Episode 14 Britain's Heritage Heroes

We're travelling across the UK on a mission.

All over the country our heritage is at risk.

Ancient buildings and monuments are under threat of demolition.

Valuable arts and crafts are on the brink of extinction,

and our rich industrial heritage is disappearing fast.

We're scouring town and country

in search of the nation's unsung heroes,

determined not to let our heritage become a thing of the past.

Today, we meet the men fighting to save

one of our last great coastal defences.

And the people resurrecting a very heroic little boat.

-So, this is her, then?

-This is Lady Cable.

On this journey we're uncovering the hidden treasures of our country.

Treasures that are certainly worth fighting for.

And meeting Heritage Heroes saving Britain at risk.

Right, then, John, pour the tea.

Here we go. Today, we're spending the whole leg of our journey

here in glorious Devon.

What it is about the great British experience that means

we love to sit by a busy road when there are gorgeous views to be had,

drinking a cup of tea?

I can't really understand it, Jules, can you?

I've no idea. But here we are in lovely Devon, and I thought, John,

we couldn't start our trip here without a cream tea.

It turned out nice, really. Yeah.

On this journey, we explore the glorious south-west of England.

We're travelling through some of our most beautiful countryside,

finally ending up at the western tip of the country in Cornwall.

From its coastal waters to its rolling hills,

today we explore Devon and meet the people working hard

to preserve some of the area's rich history.

Driving round here reminds me of the first time I came to this area.

I arrived in the dead of night.

It was pouring with rain, and I was 16 years old.

I was coming down to spend two weeks at the Naval Academy at Dartmouth.

I thought about joining the Navy. I fancied being a merchant marine.

I went along for an eyesight test. My eyes were pretty good back then.

As I was waiting to go in, a guy came out in tears in his 30s,

and he'd just failed the eyesight test.

That meant his career was over in those days

because you were not allowed to wear spectacles if you were a navigator.

So, I thought if a career can be based on something

as flimsy as that, I don't want to know.

But, John, think of what the nation would have lost

if you'd joined the Navy, and not become the legend that you now are.

They would have been spared so much!

THEY LAUGH

Our first stop is Torquay,

and the largest surviving medieval monastery in Devon,

with a barn where the crew from a Spanish Armada ship was imprisoned.

Torre Abbey was founded by an ancient order of Catholic cannons

in 1196.

At that time, it was believed you could buy your way into heaven,

which often lead to generous donations.

By the end of the 15th century,

the abbey was bringing in a staggering £1.8 million a year

that's a quarter of a billion pounds in today's money!

Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries in the mid-16th century.

Later, one of the wealthiest landowning families in Devon,

the Careys, made the abbey their home until the 1930s.

This important building has recently been opened to the public.

However, the abbey is still undergoing major restoration works,

overseen by Michael Rhodes.

It looks to me to be clad in concrete - is it?

I'm afraid it is.

That's hard cement, and it was put on to try and keep the damp out.

In fact, what's happened is that it's kept the damp in.

As a result of that, every lintel over every door and every window

is now at the end of its life - completely rotten.

So the wall is now becoming unstable.

So what's the big plan?

Well, first of all, we have to take the render off.

That will be fascinating because of the archaeology that'll be revealed.

There will be the mediaeval walls,

then the Tudor building,

then the late 18th-century building,

then the adaptations of 1740, which is what you see today,

and all that will be carefully recorded.

Then we will repair the stonework and put back lime render,

which will allow the building to breathe.

Only then will we be able to go onto the roof

and put a new lead roof up there.

There we go.

-John...

-Wow, what a view!

Lovely, isn't it?

Fantastic vista of Torbay.

Staff have been known to come up here sunbathing.

The whole of this roof is going to have to be replaced, is it?

The whole thing. It's 18th century. It's patched to death.

It's right at its end of its life.

There's nothing we can do but replace it.

You can see why people coming in from the sea

couldn't fail but to notice this big house.

-Yes.

-A house that told everybody...

Number one Torquay!

-Yes!

-Absolutely.

And, turn this way, and we see the distant past, don't we?

Absolutely, the mediaeval ruins of the church,

and the chancel.

And the founder's tomb over there.

The great boulders of stonework from the tower,

and then the side chapels where masses were said for the dead,

which was the whole purpose of the mediaeval abbey.

And then, along came Henry VIII, all this was dissolved.

The basis on which the abbey was founded, prayers for the dead,

suddenly people didn't believe in it any more,

and the abbey became redundant.

And along came the Carey family, then.

The Carey family came here in 1662, yes.

Because the Careys were Catholics

at a time when it was a dangerous thing to be,

did they have hiding places in the house?

Well, there are stories of a priest hole.

Where do you think this priest hole might be?

Well, there's a record of a supposed priest hole

in one of the ground-floor rooms.

I don't know if that's what it is, but we've arranged for some builders

to uncover it today.

So, a secret might be revealed?

-It might be.

-Intriguing!

The search is being supervised by archaeology officer Hal Bishop.

-Can you feel the stone behind?

-No.

Hello, Hal. Come at a good time, have we?

-I think you've come at a very good time.

-Have you seen this drawing?

Yes, it's an intriguing drawing -

it shows what we believe may well be a priest hole here.

At least, that's what they thought when they drew this 70 years ago.

Inevitably, there are more legends than ones that actually exist,

which is why this is rather an exciting moment.

-So, what's your hunch?

-Let's wait and see.

Is it just the stud, or is it something else?

What will be behind this wall?

-Ah.

-Ah!

What do you make of that, then?

Well, whatever that was, priest hole or fireplace,

it's been infilled...

With brick.

But the mystery of whether or not this was a priest hole remains.

For the moment, it does.

The Careys built up one of the largest private art collections

in the south-west of England.

It's in the process of being moved

so that vital restoration works can take place.

Several members of the Carey family still live in the area

and one who remembers coming here as a child

is Caroline Davey.

Your family has had connections with this abbey for centuries.

Yes, they lived here from about 1600, I think.

My mother was brought up as a child here.

In fact, I've got some photographs of when they moved here.

Where's your mother in this one?

That's my mother.

My Aunt Winifred, my grandmother.

And, um... That's my mother sitting on the wall.

And my grandfather and my grandmother,

and I think that is either Aunt Millie or the old nurse.

I think it was probable Aunt Millie.

What stories have you heard about the family

over the years here?

Oh, wonderful stories.

My grandmother would never sleep here because it was so badly haunted.

When she moved here she said she would have to sleep in Torquay,

and she never slept a night here.

How many ghosts were there supposed to be?

-Oh, the place is full of ghosts!

-Really?!

There's a wonderful story about one of the old Lady Careys, who,

when she died, was so upset that she was giving up going to parties

that you can hear her carriage going along the path there,

as she's going off to her parties.

But you've never seen a ghost here?

No, but I find the Spanish barn really creepy.

-The where?

-The Spanish barn.

I mean, that has a very nasty feel to it.

This is perhaps the spookiest place in the abbey.

It was built more than 800 years ago and is known as a Spanish barn

because during the Spanish Armada, 397 crew members from one of the galleons

captured by Sir Francis Drake were incarcerated in here.

They faced starvation.

Eventually, a Spanish nobleman came up with enough money for a ransom,

and they were set free.

I've found it fascinating

to learn about this piece of history that is now open to all of us.

Back on our heritage trail, we're now headed 40 miles west to Maristow,

to see how their gardens grow.

Now, I'm sure, Craven estate has its own walled garden, John.

We do, actually. We have a stone wall around our small garden.

-Well, I love a good walled garden.

-I do.

And, of course, they were great barometers

in terms of the success of their owner.

The owner would take great pride in showing his guests

around the walled garden.

-As indeed I do.

-Do you have a head gardener that you do that with?

Is that Mrs Craven?

Yes, it is.

Maristow House is an 18th-century mansion, just north of Plymouth.

Like many other great houses, it does have its own walled garden.

Landscape gardener Jenny TunleyPrice stumbled upon it

while working at the house.

Despite being overgrown and with crumbling buildings, Jenny set about bringing it back to life.

With the help of a range of groups,

she hopes to highlight the merits of growing your own produce,

and bring back heritage varieties of fruit and vegetables.

I was designing a garden at Maristow House.

One day, the builder and I came across a problem

that we needed to think about.

I decided to come for a walk and just have a jolly good think.

As I did so, I came through the woods here with the dogs

and came through the archway at the glasshouse over there,

and all the hairs on the back of my neck went up.

I thought, "Oh, goodness, this must be the walled garden from Maristow."

The aim of what we're trying to do here is to restore the gardens

to full productivity using different community projects.

Some of the people helping Jenny is this group doing community service.

It was really interesting, working with the young people on the community task force.

They were largely made up of a group of young people

from a social background that I'd never had anything to do with.

They wanted a chance to be able to prove themselves.

They want to work, and that fired me up.

The more I got involved, the more determined I became

that this was what we should be doing with this garden.

One of the major projects that will be running once the place is a little bit safer

is a horticultural therapy project for injured servicemen.

It's nice to hear that they're helping traumatised people

with rehabilitation, which is nice to hear.

They're trying to get the funding for that.

Today, there's lots of other people who have come volunteering as well.

The training here is not just about food and growing.

We look at heritage-building skills, traditional building skills,

traditional joinery, masonry and so on.

What I'm really keen to do

is to show that anybody can grow an apple tree against a wall or fence.

You can have the tiniest garden and still produce your own fruit.

You can have a balcony and still produce really good vegetables.

So, we've been growing heritage varieties of beans here,

showing people that they're just as easy to grow as supermarket ones.

The difference is, they taste fantastic.

Mm, very fresh.

I love the way they actually smell cold.

I've always thought that it's really nice to become self sustained anyway.

I kind of think that's what she's doing on a bigger scale,

and she's trying to grow all of this fresh produce and help people

and put it back into the community, and teach other people

how to grow their own vegetables and become more self sustained.

I think it's great as a county to be able to do that.

I'd love to be able to take this historic structure

and rather than preserve it in aspic as "this is what they did in 1860",

I want to prove that places like this can be really useful

and beneficial in the wider community.

JULES: Marching on now. We're on our way to the coast at Brixham,

an hour from here.

So many of the things that are at risk now

are relics of our military past.

Particularly the Second World War.

People tend to forget the south-west's role,

but actually, it played more of a part than many people realise.

There are relics it all over the place IF you know where to look.

Along the south coast of England,

boatloads of battered troops were pouring onto the quayside.

In the midst of the Dunkirk disaster, Churchill was convinced that a German invasion was imminent.

Having hailed the Dunkirk rescue as a "miracle of deliverance",

he was determined to strengthen Britain's position.

Additional coastal defence batteries were hastily built the length of the country.

Let's pop down into this one here.

This is the entrance to number two gun position.

Here at Brixham, retired Army officer Robbie Robinson

has lead the charge in setting up a heritage group to preserve the battery.

-Now, you said this was number two.

-Yes.

Let's walk down the hill and see what else you've got. It's fascinating.

The second gun is a relic from the First World War,

installed in the hope that just maybe it'd be of some use.

And there we are at the six-pounder Hotchkiss gun position.

-Oh, now, then, the business end of the operation, Robbie.

-Yes.

This was designed and built in, what, 1880s?

Dragged out of a museum for 1940.

And your lovely replica here really does give this room

a whole other feel, doesn't it? Does everything... Oh, it moves!

-Yes, yes. And here's the shell. So, you can put the shell in.

-Lovely.

So, that's going to go in the breech.

Shove that up there. And then pull the breech.

And you're now ready.

Ready to fire down there.

But remember, the Luftwaffe launched 50 air raids on Torbay.

They would come in as two dots above the horizon.

Somebody in the battery with binoculars would see them coming in, focus on them.

From the moment you first saw them,

to the moment they're above your head, you have 9.5 seconds.

In those 9.5 seconds, the anti-aircraft weapons,

which we had above the main guns, would aim and then fire.

Very often, they had to fire down

because the guns are placed 160 feet above sea level,

and the German aircraft were coming in 30 feet above sea level.

-So these guns could come into action?

-They might, as an anti-aircraft weapon.

-It would be a lucky hit, though, wouldn't it?

-Very lucky, yes.

With a recent grant, Robbie and his enthusiastic squad of re-enactors,

have got their museum shipshape and open to the public

as an educational resource.

Well, this looks like the place I'm looking for. Hi, guys. How are you?

We've got the Paratroop Regiment, the Americans have turned up.

Mr Churchill, keeping up morale?

Yes. If you go through that door there, you'll find our museum.

I shall do as ordered, sir. Absolutely. Right.

Now, this is my kind of place. Look at it!

It's packed to the rafters with all manner of memorabilia.

Local film-maker Ashley Wing

used many of the artefacts in a film he made about the Second World War.

The proceeds have gone back into the centre.

Once the film was done and we screened it,

and it went to film festivals, we used it in the archive building,

and we had DVDs there for people to donate, you know.

It was like a donation thing, and it's done really well.

How important do you think this place is in terms of the local community?

It obviously played a very practical role 70 years ago, but what's its role now?

I guess the primary thing that it does is educate people -

it carries on that message and that knowledge,

which is very, very important -

you know, what happened during the war,

and all those kind of things.

I guess the main thing it does do is it brings the community together.

It is about getting people involved in doing something.

Of all the heritage sites I've been to, this is the most impressive, and I'm not biased!

Not at all, no!

What a great bunch of Heritage Heroes!

Now we're travelling 45 minutes north-west to Tavistock.

Did you ever want to be an engine driver when you were growing up?

I don't think I did, actually.

-Steam engines and all that.

-No, no. I like steam.

You know, and I'm old enough to remember steamrollers

on my way home from school.

I can remember seeing steamrollers laying new tarmac on the road.

They're a lovely sight.

I've only seen them in shows and museums, but there's something about them - they're alive.

And they certainly revolutionised agriculture, didn't they?

The steam engine, the steam plough.

There's something special about those old steam engines.

During the 18th and 19th centuries,

steam power changed for ever the way the nation worked.

Here in Tavistock,

design and technology lecturer David Davies is doing all he can

to give our engineering heritage a future.

And finding an old, rusting Robey engine in a park proved to be the catalyst

for what's become an important engineering museum leading the way

in heritage restoration training.

It had been there for 20 years and it was totally derelict.

I wrote to the council and said,

"Please can I have it to restore with my students?"

They said, "Take it," and that's when it started.

I took it down to Plymouth and my students took it all apart, restoration started.

The students then said, "We're enjoying this, are there any more?"

So we acquired another engine and then another, and it grew.

No-one had really heard of the name of Robey,

so we made some enquiries

and then discovered just how big this firm really was,

with exports for over 120 years all over the world.

As soon as we found that out, we then started to look for other Robey artefacts

and discovered a whole range of different things that they made,

many of which - in different sorts - we've managed to collect here.

We get many questions from children right up to middle-aged people

and they say, "What was this used for?"

I can say an agricultural engine was used before the modern farm tractor.

This steam tractor was used before lorries.

So therefore people can very easily relate

to everything that we have here.

Now is the time, we feel, when the youngsters, the next generation,

ought to be taught these traditional skills,

so that when people like myself retire, and my colleagues,

we've got the next generation who can take on

the care of the nation's industrial heritage.

17-year-old steam engine fanatic Jack

has been coming here since he was ten.

Having recently won a technical achievement award,

he's a young man who quite literally lives and breathes engines.

The actual mechanics behind the engines

are really what interests me.

The mathematics especially.

I think it all leads back to when these engines were built.

The designers, the apprentices, they had the skills.

All those techniques have been lost.

I think it's important for people my age to develop those skills

because there's no-one to show us in 50 years' time.

I hope when I'm older that I can pass those skills on to my children.

I think you've got to preserve our heritage in this country.

On now to meet more Heritage Heroes

fighting to protect this region's military history.

This time in Totnes.

Were you in the Army, John, did you do national service?

No, I missed national service. By quite a couple of years!

But my dad was in the Army,

-he was a prisoner of war with the Japanese.

-Was he?

In the Second World War.

For three-and-a-half years, my mother didn't know whether he was alive or dead.

My grandfather was one of the 300,000 or so that came off at Dunkirk.

-What, in a little boat?

-In one of the little ships, yeah.

During the Second World War, the battle of Dunkirk

left hundreds of thousands of British and Allied soldiers stranded.

Surrounded in a shrinking pocket by German troops,

Prime Minister Winston Churchill dubbed it

"a colossal military disaster".

An effort was launched up and down the coast.

Over 700 boats of all shapes and sizes

were deployed in a operation

to rescue Allied troops from the beaches.

Lady Cable is one of the plucky little ships which helped save them.

She was the last boat out of Dunkirk.

We've come to meet John Duffin,

who is heading up the restoration of this historic vessel.

Once restored, this incredible piece of living history

will take people out onto the water to learn about the significant role

Lady Cable played on that remarkable rescue mission.

-So this is her, then?

-This is Lady Cable.

And you can see from looking at her here how shallow she was.

-And therefore she was ideal for the beaches at Dunkirk.

-Yeah.

Because she could get right in.

So her job was to ferry troops from the beach to bigger boats?

To bigger boats, yeah.

She did do two trips from Dunkirk to Dover with people,

but the rest of the time she was ferrying them to and fro.

-Are we allowed to go on board?

-Yes.

-Let's have a look.

You'd better lead the way, Skipper.

-It's a long time since she's had one of those, I suspect.

-Yes.

Clamber over.

-It's like the inside of a great whale, isn't it?

-Yeah.

Amazing!

And why is she in such a sorry state now?

Two reasons.

The last owner, who used her for trips, died.

She was left swinging around in Torquay harbour and eventually sank.

There was quite a bit of damage.

But also, because she's going to be restored

to the condition she was in in 1940,

we've had to rip out everything that wasn't original on the boat.

It's quite a moving thought to imagine this boat

in pitch darkness off the coast of northern France,

packed with soldiers, soaking wet, tired, cold and hungry...

-Under fire.

-Under fire, completely demoralised.

And yet this boat, which was coming to give them salvation,

-run by civilian crews who'd never have seen anything like that.

-No.

Do we know much about the crew at the time?

What we believe happened

is that they put on a young naval cadet called Price to skipper it,

with two new ratings, 19, straight out of the naval college.

He took it back and he was there for the remaining three days.

He was the one who brought her back with the French soldiers on board.

It'd be nice to think that when we get round to the 100th anniversary of Dunkirk, in 30 years' time,

this boat will once again be at sea reminding people of what went on.

Hopefully on a trip to Dunkirk.

He's itching to get going.

-As soon as you can set sail, you'll be off!

-Yeah, yeah.

Dunkirk veteran Bob Jaffery remembers the evacuation vividly.

We just got the order through a loudspeaker,

"We're moving out in ten minutes.

"All you can take is what you stand up in and your greatcoat."

Just imagine it at the time,

these little boats spread all along the south coast of England.

They went out on Saturday afternoons, things like that,

and suddenly they were asked to go and bring an army back.

Well, it's unbelievable!

A lot of them did have a lieutenant or something in the Navy in charge,

but many of them were just civilians running them.

I think they were marvellous. They got away thousands of men.

Without them, it wouldn't have worked at all.

And for you, who, unlike all of us stood here, remembers Dunkirk,

seeing the Lady Cable come back to life

must be incredibly moving.

Oh, yes. I want to be alive when she is launched!

Will you get in her when she goes back to Dunkirk?

If she goes back to Dunkirk and they'll have me, yes, I will!

So here, Jules, we have a little ship

that was so much at risk in its hour of glory, wasn't it,

and then it was at risk because it had been abandoned, but now...

Hopefully it's got a very different future.

Just think, when it finally makes that passage back to Dunkirk,

under very different circumstances, what a moment that will be.

Who'd have thought it?

I've been captivated by the military history on this journey,

and I'm delighted that people are working hard to preserve it.

But as we saw with the Lady Cable,

it wasn't just the military striving to save lives,

but people like you and me.

Next time we'll be reaching the end of our journey through the south-west of England.

We'll be focusing on artistic heritage in St Ives.

And with a fair wind,

I'll be shown the ropes on this beautifully restored fishing boat.

You've got a work it fast now, no messing about.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd