:00:11. > :00:16.Cambridgeshire. Haunting, mysterious. This was once a wild
:00:16. > :00:24.land. Marshy Fens, swarming with biting insects. A harsh landscape,
:00:24. > :00:27.not for the faint-hearted. I'm taking a journey through time. Over
:00:27. > :00:37.1,500 years to find out how the most disease-ridden part of Britain
:00:37. > :00:37.
:00:37. > :00:42.became one of its wealthiest and I'll be travelling through my
:00:42. > :00:47.adopted county, into the heart of Cambridge. Seeing how we used to
:00:47. > :00:52.survive. So you're living history? Yeah, I hope I'm not the last one
:00:52. > :00:55.either. Digging up clues. This site can tell us everything you could
:00:55. > :00:59.possibly want to know about what life would have been like at the
:00:59. > :01:04.time. Getting a taste of the past. This was their main form of
:01:04. > :01:08.painkiller? It would have been grated up. You had to have been a
:01:08. > :01:10.good swallower. Take one of these, three times a day. And hearing how
:01:10. > :01:13.Cambridgeshire transformed the health of the nation. Cambridge is
:01:13. > :01:16.surrounded by a continuous loop of sewage, basically. Yes, that's the
:01:16. > :01:26.truth. This is the taming of Cambridgeshire, our part of a great
:01:26. > :01:35.
:01:35. > :01:39.My starting point is Wickham Fen, now owned by the National Trust and
:01:39. > :01:44.a great place to get a feel for how much of East Anglia used to look
:01:44. > :01:50.before the Fens were drained for farming. For thousands of years,
:01:50. > :01:54.Fen folk adapted to this wild, wet landscape. This is an original Fen
:01:54. > :01:58.worker's cottage. I've come here to meet a guy who knows everything
:01:58. > :02:01.there is to know about the history of the Fens. Ben Robinson is an
:02:01. > :02:06.archaeologist, quite a tall archaeologist. Hi, there, how's it
:02:06. > :02:11.going? Nice to see you. Now, I've got to ask you, while we're both
:02:11. > :02:15.stooping here, were people shorter back then? There were tall people
:02:15. > :02:18.and short people. These people were obviously shorter, but I'm a Fen
:02:19. > :02:23.man and I'm tall. You're very tall indeed. Oh, and this is the inside
:02:23. > :02:26.of the wall, isn't it? Yes, that is right. A typical construction,
:02:26. > :02:28.using the materials at hand in the Fens, wood, reeds, just basically
:02:28. > :02:33.mud. Vegetable matter, horse dung, everything plastered in there,
:02:33. > :02:37.horse hair. So no brick? No stone? Well there's no stone out here in
:02:37. > :02:43.the Fen. Plenty of clay for bricks, so we have a brick floor here, but
:02:43. > :02:48.no stone. No. OK. A peat fire, of course? A very cheap source of fuel.
:02:48. > :02:51.I mean it's out there in the Fen. You dig it, cut it into blocks and
:02:51. > :02:54.let it dry. It make as reasonable fire, but not intense heat. The
:02:54. > :02:57.thing about the Fens, there weren't many people around in the Fens,
:02:57. > :03:00.throughout the history it was a sparsely populated area, but those
:03:00. > :03:02.people that were, clung together. Now what are these? These are
:03:02. > :03:08.stilts for Fen slodgers and we'll pick them up, because you'll
:03:08. > :03:15.actually be needing these. Not sure I like the look of this. Ah, yes, I
:03:15. > :03:18.see, water, everywhere. It's like being on a big sponge. Yes, of
:03:18. > :03:23.course, it's so long since I've been on a big sponge. I'll have
:03:23. > :03:26.take your word for that. You can keep yourself drier and cover
:03:26. > :03:30.longer distances. Four centuries ago, Fen people were known as stilt
:03:30. > :03:40.walkers. Stilts were still in use 150 years ago. If I go, Ben, we'll
:03:40. > :03:51.
:03:51. > :03:55.both go. You go. Steady on, we're How many TV presenters have you
:03:55. > :04:00.drowned? You didn't answer that question, I'm a bit worried?
:04:00. > :04:04.Exactly. Past history is no record of current success, I think. You're
:04:04. > :04:08.not going anywhere! What would they do when they were slodging around?
:04:08. > :04:12.Wild fowling, fishing, egg collecting. You could do that sort
:04:12. > :04:15.of thing while on stilts? Absolutely. This was a way of
:04:15. > :04:19.getting across the Fen. There's no roads, no Causeways, no pathways.
:04:19. > :04:23.There are just treacherous routes through. Untie me, Ben! I don't
:04:23. > :04:26.think I can. I'm giving up on the stilts and moving to a more
:04:26. > :04:32.sensible means of transport to explore the Fen and to go to the
:04:32. > :04:38.start of our timeline. Can you take us back 1,500 years and paint of
:04:38. > :04:41.picture of what it would have been like here? It's a mistake to think
:04:41. > :04:44.of the Fens as one great big expanse of water, one great big
:04:44. > :04:47.lake, even one great big swamp. It was never ever like that. It was
:04:47. > :04:51.always a patchwork of different environments. We're floating along
:04:51. > :04:54.a waterway here, a canal. The Romans have cut canals in the Fens,
:04:54. > :04:57.and certainly by the later medieval period, the 9th, 10th century,
:04:57. > :05:03.after the conquest, again they are cutting canals, loads for barge
:05:03. > :05:06.transports, to drain the Fens. the Romans didn't ignore this part
:05:06. > :05:09.of the world? No, but perceptions change throughout that time and
:05:09. > :05:12.it's 1,500 years ago, about that time, we start getting the first
:05:12. > :05:18.written references, well, at least that are reflecting on life at
:05:18. > :05:21.those times. The lives of the hermit saints that came out here on
:05:21. > :05:26.the Fens and they're really trying to big up how difficult it was,
:05:26. > :05:31.what a hostile environment it was. So and so must have been a really
:05:31. > :05:33.good saint because he chose to live in the Fens? Exactly. A hardy soul.
:05:33. > :05:37.He put up with these problems, diseases, flooding, et cetera,
:05:37. > :05:40.whereas the chronicle in the 12th century are all full of praise for
:05:40. > :05:44.how wonderful the environment is. All the abbeys are fantastically
:05:44. > :05:49.well endowed with this Fenland environment. There's more fish than
:05:49. > :05:52.they know what to do with, there is meadow, it's a heaven on earth.
:05:52. > :05:54.wetlands were a place were mosquitoes bred and spread diseases,
:05:54. > :06:03.malaria, plague, and rheumatism all thrived here, but, as we'll see
:06:03. > :06:09.later, food was plentiful. First, I'll need transport. Hi, I've come
:06:09. > :06:13.to hire a bike. OK. We've got one here for you. Luckily, the National
:06:13. > :06:17.Trust have a cycle hire hut at Wickham. I want to cycle all the
:06:17. > :06:21.way to Cambridge on the loadsway? It's designed for that. Is it?
:06:21. > :06:27.Perfect, right, well, I'll take this one, then. That's cool. I'll
:06:27. > :06:31.see you in three weeks. No-one uses stilts today, but some skills date
:06:31. > :06:34.back 1,500 years or more. Throughout history, these rivers
:06:34. > :06:40.provided food and the techniques for catching fish and eels were
:06:40. > :06:47.handed down through families. Peter Carter is the last of a long line
:06:47. > :06:53.of eel catchers. Peter, good to see you, I'm Rory, nice to see you.
:06:53. > :06:57.are you doing? I like this. Now, what's this? Is it a canoe or a
:06:57. > :07:01.barge? No, it's a traditional Fen punt. How about we catch some eels?
:07:01. > :07:06.We can have a look and see if we can find some. So, this is one of
:07:06. > :07:10.the traditional traps, is it Peter? They call it an eel hide. How does
:07:10. > :07:15.that work, you put bait in here, do you? Yep. Road kill, chicken guts.
:07:15. > :07:19.Anything. In the old days they used to love old dead tom cats. So they
:07:19. > :07:23.are not vegetarian, then, these eels? No, no. They clear up all the
:07:23. > :07:27.dead animals in the river. Oh, that is great, yes. Swim in one end,
:07:27. > :07:30.then they can't get out? Swimming in one end and unbung the other,
:07:31. > :07:35.but these have just been made. is unbunged at the moment, but I
:07:35. > :07:39.see what you mean. How many eels does that hold, then? You can have
:07:39. > :07:42.a dozen small eels on a good night, but most time, there are one, two
:07:42. > :07:45.eels these days. Am I right, in thinking your family has been
:07:45. > :07:49.working in this part of the country for years and years? The family
:07:49. > :07:53.trace back to this area to about 1470. Blimey! So between you,
:07:53. > :07:56.you've caught a few eels? Yes! Peter makes and uses the same
:07:56. > :07:59.design of eel traps as his ancestors. He also uses modern nets
:07:59. > :08:03.and it's the modern one that has caught the eels today. Oh, got a
:08:03. > :08:07.couple in here. Oh, yeah, we have eels, ladies and gentlemen we have
:08:07. > :08:12.eels. Two, three? There are a couple of them there. Nice-sized
:08:12. > :08:16.ones. Beautiful. We have a snack here. They fry up, they make a good
:08:16. > :08:19.meal. There was everything you needed on the Fen at one time. You
:08:19. > :08:24.had all the materials you want for building the houses, the willow,
:08:24. > :08:27.the reeds, the rushes. Plenty of food. Plenty of food, you can't
:08:27. > :08:33.starve on the Fens, if you know what you are after. From ducks to
:08:33. > :08:37.eels. No, they had a good life. Shall we have a look at one of
:08:37. > :08:43.those little beauties, then? Yes, we can. It's a sort of the emblem
:08:43. > :08:46.of the Fens, isn't it? Yeah it is. This it is a beautiful creature. A
:08:46. > :08:49.lot of people don't like them because they are slimy, but they
:08:49. > :08:53.are a very important part. When people got married, they used their
:08:53. > :08:56.skins for wedding rings. Really? Yeah, all sorts of things. They
:08:56. > :08:59.used to believe it stopped rheumatism for wearing of it as a
:08:59. > :09:02.guard. I think they are a fascinating creature. They are. So,
:09:02. > :09:05.what we've been doing this afternoon has been going on in the
:09:05. > :09:09.Fens for how many years? Well we know 3,000 years. Probably longer
:09:09. > :09:14.than that. So you are living history? Yeah, well hopefully I
:09:14. > :09:17.won't be the last one, either. sleeping eel, that's incredible.
:09:17. > :09:20.Meeting people like Peter who works with traditions that are centuries
:09:21. > :09:26.old is a great way of connecting with people from the past. It tells
:09:26. > :09:29.us so much more about history than documents on their own ever could.
:09:29. > :09:35.Now, new evidence has come to light that proves Peter's way of life and
:09:35. > :09:38.even his equipment goes back to the Bronze Age, 3,000 years ago. Here
:09:38. > :09:44.at Whitlesea, archaeologists have just found boats and eel traps that
:09:44. > :09:50.are remarkably similar to Peter's, preserved in an old riverbed. Kerry
:09:50. > :09:54.Morrel is from Cambridge archaeological unit. What happens
:09:54. > :09:57.when they go in the ground they start off circular, and when they
:09:57. > :10:01.are crushed under the pressure of the deposits, they crack and you
:10:01. > :10:08.get a weak point. So quite often we lose the top half or are left with
:10:08. > :10:11.the inside. I'll just take this off carefully. These vary in shape and
:10:11. > :10:15.size, all of the ones we have found have been slightly different, but
:10:15. > :10:20.generally, the themes are the same. So all the ones we have found have
:10:20. > :10:23.what's called the chair, that you can see at this end. You have the
:10:23. > :10:27.main circular basket and inside the smaller basket at the entrance end
:10:27. > :10:32.where the eels would swim in and get caught in here and would not be
:10:32. > :10:38.able to get back out again. archaeologists confirmed their
:10:38. > :10:41.discoveries by comparing them to the willow eel traps made by Peter.
:10:41. > :10:45.He put his traps down next to our traps and he couldn't believe how
:10:45. > :10:49.similar they were. The technology is virtually the same. We're
:10:49. > :10:53.finding a boat, a trap, a boat, a trap, literally on top of one
:10:53. > :10:57.another. This is not one this is not just one period of occupation
:10:57. > :11:00.it is continuous throughout the channel's life. If you could dig
:11:01. > :11:04.anywhere in the Fen, you would find the same types of things that we're
:11:04. > :11:07.finding here. The archaeology tells us how people lived and fed
:11:07. > :11:10.themselves for thousands of years, but what were they thinking?
:11:10. > :11:20.There's a way we can get inside the minds of our ancestors with some
:11:20. > :11:21.
:11:21. > :11:27.So, I've come here to Bowell Museum to find out a bit more. Right, so
:11:27. > :11:31.the Fens were really a mysterious place. This is storyteller, Fred
:11:31. > :11:37.White. There was lots of strange things, I don't know if you've
:11:37. > :11:43.heard of boggits? Have you heard of boggits? No. Have you heard of Will
:11:43. > :11:50.o the wisp? No. Have you heard of dead hands? Yeah! Well it so
:11:50. > :11:53.happens, in here is a dead hand. occurred to me as I was listening
:11:53. > :11:56.to your story telling there, Fred, are there more of these sort of
:11:56. > :12:01.stories to do with the Fens because the Fens is such a peculiar
:12:01. > :12:05.landscapes? It's a very dangerous place. I mean not so much now, but
:12:05. > :12:12.in years gone by, the only way of travelling was on narrow paths that
:12:12. > :12:18.were sort of handed down. I mean they used to change. So story
:12:18. > :12:21.telling was a way of keeping people safe, really. Tell me, the stories,
:12:21. > :12:25.are they are way of explaining a way of dangerous and mysterious
:12:25. > :12:30.landscapes? Yes, the stories were told to the children so that the
:12:30. > :12:34.children stayed in doors, really. As soon as it went dark, they
:12:34. > :12:38.didn't go out. There was a feeling that if they made a noise, the
:12:38. > :12:47.Bogart would come and grab them and the dead hands would come out of
:12:47. > :12:55.the mud and pull them under and they wouldn't be seen again. It is
:12:55. > :12:58.like dead hands. If you think about that, then that could be some poor
:12:58. > :13:01.soul, fallen into the dyke, grabbing someone to help and then
:13:01. > :13:05.suddenly that has grown into that mythical thing about the dead hand.
:13:05. > :13:09.If you find stones with holes in, what you want to do is keep them
:13:09. > :13:12.because they keep the witches away. People forget details and add
:13:12. > :13:16.details by mistake and make stuff up? A bit like Chinese whispers,
:13:16. > :13:21.things would sort of change. People would put their slant on it. A
:13:21. > :13:25.story, really, is a thing that evolves and grows, really. You can
:13:25. > :13:30.sometimes see a shadowy figure, all dressed in grey with long hair and
:13:30. > :13:33.a beard. That's Diddy Munn. Fred's stories remind us of how
:13:33. > :13:38.dangerous the Fens were, and of course, they were full of disease,
:13:38. > :13:40.so how did people make themselves better? The curator of Cambridge
:13:40. > :13:47.Folk Museum, Polly Hodgson, has brought ancient remedies, which
:13:47. > :13:50.were still being used around 100 years ago. In those days, most
:13:50. > :13:55.families lived from the land and that's where their remedies came
:13:55. > :14:01.from. Would I be right in saying that the Fens were an unhealthy
:14:01. > :14:07.place to live? Yes, definitely. Very moist, damp conditions.
:14:07. > :14:11.Subject to a lot of sea flooding. What sort of disease were they
:14:11. > :14:15.suffering from? They were suffering from ague. Ague for me is one of
:14:15. > :14:17.those words that is just a cover- all. It is every disease, ague.
:14:17. > :14:21.Whenever you read about the historical, everyone was suffering
:14:21. > :14:24.from ague. Basically it was. It was. Basically aching of the joints,
:14:24. > :14:28.bones, fever, shivering. How did they go about curing or preventing
:14:28. > :14:32.the diseases? They were using a variety of things. We have some
:14:32. > :14:37.very exciting objects. We have some horseradish here. That would have
:14:37. > :14:40.been grated and tied around the neck. Really? So that's grated
:14:40. > :14:45.horseradish. You tie it around the neck for what? To basically cure
:14:45. > :14:50.the ague. I think maybe the strong smell, possibly. It is quite strong,
:14:50. > :14:53.isn't it? Yes. We have a white briny root also known as a mandrake.
:14:53. > :14:58.This was their main form of painkiller. It would have been
:14:58. > :15:02.grated up. You couldn't swallow that, could you? Take one of these,
:15:02. > :15:07.three times I day. That's amazing. Basically they were looking for
:15:07. > :15:10.pain killers. They also used willow, obviously. That has an aspirin
:15:10. > :15:14.connection to it. They would strip the bark off the willow tea, grate
:15:14. > :15:19.it up and drink it as a tea. this looks like holly to me? It is
:15:19. > :15:22.holly. That would have been scratched on the legs and I think
:15:22. > :15:28.help get the circulation going. All of these preventions were about
:15:28. > :15:31.keeping them out on the land so that they could continue to do that.
:15:31. > :15:36.Ouch, God. Medicine's come a long way since then, thank goodness. God,
:15:36. > :15:40.that hurts! All of this is giving me a picture of Fenland countryside,
:15:40. > :15:46.providing a tough but fertile existence. From the Bronze Age
:15:46. > :15:51.until the 15th century. Time now, to see how Cambridge is faring with
:15:51. > :16:01.its own health problems. In the 16th century, the University is
:16:01. > :16:05.
:16:05. > :16:09.established and the expanding town This is the bridge over the River
:16:09. > :16:12.Cam. The very first crossing point of the river where the Romans
:16:12. > :16:18.decided to build their city. It is hard to believe that Cambridge was
:16:18. > :16:22.once a thriving port on the edge of a marshy Fen. It looks lovely today,
:16:22. > :16:30.but what was it like 500 years ago, before the streets were cleaned so
:16:31. > :16:35.thoroughly? Alan Brigham is a local historian and tour guide. Hi, Alan,
:16:35. > :16:39.nice to see you again. Hi, Rory. Now, we're going to be talking
:16:39. > :16:43.rubbish today? We're always talking rubbish. Now, Alan, apart from
:16:43. > :16:47.being Cambridge's top historian, you're other job is as a road
:16:48. > :16:52.sweeper? I've been a road sweeper for 35 years. But there is no
:16:52. > :16:54.rubbish around here? You can't see any rubbish, Rory, but probably
:16:54. > :16:59.underneath this grass, I think there is 500 years of medieval
:16:59. > :17:01.rubbish. Because all this area along the back, a awful lot of it
:17:01. > :17:04.is probably built on medieval rubbish. Outside Kings, 20 years
:17:05. > :17:08.ago, they did an archaeological dig, and when they were digging all they
:17:08. > :17:12.found were bones and broken glass from the remains of college feasts.
:17:12. > :17:15.What they threw away is what we find now? What they leave for the
:17:15. > :17:19.next generation is like you before you dress up in the mirror before
:17:19. > :17:22.you go out of your house to meet your loved ones. It's how you want
:17:22. > :17:25.people to remember you. Look in your wheelie bin and you can tell
:17:25. > :17:28.how you really live. Now, Alan, humans produce another sort of
:17:28. > :17:33.waste apart from household rubbish, do they not? Sewage, Rory, that's a
:17:33. > :17:36.big problem. That's a nice way of putting it, yes. Let's go and talk
:17:36. > :17:40.about it, because I want to talk about the river and sewage. Oh, no,
:17:40. > :17:42.I don't like the sound of that at all. In medieval times, the river
:17:42. > :17:46.brought prosperity to Cambridge, Cambridge thrived as a port, but
:17:46. > :17:49.the river washed away the excrement of the town. So this was like an
:17:49. > :17:53.open sewer. Basically, you're talking people used to excrete
:17:53. > :17:56.directly into the river? Yes, this was the sewer for this side of
:17:56. > :18:04.Cambridge. People would have their loos, their privies hanging over
:18:04. > :18:09.the river, like, see here. See this overhang? Yes! I am almost tempted
:18:09. > :18:11.to move closer to you, just in case. Back in the 1300s, the three heads
:18:11. > :18:15.of colleges were fined by the corporation, because they had their
:18:16. > :18:18.privies overhang the rivers just like this. Yeah, if you had been
:18:18. > :18:23.going underneath there, you'd have been in danger of something nasty-
:18:23. > :18:27.smelling and landing on your head. There was a ditch, it is called the
:18:27. > :18:32.King's Ditch. It ran in a loop around the town, joining up the
:18:32. > :18:35.arms of the river. It was not small, it was big, about the third of a
:18:35. > :18:39.width of this river. Would that have been filled with sewer as
:18:39. > :18:43.well? That became an open sewer too. There's not much gradient in
:18:43. > :18:46.Cambridge. So Cambridge around those times is a city surrounded by
:18:46. > :18:51.a continuous loop of sewage, basically? Yeah, that's the truth!
:18:51. > :18:55.And the ditch ran into the river about here. So this is the point
:18:55. > :18:58.where the sewage from that side of the town met with the sewage from
:18:58. > :19:08.this side of the town and floated off down the river towards Wickham
:19:08. > :19:09.
:19:09. > :19:15.Now, I'm a graduate of this fine university, but I never new it was
:19:15. > :19:18.built on rubbish. But at the end of the 16th century, things start
:19:18. > :19:28.looking up for the health of the Fen folk and indeed, the whole
:19:28. > :19:32.
:19:32. > :19:36.nation. With medicine based on This gate represents a turning
:19:36. > :19:40.point in the history of medicine. It was built by Dr John Keys, the
:19:40. > :19:45.style is Italian renaissance. He had just come back from Italy. That
:19:45. > :19:47.is significant. He brought back with him revolutionary ideas.
:19:47. > :19:50.Renaissance Italy was leading the world in art, architecture and
:19:50. > :19:57.medical study and Keys wanted to improve the health of people back
:19:57. > :20:00.home. He designed this new court for his college, which broke with
:20:00. > :20:03.medieval tradition by only have three sides, less, he said, the air
:20:03. > :20:11.being prevented by free movement, should become corrupted and so does
:20:11. > :20:13.us harm. It's a reminder that in the 16th century, the enclosed
:20:13. > :20:19.courtyards of Cambridge colleges trapped disease and were often
:20:19. > :20:26.deserted due to outbreaks of plague and fever. Medical historian,
:20:26. > :20:30.Professor Vivian Nutham, says Keys' new court represents a new era.
:20:30. > :20:35.Morning professor! Good morning, Rory and welcome to modernity.
:20:35. > :20:38.Modernity? Is this modernity? certainly is. Because when Keys
:20:38. > :20:43.refounded his college, he wanted it to be the very model of modern
:20:43. > :20:48.education. He derived these ideas from his time in Italy. Why did he
:20:48. > :20:56.go to Italy? What was he doing there? He went to Italy to study
:20:56. > :21:05.medicine at the most prestigious Wow, this is a room, isn't it?
:21:05. > :21:10.is the splendid hall. At the end we have a portrait of the man himself.
:21:10. > :21:13.Oh, that's John Keys? That's John Keys and his coat of arms. What was
:21:13. > :21:16.his major contribution to the modern medicine? He brought British
:21:16. > :21:23.medicine into the modern world of the 16th century. In particular,
:21:23. > :21:26.anatomy. Cutting up people? Anatomy literally means to cut open and is
:21:26. > :21:29.the study of the human body, as illustrated in these drawings by
:21:29. > :21:37.Leonardo da Vinci. Before Keys, no- one had studied anatomy, so
:21:37. > :21:39.superstition gave way to science. It was in two generations, we have
:21:39. > :21:41.William Harvey who comes to Keys especially on a medical scholarship,
:21:41. > :21:44.studies anatomy and medicine here, discovering that the blood
:21:44. > :21:54.circulates around the body, which is one of the great discoveries in
:21:54. > :21:55.
:21:55. > :21:59.medicine. A huge milestone in medicine? It's a major milestone in
:21:59. > :22:03.medicine. I think it divides ancient from modern medicine. It is
:22:04. > :22:10.all due, in a sense to John Keys. And here he is, the great man
:22:10. > :22:14.himself. Here he is, presiding over his favourite college. Place names
:22:14. > :22:24.and street names can give us clues to the past. Hobson Street has a
:22:24. > :22:25.
:22:25. > :22:28.link to another milestone in the It's now late in the 16th century
:22:28. > :22:34.and there is still no public sanitation, but in 1574, a solution
:22:34. > :22:40.is proposed for the sewage problems we heard about earlier. It is known
:22:40. > :22:45.now as Hobson's Conduit. To find out more, I have a date with the
:22:45. > :22:48.intriguingly named, Conduit Trust. The chairman, Howard Slatter, has
:22:48. > :22:51.invited me to join their annual inspection. My fellow trustees and
:22:51. > :23:01.I will be walking part of the system, Hobson's Conduit, and
:23:01. > :23:05.
:23:05. > :23:12.Fallen leaves in the brook, from the brook's point of view are bad
:23:12. > :23:16.news? Yes. It's up to here, here but no further. There's nothing
:23:16. > :23:20.showing at the moment. Cambridge in the late 16th century had a big
:23:20. > :23:24.problem with plague which had been brought up from London. Andrew Purn,
:23:24. > :23:27.who was vice chancellor for the year, has this idea that the main
:23:27. > :23:34.cause of the ongoing eruptions of the plague is the King's Ditch
:23:34. > :23:37.which was around the southern edge of the town. He thought that if
:23:37. > :23:41.only we could get this thing flushed out, cleaned out, then the
:23:41. > :23:49.problems would disappear. So they bring in fresh water from the
:23:49. > :23:53.outside of the town? That's right. He had the idea that the water from
:23:53. > :23:56.Nine Wells, that flows along what we now know is the Vicar's Brook
:23:56. > :24:00.and goes into the town could be diverted to come into Cambridge as
:24:00. > :24:03.far as the King's Ditch, and then be used to flush out the ditch and
:24:03. > :24:06.keep it clean thereafter. Did it work? We think that nowadays that
:24:06. > :24:09.in fact it probably never did flush the ditch properly, but the water
:24:09. > :24:14.that it then provided into Cambridge, could be put to other
:24:14. > :24:16.purposes. So it had benefits? indeed. About five years or so
:24:16. > :24:19.after it was first constructed, they built a pipe to the
:24:19. > :24:26.marketplace, Market Hill, and a fountain was put in there that the
:24:26. > :24:31.public could use for drinking water. So it was that good? Nice, clean,
:24:31. > :24:35.cold spring water? Yes, it was. It was chalk spring water. And the
:24:35. > :24:38.name Hobson wasn't attached to the conduit at this stage? That's right.
:24:38. > :24:42.His name comes on the scene basically when he died, because in
:24:42. > :24:47.his will he left land which was to be used to generate income to
:24:47. > :24:53.maintain the newly constructed brook. And so there after, people
:24:53. > :24:57.called it Hobson's Conduit. Was he a university man, Hobson? No, I
:24:57. > :25:00.don't think he was. He used to hire out horses and he used to carry
:25:00. > :25:04.goods and people from Cambridge, mainly from London and back.
:25:04. > :25:09.Everyone's heard of the phrase Hobson's Choice. Hobson's choice,
:25:09. > :25:13.yes. That's the same man, of course. Hobson's choice, no choice at all?
:25:13. > :25:16.That's right. You could have whatever horse you liked as long as
:25:16. > :25:19.it was the one he wanted to lend you. So, rightly or wrongly, Hobson
:25:19. > :25:23.is reminded for his choice, more than the conduit, which failed to
:25:23. > :25:26.flush out the sewage, but turned out to be a success. I'm almost at
:25:27. > :25:29.my journey's end and time for a well-earned pint, in what better
:25:29. > :25:37.placed than The Eagle where Crick and Watson unravelled human genome,
:25:37. > :25:42.I'm moving forward to the 19th century, the damp Fens and
:25:42. > :25:48.Cambridge were still riddled with malaria. Dr Alice Nicholls can tell
:25:49. > :25:52.me how it was defeated. Why, are we here to talk about malaria?
:25:52. > :25:55.wanted to show you some of the remedies that were used to treat
:25:55. > :25:58.malaria in the 19th century. So quinine is one of them. Quinine is
:25:58. > :26:02.famous for being in tonic water, that contains quinine, they used to
:26:02. > :26:06.drink it in the Raj, in their gin and tonics and get cured, but what
:26:06. > :26:11.is quinine derived from? Quinine comes from the bark of the sincona
:26:11. > :26:13.tree. The tree is from South America. It was first used in
:26:13. > :26:18.England was by Cambridge board Robert Talbor, who developed a
:26:18. > :26:21.secret remedy to treat King Charles II. It was only later that the
:26:21. > :26:24.science was established. So presumably that's expensive? It was
:26:24. > :26:27.one of the more expensive remedies, it was available from druggists, in
:26:27. > :26:34.hospitals, on prescriptions, it could be bought over the counter,
:26:34. > :26:39.but it was more expensive in this area in the 19th century. So what
:26:39. > :26:44.did the poor people like you or me use? They would have opium. Opium
:26:44. > :26:48.was cheaper? Yes, it was. There was a report from the mid-1860s, where
:26:48. > :26:52.it was observed that the brewers in the cellars would put opium into
:26:52. > :26:57.the beer. Really? It was very popular with the local people, but
:26:57. > :27:02.visitors to the area were surprised. They must have been thinking, nice
:27:02. > :27:07.beer round here, I say! I associate malaria with tropical places, is
:27:07. > :27:10.this the same disease? It is a different parasite. So the parasite
:27:10. > :27:16.that causes fatal malaria in the Tropics is different to the
:27:16. > :27:19.parasite that was found in the Fens. Some people did die from it. But we
:27:19. > :27:24.associate it with an area of widespread death, so this is a
:27:24. > :27:26.different sort of... You were just feeling ill? Yes. So, the draining
:27:26. > :27:29.of the Fens virtually eradicated the malaria? It lessoned the
:27:29. > :27:32.breeding grounds for the mosquitoes, it made them smaller and fewer and
:27:32. > :27:38.then increased the distance between the breeding ground and the human
:27:38. > :27:41.blood meal. This is an accident? They didn't know it was anything to
:27:41. > :27:44.do with mosquitoes? They didn't know it was anything to do with
:27:44. > :27:49.mosquitoes, but it wasn't an accident that they knew that the
:27:49. > :27:52.marshes were causing ill health. see. Their conception of it was it
:27:52. > :27:58.was the fogs and the vapours, rising from the marshes that caused
:27:58. > :28:01.ill health. The miasma of the marshland environment that caused
:28:01. > :28:05.the ill health. If they were to drain the land, not only to reclaim
:28:05. > :28:08.it for agriculture use, but that it would make it a healthier place to
:28:08. > :28:12.live. So with drainage of the Fens completed, the worst diseases were
:28:12. > :28:15.defeated. The end of the malaria is very much the end of our journey,
:28:15. > :28:20.but having sorted out some of its basic health problems, this city
:28:20. > :28:29.could now thrive. Some of the discoveries that have been made