek beauty won gold in the 1920 Olympics.

0:55:320:55:39

'And I've been invited to help sail her down the estuary to Hull, to complete my journey.'

0:55:390:55:45

You can smell the sea, it's fantastic.

0:55:450:55:48

Yorkshire, Lincolnshire...

0:55:480:55:51

and between them, the Humber,

0:55:510:55:54

which takes a fifth of the water of England out to sea.

0:55:540:56:00

Two-and-a-half metres of depth.

0:56:020:56:04

We're going to put the mainsail up in just a minute, but we can't do that

0:56:040:56:09

until we get enough water underneath us - there's a vast sandbank running down over here.

0:56:090:56:14

'Just like heading into the Mersey estuary, heading out on the Humber is all about catching the tide.'

0:56:140:56:21

Go! go!

0:56:210:56:23

We've got the main up, we've got to get the foresails up,

0:56:290:56:32

we've got two to play with here, which will give us extra power.

0:56:320:56:36

And the Humber Bridge is approaching at great speed.

0:56:360:56:39

In her day, Ierne was the fastest yacht in her class,

0:56:390:56:42

and after 18 months' loving restoration by Joe...

0:56:420:56:46

Ooh, whoa!

0:56:460:56:48

..she sails like a medal winner once again.

0:56:480:56:51

Well, there we are, after chugging up the Mersey,

0:56:510:56:54

going underground in Manchester,

0:56:540:56:57

descending through the Derwent,

0:56:570:57:00

and sort of slinking along the Trent,

0:57:000:57:02

I'm finally on the Humber, making my way, sluicing down to Hull.

0:57:020:57:07

We've made all these rivers work for us in a multitude of ways.

0:57:090:57:13

We've used them as drains, we've built over them,

0:57:130:57:16

we've tapped them for power, for transport and for recreation.

0:57:160:57:20

We've conquered them by building bridges.

0:57:200:57:23

We've even created working rivers of our own.

0:57:230:57:27

In the past 300 years, we've harnessed rivers to revolutionise our world,

0:57:270:57:32

but we've depended on them since the dawn of time.

0:57:320:57:35

In fact, they've been so important, their names reach right back to the roots of our language.

0:57:350:57:41

The Humber is called the Humber after a word "Humbre",

0:57:440:57:49

which is so far back in time that it's aboriginal.

0:57:490:57:54

They don't know whether it's Celtic or Saxon or whatever.

0:57:540:57:58

It dates right back to the first men in their little wooden boats.

0:57:580:58:02

Humbre. Do you know what that means?

0:58:020:58:05

River.

0:58:060:58:08

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