In 1840, one man transformed travel in Britain.
His name was George Bradshaw,
and his railway guides inspired the Victorians to take to the tracks.
Stop by stop, he told them where to travel,
what to see and where to stay.
Now, 170 years later,
I'm making a series of journeys across the length and breadth of the country
to see what of Bradshaw's Britain remains.
Ripped By mstoll
Over the last few days I've been travelling on railway lines
in Southeast England that got the Victorian middle classes on the move
and opened up remote farmland.
With George Bradshaw's 19th-century guidebook
whispering travel tips in my ear,
I'm now completing my journey that began on the south coast of Britain
and has brought me to the northern shores of Norfolk
and a vintage diesel
running on a heritage line out of Dereham.
One of the reasons I enjoy visiting Norfolk
is to be reminded of the skill and effort
that's required to put food on our plates.
Writing about this part of England,
my "Bradshaw's Guide" makes very clear what Victorians liked to eat.
So on my way I'll be finding out why a rare breed of turkey
is making a modern comeback...
We start hatching here in April.
That's a long time to Christmas.
It obviously takes a long time to finish them,
so therefore you get a more moist meat.
Roll on, Christmas.
...sitting shakily in the driving seat...
I think I do need further lessons.
I don't think it was a complete success, but it was very exciting.
...and seeing the crowds still drawn to a Victorian delicacy.
It saves the person doing the eating a lot of work.
Of course, not everybody knows how to dress a crab.
Not everybody can dress a crab like Tracey.
I'm almost at the end of my journey from Brighton through London
and across the Fens of Cambridgeshire.
Having left King's Lynn, I'm now heading for East Dereham
before reaching the North Norfolk coast.
Today after taking the heritage line to Wymondham, I'll move on to Norwich
and my final stop, the seaside town of Cromer.
The first stretch of the route takes me away from the main line
along a rural Norfolk branch line.
In Bradshaw's time it was used to transport turkeys to market in London,
earning its trains the nickname the Turkey Express.
Now it's a heritage route, operating the last generation of diesels.
E*very smell, every sound, the roar of the diesel,
the chug-chug across the railway lines,
it's all so evocative of a form of rail travel now gone.
I'm about to go and see the driver, Peter. And I've met him before.
Peter Eyre has worked on this route for over 12 years.
Peter. Good morning. How lovely to see you.
- It's been a while. - It has. It has indeed.
Remind me where it was that we met.
We met in Hornsey EMU depot
when you presented me with the Minister's Cup for punctuality
on the Great Northern out of King's Cross.
You absolutely deserved it. Well done.
Wow. Those were electric trains you were driving then.
Yes, yes, yes.
Now we're on a diesel. Have you driven every sort of train?
Virtually, yes.
So, Peter, this diesel unit was being introduced when I was a kid in the '50s.
Yes, that's right.
It was elbowing the steam engines aside.
- That's right. - Was that a sad time?
It was. It was into the unknown.
A lot of the older drivers at that time, they really couldn't get used to it.
We had two or three incidents on the railway
where people actually committed suicide because of the pressure.
They couldn't handle the change.
- That's very sad. - It is.
They just couldn't get their head round it.
Right, now. I'm going to put you in the seat
so you get an idea of a bit of basics on what a driver's job was.
Well, that's... OK. That's pretty daunting.
Now, the first thing you've got to remember,
this is what they call the dead man's handle.
- Yes. - You've got to keep it down.
If you release it, between five and seven seconds,
you'll get a brake application.
That is the most important thing. Knock that right round to number one.
Open up and blow the horn.
Seems a bit like one of these things where you have to
tickle the top of your head and play with your nose at the same time.
- Kick this into one. - Straight to the top.
That's it.
- Wow. - Now, open the controller.
That's fine. Open the controller a bit to give her some power.
You see the board on the right with the big red dot in it?
- Yeah. - That is a stop signal.
That's where we should stop.
Gradually bring the brake round towards you.
Bit more. Keep going.
That was a bit of a sharp pull-up.
If we were doing this for real, the public would be having a go.
They'd say, "Who's driving this? You've just spilt my tea."
Yes. I think I do need further lessons.
I don't think that was a complete success,
but it was very exciting indeed.
I'll tell them George Bradshaw was driving.
That's right.
I've more or less safely delivered myself to Thuxton,
which, though tiny, scores a mention in "Bradshaw's Guide".
Bradshaw says of North and Northeast Norfolk,
that "with its sandy and gravelly soil,
it is peculiarly salubrious and pleasant."
It isn't just human beings that find it so.
Turkeys have also thrived here.
The mild Norfolk climate
has for centuries made it an ideal place to breed them.
But the trade really took off in the 1870s when the railways were completed.
I've come to explore the origins of the turkey business
and first I'm meeting Bob Curson
who has spent over 60 years in the industry.
That is a magnificent car.
Bob, who is now retired, has clearly come to pick me up in style.
In your day, how did the turkeys get to the people who wanted to eat them?
All by rail. There were all sent to Liverpool Street.
All over the country.
Were you putting your turkeys onto passenger trains?
Yes. Oh, yes.
You couldn't have them hanging about on a goods train, could you?
Otherwise they'd be gone off before they got there.
Do you remember taking them to the station?
Yes. Very well.
I'm on the photograph, you see.
- Can I see that? - Course you can.
There's something written on the back.
- 1954. - 1954, that is, yes.
"Consignment of oven-ready turkeys packed in crates
to go by train from Thuxton Station to London."
"Bob Curson by the tractor." That's you.
That's a fantastic photo.
- Thank you for showing it to me. - My pleasure.
Are we travelling up to the farm in your car?
- If you'll take the chance on it. - I'll take a chance on it.
Fabulous. Wow! This is quite an experience for me.
Bob's taking me to the farm where he used to work.
I'll be meeting a local family who've been breeding turkeys
since the poultry trains began running in the 19th century.
- Good morning, Pat. - Good morning.
- How lovely to be here. - Nice to see you.
What a lovely farm. It's your family farm?
It is. Father always called it the home of the Norfolk blacks.
The Norfolk black is the oldest breed of turkey in the country.
Pat and her son James run one of the few farms
still rearing them in the traditional way.
Right. Well, here we see James.
- Hello, James. - He's now going to feed.
- Very nice to see you. - And you.
This is the Norfolk black turkey?
This is the Norfolk black.
- But it's not really from Norfolk. - Originally it came from South America.
And then in the early 1500s, it arrived in Europe.
Obviously, King Henry VIII was the first English king
to have turkey at his banquets,
along with peacocks and pheasants and various other game
because it was a game bird.
It is still a game bird that we have here today.
By Victorian times, turkey had become a popular choice for Christmas dinner
thanks to the railways and because it featured
in Charles Dickens's popular tale "A Christmas Carol".
In the 20th century, farmers began cross-breeding turkeys
to make bigger, faster-growing birds.
The traditional Norfolk black was almost extinct
when in the 1930s James's grandfather built up a new flock of pedigree birds.
You should look at a pure Norfolk black turkey
as a very angular type of bird.
It shouldn't be very round and roly-poly.
The other varieties grow a lot quicker
and therefore they need less time to rear and feed and everything else.
These guys here we start here hatching in April.
That's a long time to Christmas
and obviously it takes a long time to finish them.
So therefore you get more of a moist meat.
James's birds roam outside for most of the year,
fed with grain grown on the farm.
This year he's rearing 2,500, as the breed is popular
with those seeking a distinctive Christmas treat.
I have to ask you, when you sit down to your Christmas lunch, what do you eat?
- Turkey. - Unfortunately, yes.
I don't know how you can bear the sight of it by then!
It's a bit early to take a Christmas turkey, so I'm leaving empty-handed
as I continue my journey back on the main line.
This is Wymondham Station and on my travels,
I've seen many good-looking stations, but this one really is beautiful.
It looks almost as much like a garden as a railway station.
I've arrived ahead of time to explore the station café.
It's been voted one of the top ten station eateries in the UK.
This is absolutely glorious.
The whole thing is not so much like a first-class lounge
as a first-class compartment,
complete with luggage racks.
Can I help you, sir?
It's absolutely beautiful in here. Are you responsible for all this?
For my sins, yes, I am. It's rather a dream that's come true.
23 years ago I took on this building which was absolutely redundant
and in a dreadful state of repair
and I put a lot of money into it and resurrected it to what you see now
with the theme Brief Encounter.
But it's still a railway station.
Yes, a very important station,
complete with ticket office, screening, cameras and announcements etc.
Is the railway happy that you've done all this terrific job?
I think they are. They never interfere with anybody.
I've had nothing but respect from all departments all those years.
- I'll have a cup of tea. - Jolly good.
- It's been a pleasure to talk to you. - Great to see you. Thank you.
After a refreshing cup of tea, it's time to catch my next train.
I'm heading ten miles along the tracks to this county's capital, Norwich.
Whenever I go to Norwich, I'm struck by the quality of its architecture.
It's got lots of really splendid old buildings.
Obviously, the cathedral and the castle, but also many fine houses.
And it's all testimony to the fact that once
it was one of Britain's most prosperous cities.
In fact Norwich is home to what was in Bradshaw's era
Gurney's.
It's mentioned several times in my guide.
- Hello, Anthony. Michael. - How do you do?
Good to see you.
Historian Anthony Howe is waiting for me outside the bank's old headquarters.
I wanted to meet you here because I was intrigued by something in my guide.
"On Bank Lane," which is apparently where we are, "is Gurney's Bank,
established by an old Norfolk family
equally known for their good works and philanthropy."
It's a pretty impressive spot for their bank.
Absolutely. This reflects the stature of the family in the business community
and within the city and the region
where they were not only outstanding businessmen
but also of great importance in terms of philanthropy and other good works,
in terms of anti-slavery, support for religion, prison reform,
even the setting-up of Liberia.
"Bradshaw's" recommends Gurney's as a place to take out cash on your travels
but immediately after the guide was published,
the Gurneys were involved in the biggest financial crash in history.
One branch of the family diversified
into funding credit in the City of London.
They set up this new bank, Overend, Gurney.
It was that bank which was involved in the crisis.
This was a period of global financial boom.
They start putting money into shipping, shipbuilding.
They do invest in extending some of the suburban railways in London.
The bank began to buy risky new investments,
including railway stock.
Railway shares boomed in the 1860s but were hugely overvalued.
When the bubble burst in 1866,
panicking shareholders prompted a run on the bank.
So the bank actually fails?
People are out there on the street wanting their money back?
Absolutely. The day after the pandemonium in the City of London,
people were knocking on the doors of all the banks
because the fear was that every bank was going to come down.
They came too speculative.
In 1866 they found they were no longer able to fund all their projects.
Effectively, they were bankrupt.
This offshoot of Gurney's bank collapsed owing the equivalent in today's money
of almost £1 billion.
It led to a new role for the Bank of England
which from then on agreed to rescue the banking system if it failed.
This has a very modern feel about it, this story.
Absolutely.
It was a product of speculation and greed.
And so it was a moral lesson for the City of London that was learnt.
Intrigued by stories of economic calamity,
I sought a place to stay connected with the Norfolk banking family.
When the prudent Gurneys were building up their banking business
in the 18th century, they had an elegant townhouse built for them.
It's now a bed and breakfast
and the place that I've decided to spend the night.
Morning has broken in Norwich.
My Bradshaw's Guide refers to mustard seed under Cambridgeshire
but I remember as a kid it was my job to mix up the mustard powder
with a little water for our roast beef on Sunday.
I couldn't help noticing that the product came from Norwich.
50 years later I couldn't leave the city without discovering the home of mustard.
While investment in the railways almost brought down Gurney's bank,
the trains boosted the fortunes of this industry.
I'm heading to the site of Colman's mustard factory.
Thanks to its proximity to the railways in the 19th century,
this company grew rapidly from a small local business to a national giant.
I'm now clearly at the business end of the manufacturing process.
I've got an appointment with Mick the miller
and I'm going to find him somewhere up there.
- Hello, Mick. Fantastic view. - Fantastic. Welcome.
From the top of these towering silos I can survey a whole area of the city
bought by Jeremiah Colman in the mid-1800s.
He needed to actually get a site
where you got more interest in the transport side of things.
What brought him to this site? What were the transport links?
The railway for a start,
the main railway which was really expanding in those days.
He then contacted the Norfolk Railway Company
and bought this piece of land that we are actually on now in 1850.
This was the first large-scale mustard producer in Britain.
The business quickly spread across the site.
By 1885 an internal network of trains
shuttled up to 250 tons of finished product a week away from the factory
and vast volumes of mustard seed into it.
It feels like we're coming to the very heart of things.
You are. You are now in the nerve centre of the mustard mill.
This is where we actually produce the mustard flour from the seed.
What we call the roller mills here.
- I can see the powder pouring through. - Yes.
In between each one of these rollers is a gigantic sifting machine
which separates the different grades of flour.
I imagine that even if the process has changed a bit,
the product is similar to what the Victorians knew.
Most definitely.
What makes English mustard distinctive is the mix of brown and white seed,
unlike French dijon which uses only brown,
and its smooth texture.
In 1720, a Mrs Clement from Durham discovered how to make
the characteristic English fine-ground powder that we know and love today.
When I was a kid it was always powdered mustard.
I don't remember the jars of ready-made mustard.
They came into being in the 1960s. They wanted a convenience mustard.
They made what we call a ready-mixed jar of mustard.
Once you open it, you can put it back in the fridge.
All the hard work is done.
When I mixed mustard as a kid, it wasn't because we were a deprived family.
They hadn't invented ready-made mustard.
Not until the '60s. Definitely not. Until then it was all powdered mustard.
- That dates me then. - And me.
Now it's time to leave Norwich for the final leg of my journey,
heading out towards the coast.
1:45. Platform six.
My final destination, Cromer.
I'm now bound around 27 miles along the line towards the seaside.
My journey started in Brighton,
a resort within easy striking distance of London.
Now I'm heading for Cromer, another much-loved holiday destination.
On the North Norfolk coast,
you get an idea of the power and the beauty of nature.
It's altogether more remote, more wild.
When the railways arrived, trainloads of Victorians came to enjoy the beaches.
New hotels, guest houses and businesses soon sprang up,
turning Cromer into a bustling resort.
According to my Bradshaw's,
"Cromer is a pleasant bathing place on the cliffs of the North Sea."
"Crabs and lobsters are got." Yummy.
It seems that Cromer's famous seafood
is as popular as it was in Bradshaw's day.
- Delicious-looking crabs. - Yes.
What's the Cromer crab? Why is it different?
The water is shallow.
They live on a flinty, chalky bottom.
There's not heavy-density water pressure on top of them,
so the meat is sweeter.
Been in business long?
A little while.
About eight generations.
- You're not serious? - Yes, I am serious.
- Selling crabs? - Catching and selling crabs.
Catching, too? Do you do the catching?
Yes. I'm not normally in the shop.
My wife, Clare, runs the shop. She helps out.
- I'm mainly at sea. I catch the crabs. - Then what do you do?
You sell them dressed, don't you?
We sell boiled crabs, dressed crabs. Very, very few live crabs nowadays.
Years ago, all the live crabs, straight on the trains
and off to Norwich, London, all over the place.
- They went down live? - All live.
- Alive, alive-o. - Yes.
On a good day, up to 200 crabs are prepared in this shop.
And I can't wait to taste their delicious meat.
These crabs have been boiled first?
They were caught and boiled this morning.
And a dressed crab, the ideal thing is to have the different sorts of meat?
The dark meat and the white meat.
You've got the brown meat. Well, it's more a creamy, yellowy meat.
- Then the white meat on the top. - That's all from one crab?
- Or is it more than one together? - That's all from one crab.
It saves the person doing the eating a lot of work.
Not everybody knows how to dress a crab.
Not everybody can dress a crab like Tracey.
You're doing that with amazing skill. You've been doing that awhile.
- How long have you been doing it? - About 27 years.
Are you the most experienced crab dresser that you know?
- No. - No?
- I imagine there's more out there. - Really?
She's definitely our most experienced crab dresser.
That looks absolutely fantastic. Look at that.
Since Victorian times this is how Cromer crabs have been dressed.
Completely fresh. Absolutely beautiful.
- Worth the train ride? - Worth the train ride.
Tastes of the sea. Isn't that wonderful?
Although the sea provides Cromer's livelihood,
it's also a threat to the town.
The situation became desperate in the 19th century
and it's even documented in my "Bradshaw's Guide".
I'm hoping coastal engineer, Peter Frew, can tell me more.
- Hello, Peter. - Hello, Michael.
A wonderful view we have today.
We do. Beautiful beach, beautiful weather.
My Bradshaw's Guide says,
"Cromer is suffering from the encroachment of the North Sea
by which the land is fast swallowed up and converted into dangerous shoals."
I'm guessing we're standing on a Victorian sea defence.
Yes, we are. These defences were built in 1845
in response to the erosion that they were experiencing.
The walls in Cromer were built over...
The starting point was the mid-1830s.
There was more in 1845 and more again
at the end of the century, 1899 and 1900.
In the 19th century Cromer was so devastated by erosion
that cliffs, a jetty and even the lighthouse were washed away.
This blossoming seaside resort faced disaster.
The Victorian solution was to build these massive sea walls.
And were they effective? Did they keep the sea at bay?
Yes, they did.
The terraces above us here today would not be there
had not the Victorians built these defences.
They built in the Victorian way, strong and for the long term.
Yes, they did.
These impressive grade II listed walls may have saved the town
but further along the coast I can see just how destructive the sea is.
There have been cliff falls here.
We can see one of those on the beach there which has come down.
It ended up on the beach. The sea has started to erode it away.
Over this stretch of coast here we've lost probably four or five metres
in the last three or four years.
Is there a move now to build more Victorian-style defences?
Where we've got towns we will be building defences.
Where we haven't got towns,
we're moving towards saying nature maybe had the right idea.
A good beach is a good defence. The Victorians weren't wrong.
They did a good job with what they did do
but perhaps our understanding now of the way the sea behaves
and the way the coast behaves with the action of the sea
means that maybe we are changing our views.
Having followed my "Bradshaw's Guide" across the country,
I find evidence all around of the enduring Victorian legacy.
Modern customs and modern architecture have transformed our towns,
but at their core, they're unmistakably Victorian.
My journey from Brighton has taken me from coast to coast.
The railways joined up all the once-remote places in between
with results both good and bad.
I've been struck by how small our island is.
It was a thought that bedazzled the Victorians,
that little Britain could be the most powerful nation on earth.
For in those days, Britannia ruled the waves.
But for many Victorians,
British coastal resorts were the limits of their ambitions,
and on a day like today, you feel they weren't missing very much.
On my next journey I'll be following the route of the Irish mail,
travelling north from Ledbury through Wales
to Holyhead on the Isle of Anglesey.
Along the way I'll be scaling Wales's highest peak, Mount Snowdon...
It's magnificent.
It's really imposing.
...uncovering a hidden chemical weapons plant...
We're probably looking at the Second World War's
most secret building in Britain.
In 1942-43, there was nowhere more secret in the world than this.
...and admiring the world's first iron bridge.
- Where would I have to go to see it? - Just down the bottom.
It's amazing. You'll love it.
Ripped By mstoll