Reigate to Hythe Britain's First Photo Album

In the Victorian era, Britain changed as never before.

It was the time of great inventors, great engineers,

but above all, great businessmen, entrepreneurs.

And one of the best examples was the pioneer photographer Francis Frith.

It was in the 1860s that Francis Frith embarked

upon a monumental mission

using the newly invented photographic camera.

He wanted to document every city, every town

and every village in the land.

I'm tracing the footsteps of this remarkable man

and his team of photographers.

Using their pictures as my guide,

I'll be travelling the length and breadth of the country,

finding out what has altered and what has stayed the same,

and along the way, I'll be taking my own photos

to try and capture the mood of the place as it is now.

That's great.

Welcome to Britain's First Photo Album.

In 1860, Francis Frith founded

the first specialist photographic printing business.

The idea was to sell photographic prints to the public,

when it was very unusual for someone to have the money

to pay for those expensive early cameras.

Using the Frith photos as a guide,

I'm travelling today to Reigate, in Surrey.

Then I'll be going south to the medieval town of Rye,

before heading further east to Hythe on the South Kent coast.

En route, I'll be visiting a very unusual church,

finding out where a notorious gang of smugglers hid their contraband,

and I'm shooting a musket, as they did at the Battle of Waterloo.

Cor!

That's something, isn't it?

'My first port of call is to an area Frith would have known well,

'the South Downs outside Reigate.'

Frith lived in the town for most of his life.

The photo that's brought me here

is of the Reigate Heath windmill,

and it was taken in 1894.

The windmill is still one of the most famous landmarks in the area today,

and when the Frith team took this photograph,

it had embarked upon a new chapter in its history.

I'm meeting the Reverend David Bull to find out more.

For 100 years, it operated as a normal mill,

and all the workings are still up there now,

but then, 100 years after it was built, its purpose changed.

Oh, right. OK.

This is tremendous, isn't it? Oh, gosh!

-Now, this is a chapel?

-It is.

It's the only windmill church in the country.

And why was it stopped from being a windmill?

Well, by about 1870, there was no need for the mill any more.

It had ceased being used as a mill,

and the local landowner had a close relative who was in the ministry,

who was working for the church, and so he decided to turn it

into a chapel for his relative to come and exercise his ministry here.

And it still goes on, you still hold services.

It does. We have services here monthly, yes.

And you can still see the old mechanism.

What are these beams doing?

These are all the original beams,

and these anchor the mill to the ground.

The upper section above where we are here would have rotated

-so that the sails of the windmill could be turned to the wind.

-Right.

And this big post you can see here takes the whole weight

of the upper section of the mill.

But, of course, it makes it hard sometimes for your congregation.

It does. We sometimes wonder if we should hand out helmets!

"Beware of low beams". You've got that!

At the start of every hymn I warn people not to hit their heads as they stand to sing.

Now, when was it consecrated?

Well, it was on September 14, 1880.

We still have here the original sermon that was preached on that first day.

-Is it a good sermon?

-Well, better than most of mine, I think!

But there's one bit that sounds quite contemporary, I think. I'll read you a bit.

"Our whole life seems to be spent in a hurry.

"Men are hurrying after business, pleasure, riches, fame,

"and they seek shortcuts for everything,

"and this loss of calmness is,

"in some sense, bad for the spiritual life."

Oh, yes, well, that's good, sound stuff.

My father was a vicar, so I can imagine him agreeing with that.

So, Frith would have known when this opened, the chapel,

that that was of great interest,

and he might sell a lot of photographs as a result.

'I want to take my own modern-day photograph of this fascinating building,

'and I'm going to be getting some expert advice

'from John Gall of the Reigate Photographic Society.'

Tell me how to take an interesting photograph.

OK, well, what you're looking for

is something that would tell a story, something of interest.

From here, you can either get a silhouette

of the windmill against the sky, or, round the other side,

there's the evening light coming onto the windmill,

which would make it more interesting, perhaps.

-OK, so lighting's incredibly important.

-Very much.

What about the, I don't know, we've got to have people, haven't we?

People give interest to a photograph,

but they're not essential.

You need a point of interest,

and a person does give a human dimension to a photograph.

So, what can we see from the photo about the skill of the photographer?

Well, what they're doing here,

the photographer is leading you through

from left to right as we read,

taking you quickly through the photograph

to key points of interest -

if you divide the photograph into thirds, horizontally and vertically,

a composition technique is to place key elements

on those third intersections.

The house and the girl. The photographer's telling a story,

so you've got to get into the mind of the photographer.

What was he actually trying to tell in taking that photograph?

'So taking a good photo can be a way of telling a good story,

'something that Frith and his team often set out to do -

'and that's what I want to do today.

'David has agreed to provide the vital human interest.

'The windmill church with its curate.'

Right, are we ready? You don't have to smile too much.

Right, that's great. That's wonderful.

'And here's my photo.

'David standing proudly in front of what is a unique place of worship.'

What I've tried to do is to draw the viewer in,

so that's the point where you're meant to start,

and you're meant to think,

"Oh, that's interesting. A clergyman and a windmill."

Then you're meant to be drawn up the stairs, thinking,

"What's in the windmill?"

So there's a sense of mystery, I hope, in this picture.

It's meant to be... Well, I might get better!

For my next Frith photo, I'm going into Reigate.

It's a town where Frith and his team took hundreds of pictures.

Some of the scenes they captured remain to the present day,

but much has gone for ever.

The photo that's caught my attention is very personal to Frith himself,

because the great man's in it.

This photograph was taken around 1885,

and shows Frith relaxing at Brightlands,

his home here in Reigate.

Francis Frith was a local celebrity in the 19th century,

but what sort of man was he?

What drove him?

To find out, I'm meeting an expert on Francis Frith -

local historian Sean Hawkins.

He was a very interesting man.

He was a Quaker businessman, a very, very individual,

very strong man, who had been very successful in business.

By the time he was 33 he'd made a lot of money,

and he then became interested in a career, I think,

connected with a very, very strong passion, a hobby - photography.

And he explored the possibility of going abroad

and taking photographs in the Holy Land and in Egypt.

So, his first commercial photographs,

because they did become commercial, were done abroad.

Yes, they were.

The pictures Frith took in Egypt and the Middle East

quickly established his reputation as a pioneer photographer,

but after his marriage, Frith decided to stop going abroad

and start on an epic photographic record of Britain.

I think, probably, his major sales were souvenir pictures

which people could buy and paste in their albums,

or, later on in the century, they could buy something like this,

which was on sale in all stationers and souvenir shops,

and these were very, very popular indeed.

Initially, Frith took all his photographs himself,

but as success came, he began to hire local photographers across the country.

He set about establishing what quickly became

one of the largest photographic publishers in the world,

with over 2,000 shops in Britain selling his photos and albums.

Now, this, we think, is Frith himself,

and we think this is him in Reigate, here in Reigate.

Well, the house isn't there now,

but we have got something that we can show you

that still is evidence of the house.

Oh, right, OK. So, is it going to be difficult to find?

No, I hope not.

So, Frith's house as it appears in our photo is no more.

What's here instead?

So, this is the site where the house was that Frith lived with his family.

Yes, this is the site.

-But not the house.

-But not the very house.

-No, because this is, what, how new is this?

-Built about 1970.

Right, but we do know, definitely, that he was here.

We know, definitely, this is the site of the house.

'A modern family house is now on the spot where Brightlands stood.'

Oh, this is nice. A touch of California!

'The current owner, Caroline Paterson,

'shows me the remains of Frith's home.'

-Lovely garden.

-Yes, absolutely.

Did you know that the famous Victorian photographer

Francis Frith lived in a house on this site?

I was aware of it,

because I knew there was a large house on this site.

Sadly, there isn't much left other than the pool,

which was built in the foundations of the cellar of the house,

and, in fact, the bay windows form the side of this pool.

-Oh, right.

-We wondered why it was a bit unusually shaped!

So we know that Frith will have walked into the swimming pool!

Frith once said that his life only really began after his wedding day.

And although he travelled a lot,

his home at Brightlands always had a very special place in his heart.

The great man and his house have gone for ever,

but, with the help of Caroline,

I can try to take a photograph in the spirit of Frith.

'A person and a house.'

-You just have to look wonderful, there.

-Thank you.

-That looks good. All right, big smile. That's good.

-OK.

'And here's my photo. Blue and bright and modern.'

My picture has got the new owner, Caroline,

and jolly nice she is, kind of demonstrating, I suppose,

what's changed, how much has changed

from the Victorian idea of the formal garden,

to this touch of California.

I'm tracing the footsteps of pioneer photographer

Francis Frith and his team, using the photographs they took

in order to find out exactly how our country has changed.

My next port of call takes me to East Sussex.

My road trip is now really getting underway.

The Frith photos always tell a story.

It's just a matter of working out what that story is.

Well, I'm off to Rye now, in Sussex,

to see another great example of their work,

and I must say I'm really enjoying the ride.

The picturesque town of Rye

now lies about two miles inland from the English Channel,

but in medieval times,

this part of the Sussex coast looked quite different.

Rye was almost entirely surrounded by water.

Frith and his team took a number of photos in Rye,

but the one I'm going to look at is this one,

of a two-masted trading ship sitting in Rye Harbour.

I think it's a perfect testament

to this little town's colourful history,

both as a major trading port,

and, in the 18th and 19th centuries, as a renowned haven for smuggling.

'To find out more,

'I'm meeting local historian and guide Jane Fraser Hay.'

On the Frith photograph, what we did see was its importance as a port,

but when people talk about Rye now,

they don't say, "Oh, that's the famous port of Rye", do they?

What you see in the Frith photograph is the last days, really,

of Rye as an important port.

And what went wrong?

Well, the sea giveth, and it taketh away, I'm afraid.

It receded, and left us with very, well, limited facilities here

as a port, eventually.

-So, the story of Rye is a story of a disappearing sea.

-I'm afraid it is.

'It had always been difficult to get to Rye by land over the marshes,

'and from the 17th century onwards,

'as the harbour started disappearing under layers of silt

'from the river Rother, the town became increasingly isolated.'

The sea now is, what, two or three miles away?

It's about two and a half miles from where we're standing, yes.

This is also an area where there was a lot of smuggling.

Oh, yes. You bet there was.

I should say towards the end of the 1700s, lots of valuable goods

coming, particularly from Java, the spices and that sort of thing,

the tea from the Far East - not India, that was much later -

but coming vast distances.

So, dear old gentle, genteel Rye was in fact a hotbed of smugglers?

It was a rootin' tootin' fort!

Smuggling along England's coastline

reached astonishing levels in the 18th century.

Owlers, as the nocturnal smugglers were known,

tried to avoid tax on imported goods and wool exports.

Rye's economy was soon taken over by the illegal trade.

Small smugglers' vessels would travel up the river

and unload their contraband

virtually on the doorsteps of the local inns.

How many of the people in the town were involved in this trade?

We don't have exact numbers,

-obviously, because it was a hugely secret trade.

-Yes.

-But I imagine

quite a number wouldn't have any conscience about being involved.

And when they got the smuggled goods here, what did they do with them?

They would hide them -

probably, for instance, up in these houses, in the attics.

All the doors were unlocked,

and they would make a run for people trying to escape from the revenue.

-Right.

-It would go, sometimes, halfway round the town

and come down the stairs in a completely different area.

Right. Just to escape the revenue.

They would be after them all the time, but the poor revenue men,

there were very small numbers of them, and huge numbers of smugglers.

And it wasn't only in the attics the smugglers stored their contraband.

Hidden tunnels and secret cellars were not uncommon,

and one of them survives to this day under the White Vine Hotel.

Javed Khan is the present owner.

Under here, John, is a cellar

which actually dates from approximately 1340.

-And can we look in here?

-We can indeed.

-If I can just get you to give me a hand with the rug.

-Yeah.

-Right.

-Just roll it back.

-Right.

This looks good! Shall I help?

-Please. It's a heavy trapdoor.

-OK.

Right.

Yeah.

-Oh, right. Aladdin's Cave.

-Ideal for storage, or hiding.

Or hiding, right.

So, we could be talking about smugglers using this cellar?

-We don't know for sure, but it is well hidden.

-Right. You go first.

You notice I say you go first. OK.

And mind your head, cos they were a lot shorter in those days.

And down into the medieval cellar.

We've got the genuine smell of the cellar, haven't we?

We have, absolutely, indeed.

Yeah. Cobwebs. You pay extra for those!

It's big, isn't it? It's actually big.

-It's enormous.

-Yeah.

-It's a lot bigger than it looks.

And how many cellars are there like this in Rye?

-We think probably about 12 or 13.

-Yes.

-This is probably one of the better ones, given its age...

-Yeah.

..In terms of its condition.

You just wonder what happened here, though.

It's got all the atmosphere, hasn't it?

You could almost imagine smugglers making their plans

and counting their loot.

-The cellar actually continues through here.

-Yeah.

This is now a bricked-up chute.

One would imagine that barrels, goods, contraband, maybe,

would have been just slid down and taken through

-to the back of the cellar.

-Well, that's fascinating.

'Just imagine all the booty stashed away in these dark cellars.

'Having been below ground, I'm off to get a bird's eye view.

'At the Heritage Centre, Peter Cosstick has an impressive exhibit.'

What a marvellous model.

It's something we're incredibly proud of.

This shows you Rye,

how it looked in Victorian times, and it's not changed much today.

-We're always being told about smuggling in Rye.

-Yeah.

Was it all over the place? Was it riddling the whole town?

It was indeed.

There was a notorious smuggling gang called the Hawkhurst Gang,

and when they were in town, their headquarters were The Mermaid Inn.

Right.

They were ruthless, and there was very little law and order,

and they ruled the roost.

And it was only much later, when we hit Victorian times,

that smuggling really died out.

Because of the Victorian values, smuggling was frowned on.

-But also, they chopped off the taxes, didn't they?

-They did indeed.

-So it wasn't so expensive to import wine and brandy.

-Yes.

-So they were done out of business, weren't they?

-Yes.

What's striking now is just how many of these buildings still exist,

and how attractive they are, aren't they?

-Yeah. They're very, very well...

-It was a very prosperous place.

And of course, there's so little change from the time

of our Frith photograph.

And I think we should be able to line it up.

-What's that?

-That's a hotel now.

That's the Hope Anchor, which is just there.

Right, so that's there, and the boat, well,

it would have been here, wouldn't it?

That's about right, John, yeah.

It's rather sad, because you feel that is the end of an era there, isn't it?

That's when the whole shipping trade round here...it's just slightly sad.

It is.

I'm off to Rye Harbour, to the spot that Peter's helped me pinpoint,

and maybe to take my photo.

This is the Frith photo, and these two buildings are still there,

you can see them. There's the Hope Anchor hotel

and the other building on the other side, but there's no boat here,

so I think my picture should be just a bit further down.

All I need to do is to find a view with a boat

that somehow inspires me.

This is going to be my shot.

I like it because there are still ships, still sailing ships, in Rye.

All right, they're pleasure boats, but they're jolly nice.

And here it is.

A boat bathed in colour

as the sun sets over Rye.

It makes a sort of contrast with the Frith picture,

but both are at low tide,

and both really tell the same story about Rye,

which is that this is a tidal river,

and it's now a long way from the sea.

So there's a slightly sad air.

Not just the end of an era here,

but there's also a sense of...

Well, this is just a pleasure boat,

it's not the same.

And now I'm travelling further east along the coast, and into Kent.

I'm heading for Hythe, and the photo taking me there

is this one from 1890,

of the Hythe Musketry School.

Now, I'm told it's in this area, and I've got to park here.

I have to say, it doesn't look at all promising.

But there's absolutely no sign of the long row

of old buildings in the photo.

This is just an ordinary supermarket car park.

Oh, well, I'm sure it'll work itself out.

I'm sure we will resolve it, we will settle the mystery.

I've been instructed to head for the military canal,

where I'm meeting local historian Michael George to find out

what's happened to this curious building.

You're going to help me solve the mystery, aren't you?

-I am, I hope, yes.

-Thanks very much. Now, that's our picture.

Well, these buildings no longer exist,

and instead, you've got the supermarket.

-They were military barracks.

-Yes. Military barracks?

-Yes, they were.

They were originally built 200 years ago,

at the time of the threatened invasion, by Napoleon, of England.

Hythe Bay provides a natural anchorage.

It was a perfect landing place for anybody who had hankerings

to invade England.

-Right, so the French are across the Channel.

-They are.

They are genuinely threatening invasion, aren't they?

There were 200,000 French troops camped over there,

waiting just for the right weather conditions to arrive en masse

on the beaches of Hythe.

It's daring to think of our brave boys standing up

against the imperial might of Napoleon's France.

But the invasion never came.

Napoleon turned his attention to campaigns in Egypt and Austria.

At the end of the Napoleonic wars, the barracks fell into disuse.

They were surplus to requirements, until 1853.

The rifle has been introduced,

and the rifle is a much more accurate weapon,

and you now need to train your soldiers in how to use it,

and Lord Hardinge decided that we needed a school

to train soldiers

who would then go back to their regiments,

and they would train the men in their regiments.

That was the beginning of the residence in Hythe

of the School of Musketry.

In the 20th century,

the school served as a training base through both world wars,

but in the 1960s, it was moved from Hythe to Warminster,

where the present-day school

still trains the soldiers of the British Army.

And all that remains of the Hythe School of Musketry

is this plaque in the wall of the supermarket,

and it says that "88,000 men

"were trained here in the history of the school,

"which was from 1853 until 1968".

It's surprising to find that the site of a top military academy

is now a car park,

but at least one part of the old musketry school survives.

The firing ranges nearby are more than 200 years old,

but they're still run by the Ministry of Defence.

'A fine ex-soldier, Ian Bull, known as Bully,

'gave me a taste of the target practice which, for years,

'sustained the British Army.'

This, for you, it's a kind of family business, isn't it?

Yeah, shooting or soldiering, yeah, yeah, a bit of both.

How long does it go back in your family?

Five generations. Back before the Boer War.

-One killed in the Boer War, which is unfortunate.

-Five generations?

My son's in the Army now, I was in the Army,

my father, grandfather and great-grandfather.

'Well, now, a blast from the past.

'Bully is going to show me how to fire a genuine 200-year-old

'Brown Bess musket.

'These guns were notoriously inaccurate,

'so rather than picking out specific targets,

'a large number of artillerymen would all fire at once,

'delivering a hail of musket balls into the enemy lines.

'Some were bound to hit home.'

Cor, that's something, isn't it?

I think I got him!

Oh, yes. These Frenchies, you know! We can take them on!

'Now I'm going upmarket and super modern.

'This is a version of the latest sniper rifle used by today's army.'

Squeeze the trigger very gently.

Gosh!

That's a big one, isn't it?

I think I've got it!

'Right, the moment of truth. Did I even hit the target?'

Right. Well, this is my target.

-How have I done? That's good!

-This is the old Brown Bess.

You get your finger right in it, so you've hit the target.

-That's pretty good!

-That's very good.

This is all that sniper rifle.

-That's very, very good.

-Is it?

-Very good.

-Is it really?

For the first time ever to shoot with a scope, with that rifle...

Oh, please, don't go on, Bully. You're embarrassing me, now!

Give me a fiver!

That's very good.

'I'm rather pleased with that.

'That's not half bad!

'And I can't resist a photo souvenir.'

It is, it's my target shot, but I'm very, very proud of it,

and I want everybody to appreciate it.

Right, here we go.

Never mind Frith, this is me, on the range, on target, on song.

And the bit I like is that one up there,

because that was fired by a gun which could have fired

at the Battle of Waterloo.

And of course, if it had been down there, who knows?

Might have got Napoleon.

Next time on Britain's First Photo Album,

I shall be on the Isle of Wight,

hunting for a missing coastline.

I'll be using a Frith photo to prove

that Stonehenge has not been as we know it for as long as we think.

And I'll be toasting the breweries of Hampshire.

Would you like another?

I'll have another three, I think!

THEY LAUGH

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