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 go, what to see and where to stay,
and now, 110 years later,
I'm aboard for a series of rail adventures across the United Kingdom
to see what of Bradshaw's Britain remains.
I'm now on the last leg of a journey
that began in a Victorian Manchester slum
and will end at a stately home.
Today I'll find out about a duke who changed his garden
and about the son of an illiterate collier worker who changed the world.
On this last leg, I'm given a Victorian music lesson...
Wow!
...I learn of a watery tragedy in the Peak District...
The final death toll was about 81, of whom half were children.
...and I make a splash in Derbyshire.
Whoa!
I never produced as big an impact as that!
My journey began in Manchester, headed west to Merseyside,
felt the sea breeze in Southport,
crossed Lancashire towards Bradford and Huddersfield,
and will finally head to steely South Yorkshire
to end in Derbyshire,
where the father of the railway, George Stephenson, is buried.
Today's leg tunes into Henley, surges into Holmfirth,
takes a break in Sheffield,
and ends in the elegant surrounds of Chesterfield.
My first stop will be Honley.
Bradshaw's tells me, "This place is the centre of the woollen trade,
and has a population of 4,626."
Such wool towns had a strong sense of community,
and such communities make music.
To reach the musical mill town of Honley,
my train crosses the magnificent Victorian Lockwood Viaduct.
The houses in Honley cluster on the slopes of the Holme River Valley,
peeking up above each other, facing each other across narrow alleyways,
the washing spread across the street.
You get the impression of a wool community
set apart by its geography and closely knit.
The brass bands of such small towns are a powerful metaphor
for the harmonious communities
that grew up in response to industrialisation.
The invention of the piston-valve
made the notes on brass instruments more uniform and easier to play,
and mass production made them more affordable.
By 1860, there were over 750 brass bands in England.
Often sponsored by a local employer,
they were attached to collieries, foundries and textile mills.
Places like Honley still have them.
Peter Marshall is a local historian.
- Peter, hello. - Good morning, welcome.
- What a lovely village. - Thank you. We like it very much.
How did bands get going in villages like Honley?
People needed a way to entertain themselves
in the few hours that they had
when they weren't working in the mills or weaving and spinning.
What was the music for, as it were?
Methodism was quite strong in this valley.
John Wesley preached here in the 1780s,
and they needed music to accompany themselves
both in the chapels and outside,
because they had famous sings where they would sing in the open air,
Easter time, Whitsunday and so forth.
And the band playing became quite competitive, didn't it?
Yes, it did. Honley was able to travel by train
to a number of the competitions across the North,
including the British Open Championship
which was held in Belle Vue in Manchester.
And in 1884, they became the British champions.
- Hello, Honley Band. How are you all? - Hello.
- Who's been with the band the longest? - I have.
- When did you join the band? - 1975. They turned me down in 1952.
Being a female, they said they'd only got big instruments like this one
and that was no good for a girl.
Did it take them 23 years to change their minds?
Yeah.
Wow. You, sir, at the back, how long have you been in the band?
- I have been in the band two years. - And what's your instrument?
The drums.
I kind of guessed that. Give me a twirl.
You've been playing for longer than two years.
I've been playing for five years.
And you, sir, you're in plain clothes, but are you an old bandsman?
Yes, I've been involved with this band for 60 years.
60 years. Were you born here in Honley?
- Yes, I was. - What made you join the band?
A man called Arnold Boothe, he said, "Would you like to join?"
And he said those magic words
that make it difficult for a Yorkshire lad to refuse.
He said, "And it will all be free."
What could I do? Can I tell you about a memory?
I think it tells you about maybe the dedication to banding.
On 18th May, 1959, I got married.
It was Whit Monday, the busiest day of the year in the brass-band calendar,
and after the ceremony, we went to my new wife's mother,
and then I said goodbye to the guests,
and along with the best man and the groomsmen,
we went and joined our brass-band colleagues.
I think she made a decision that day
that it was, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."
And she's been a brass-band enthusiast ever since.
Now, if I were to play,
what would be the instrument that would, I don't know, suit me?
To suit you? Well, I think a big lad like you would suit a euphonium.
That fits you like a glove.
Now then, doesn't he look smart, eh?
Do I look the part?
Yeah. Don't think I'm going to sound it, somehow. Right.
To play on the instrument, you need to vibrate air,
because that's what makes sound.
And the best way to do that is to buzz.
That's right, and at the same time, press on your tummy.
Make your tummy hard.
Wow!
I'm very sorry to have insulted your ears with that noise.
Can we now hear some real music, please? Maestro.
What a glorious sound. Now I believe I'm in Yorkshire.
Staying in Yorkshire, I'm continuing my journey southeast
on a branch line towards Sheffield.
I'll shortly be entering the Thurstonland Tunnel
where reputedly, a Victorian film-maker made a film called Kiss in the Tunnel.
In 1899, pioneer Victorian film maker James Bamforth
directed "The Kiss in the Tunnel“, an early example of narrative editing,
using three shots to tell the story of a furtive moment of passenger passion
on a train in Thurstonland Tunnel.
No such luck for me.
My next stop will be Stocksmoor.
I'm interested by this reference in Bradshaw's,
"Holmfirth, where the Ribble and Diglee Brooks join,
was dreadfully ravaged in 1852 by the bursting of the Bilberry Dam.
Despite the general excellence of Victorian engineering,
there were disasters, and this one was apparently appalling.
Holmfirth Station was closed to passengers in 1959,
so I shall have to make my own way there from Stocksmoor.
Now surrounded by reservoirs, Holmfirth is celebrated
as the location for "Last of the Summer Wine".
By contrast, in Victorian times, the village was notorious.
Bradshaw's remarks that the valley is "six miles long
and only 100 yards broad at the widest,
and the immense volume of water set free in this narrow gutter
carried away 100 lives with houses and mills and other property."
"The bridge was entirely destroyed,
and only the bare walls of the church left."
And standing here seeing how the town is wedged into the crevasse,
I begin to imagine that horrific wall of water advancing upon its people.
In 1852, Bilberry Dam burst,
and an unforgiving torrent swept through Holmfirth.
I'm meeting local historian David Cockman at the rebuilt dam.
Was the Victorian Bilberry Dam in this position?
Near enough, I think. We are standing almost at the spot
where, at 1am on 5th February, 1852,
this collapsed with a pop, with a bang.
80 million gallons, 400,000 tons, swept down the valley towards Holmfirth.
Had there been an engineering failure?
This was a Victorian structure, wasn't it?
Very much so, Michael.
Coming out of this hillside, there was a spring.
It was described as being as big as a man's arm.
And the water came down, flowed down through into the valley,
where they wanted to build the retaining wall.
They should have put this spring
into some kind of culvert or conduit leading it away.
But they built the dam wall on top of the flowing spring,
and of course, gradually, over the years,
this water ate away at the base of the dam,
weakening it all the time until it began to leak, and it just gave way.
It was one of the most serious civilian disasters of Victorian England.
300 foot across and 70 foot at its deepest,
the reservoir's 86 million gallons of water weighed 300,000 tons.
The water rushed three and a half miles down the valley,
reaching the village in around 15 minutes.
And it was going so fast that even people who ran ahead
to try to warn the citizens that something was about to happen,
they were overtaken by the water.
Now, in one of these houses there lived a weaver called Joseph Halliwell
with his family, a wife and five children.
The water rose in his house almost up to the second floor.
He managed to get up to the second floor into his weaving room, shout for help,
and he was heard by his neighbours who lived above him in the top house,
and they hacked a hole in the floor and dragged him to safety.
But unfortunately his wife and the five children were drowned.
- Appalling. - Yes.
Up the valley, it had wrecked at least three mills,
and it had uprooted boilers weighing 15, 20 tons
and the whole centre of Holmfirth was hit by a battering ram.
The final death toll was about 81, of whom half were children.
Most I think were caught asleep in their beds and drowned in their sleep.
Was there Victorian ghoulishness?
I think so. On the Sunday after the flood,
the railway reported that 16,000 tickets were collected at Holmfirth Station.
In the fortnight or so after that,
the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway reported that they were selling
9,000 tickets a day for people to come to Holmfirth to view it.
I'm sure it was just disaster tourism, basically ghoulishness,
to come and walk through the rubble here.
I can't think what else it would be.
I'm heading back to Stocksmoor to travel to Sheffield
where I shall break my journey.
Looking forward to the day ahead,
I'm taking an East Midlands service south.
My next stop will be Chesterfield,
which, like so many places, is associated by Bradshaw's with coal,
and there I want to look at the career of one of my heroes.
A man who did so much to convert coal to steam to locomotion,
Mr George Stephenson.
George Stephenson, perfector of locomotives, builder of railways,
whose inventions included new sorts of rail and bridge and a miner's lamp.
Endlessly inventive, but illiterate until he was 18,
a man who dragged himself up by his boot straps,
the sort that I admire.
Having been born to a poor family near Newcastle-upon-Tyne,
George Stephenson came to Chesterfield for the last ten years of his life.
Passionate about machines, back in 1804,
George had walked to Scotland in order to work with steam engines.
A decade later, Stephenson 's first locomotive, the Blucher,
hauled coal wagons along a wagon way,
and in 1825, Stephenson 's Locomotion No. 1,
seen here on its centenary,
ran between Stockton and Darlington, the first public railway on earth.
To learn more of this hero,
I'm visiting Chesterfield Borough Council Museum,
adjacent to the town's famous crooked spire,
to meet curator Anne-Marie Knowles by a Stephenson family portrait.
There's George centre stage in this rather strange-looking outfit,
which is what he used to wear as a younger man.
I mean, we're used to seeing George in the frock coat
looking very Victorian and grand,
but here, he is a much humbler man
when he was the engine-wright at Killingworth Colliery.
So this is a picture that says quite a lot about George's life.
The lady who's standing at the back with the churn on her head,
this is Mabel Carr who was George's mother.
And standing next to her is her husband, George's father.
Then we've got George's first wife with a child who actually died in infancy,
and then we have George's second wife who's seated here in front of George.
And is George clutching the miner's lamp that he invented?
He most certainly is.
There was some controversy about this, wasn't there?
Because he invented a miner's safety lamp and Davy invented one,
and there was a bit of argy-bargy
about whether there had been some piracy of copyright, wasn't there?
Yes, certainly, and Davy actually accused George Stephenson
of stealing the idea from him, and Stephenson went to a lot of trouble
to prove that he'd actually developed the miner's lamp prior to Davy.
I've heard it said that miners in the Northeast
used the George Stephenson miner's lamp.
Miners elsewhere tended to use the Davy lamp.
- That's right, yes, they did. - I've even heard it said that
that is why people from the Northeast are called Geordies.
Well, I don't think anybody is very sure about that,
but certainly the lamp was referred to as the Geordie lamp
because it was made by Geordie George.
One of George's lesser-known inventions grew from his passion for gardening.
OK, so here it is, one of the famous cucumber straightening tubes
that was developed by George Stevenson.
Well...
That looks like a fairly simple glass tube.
What's so special about it?
Well, when the fruit is very small, it's inserted at this end of the tube,
and then it grows straight down the tube rather than curling as it grows,
because this was always the problem before modern hybrids,
that cucumbers had this tendency to curl, and so that's how he did it.
And it actually became a standard piece of kit
for all Victorian kitchen gardeners.
Since George Stephenson took such care to straighten cucumbers,
I wonder why he didn't apply his attention
to the twisted spire of Chesterfield.
That's a very good question. I have absolutely no idea.
Anne-Marie has brought me to Chesterfield's Holy Trinity Church
where George Stephenson is buried.
So, no Westminster Abbey for George Stephenson.
No.
Why was he buried in this church particularly?
Holy Trinity was the church that his wife attended,
and she too is buried here.
Is that the only memorial to George Stephenson in this church?
No, actually, it isn't. If you look above,
you can see that there is a rather magnificent stained-glass window,
which was donated to the church by Robert Stephenson
in memory of his father. And if you look carefully,
you can actually see the "S" for Stephenson quite clearly.
It's very touching that it was given by the son.
Robert and George Stephenson are comparable geniuses,
but George Stephenson began without the benefit of any education.
Bradshaw's devotes a lot of space to Chatsworth,
which it describes as "the splendid seat of the Duke of Devonshire,
ten miles from Chesterfield Station".
Since there's no station closer, for once, I'm going to have to take a taxi.
Hello.
Having begun my journey investigating the squalid existence
of Manchester's 19th-century mill workers,
I'm concluding it at the other end of the Victorian social spectrum.
Home to the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire,
Chatsworth has been passed down through 16 generations of the Cavendish family.
Its architecture and collection of art have developed over 500 years.
Bradshaw's has led me to this point.
It says, "The best view of the house is from a point near the bridge
and Queen Mary's bower,
where the old hunting tower is seen on the hill...
And yes, this is a fantastic vista.
One of the finest houses ever built,
magnificent and beautiful.
The first duke completed this baroque palace in 1707.
It stands in the wilds of Derbyshire,
and glows in its warm buff-coloured stone.
In the 19th century,
the sixth duke built the north wing and a sculpture gallery.
He added priceless works
to the family's already glorious collection of great masters.
Today, it's curated by Matthew Hirst.
- Matthew, hello. - Hello, Michael.
My Bradshaw's is from the middle 1860s.
What recent changes would there have been to the house
just before the guide was written?
Well, quite substantial changes actually,
because in the 19th century, the sixth duke of Devonshire,
the Bachelor Duke as we call him,
kept the baroque house but built an enormous wing to the north
really for two reasons.
He was a great art collector and a great bibliophile,
so he needed space for his ever-growing library,
his new collection of sculpture.
He was a man of many different interests,
and was very much at the apex of the social scene of that time.
He entertained Princess Victoria in 1832,
and then she came back again in 1846,
so there's a constant scene of sort of high society and lavish entertaining.
Bradshaw's tells me that "the house may be seen daily from 11 to five".
"Parties are let in by turns."
"Apply early if you want to save time."
So apparently, even by the middle 19th century, this was a magnet for tourists.
Definitely.
With the arrival of the railways, that was made considerably easier.
By 1849, in the summer, we were getting 80,000 visitors a year,
which, you know, is staggering when you think about what that means
in the 19th century.
Was this superb dining room created by the sixth duke?
It was. This was finished in 1832,
just in time for Princess Victoria's visit,
and she dined at this table for the first time in adult company.
And this is the room that the sixth duke referred to as being like
"dining in a great treasure chest",
and I think you can see that with the vaults,
as if it were about to be opened like a lid.
Magnificent barrel ceiling.
As well as portraits by old masters like Thomas Gainsborough,
Chatsworth's art collection includes the exceptional sculpture gallery,
augmented by the sixth duke's acquisition of pieces
by the 19th-century Venetian sculptor Antonio Canova.
This sculpture gallery really is beautiful, isn't it?
Bradshaw's says, "It's extremely rich in original works,
casts, busts, marble tables."
"Amongst others are Napoleon's mother, Madame Mere, as she was called,
and Canova's large bust of Napoleon."
We know that the sixth duke was very passionate about Canova's work,
so much so that the giant bust of Napoleon,
when Canova died, the sixth duke was so desperate to acquire it
that he immediately started to organise its acquisition.
Napoleon looking almost like a Roman emperor.
The sixth duke also paid close attention
to the grounds of the house.
In 1826, the work of a young gardener near his property in Chiswick
impressed the Duke of Devonshire,
and he appointed Joseph Paxton
head gardener at Chatsworth at the age of 23.
As soon as you set foot outside Chatsworth,
it becomes clear that the house is just one of two wonders,
the other being the gardens.
Bradshaw's tells me of the work of Sir Joseph Paxton,
the late duke's celebrated gardener,
and I suspect that these wonderful glass houses are just part of his work.
The present incumbent of Paxton's post
is Head of Gardens and Landscape, Steve Porter.
What kind of man was Joseph Paxton?
He was an amazing guy. Amazingly driven.
The story of his first day here just describes it perfectly.
He caught the coach from London to Chesterfield,
arriving at 4:30 in the morning.
He then walked the 12 miles to Chatsworth,
climbing over the garden wall
to look around the garden and see exactly what he was taking on,
before coming back to the main house to have breakfast with the housekeeper.
He also met the housekeeper's niece who he fell in love with,
and she fell in love with him, and they got married a year later.
That is an amazing story.
So, was the transformation of the garden
as thorough as the transformation of the house under the sixth duke?
Absolutely. Paxton really laid out the garden as you see it today.
So most of the paths, most of the features,
certainly the glass houses are all from that period,
so a very important time for the garden.
Paxton achieved fame when his grand Crystal Palace
in London's Hyde Park housed the Great Exhibition of 1851.
It took 2,000 men eight months to build
the innovative design in glass and cast iron,
and it was based upon his grand conservatory at Chatsworth.
So, Steve, it was here that the grand conservatory stood.
Bradshaw's says it was 300 foot long and 65 foot high.
It must have been astonishing.
It was the biggest free-standing glass house in the world at the time.
1836, so before the Palm House at Kew and those sorts of buildings.
He'd been playing with smaller glass houses,
trying out different glazing and construction,
and designed this amazing spectacle
full of exotic plants that most people hadn't seen before.
I can't help noticing it's not here any more.
Sadly not, no. During the First World War, it fell into disrepair.
It was a constant case of painting it as well,
and so sadly, in 1920, it was actually blown up.
Leaving us with a maze.
Now, in a moment you're going to need this.
What for?
This is the key to Paxton's greatest engineering feat at Chatsworth,
the Emperor Fountain, designed for a visit by Tsar Nicholas I.
When they turned it on in the early 1840s, it went up to 296 feet high,
which was the tallest gravity fed fountain in the world.
Unfortunately, Tsar Nicholas I never made it to Chatsworth
so he never saw the fountain that they created for him.
We just need to locate this.
This is the biggest key I've ever turned.
Whoa!
For all my years in politics, I never produced as big an impact as that!
No journey could be longer
than from the Victorian Manchester slum where I began
to the grandeur of Chatsworth where I end.
Victorian society was characterised by extremes of poverty and wealth,
but also by social mobility.
The self-made man could win as much respect as a duke,
and there was no finer example of that than George Stephenson,
the father of the railways.
On my next adventure,
I discover an underground warehouse that once sewed the empire...
So this was for the storage of beer, was it?
It's an amazing labyrinth. It goes on and on and on.
...I hear about the millionaire eccentric
whose home was an exotic museum...
He would be seen driving around with his four zebras?
Both here and also in Piccadilly in London.
...And I visit the line where the railway's age of innocence ended.
Quite a big gang, 15 guys, formed a human chain down this abutment
and passed the mailbags down.
2.6 million in 120 mailbags.