Coast (2005) s04e03 Episode Script
Lands End to Porthcawl
NEIL OLIVER: Southwest Britain, where the Welsh and Cornish coastlines form the mouth of a huge natural funnel, which traps a vast body of water.
As the AtIantic Ocean behind me surges aIong this coastIine, it gets squeezed towards the point over there where EngIand and WaIes meet.
In EngIish, that's the Severn Estuary.
In WeIsh, it's Mor Hafren, the Severn Sea.
The Severn Sea, now that's a name that makes you want to expIore.
On my expedition to the Severn Sea and beyond I'm joined by some familiar faces and a brand new addition to the team.
Champion surfer Renee Godfrey swims with seals and explores the unspoilt marine habitats of Lundy.
The water here is running wiId, as nature intended.
(MEN CHATTERING) NEIL: Mark Horton discovers how painting a simple line on the side of ships has helped save countless lives .
MARK HORTON: (LAUGHS) Fantastic! (GRUNTING) NEIL: Nick Crane gets the hang of climbing on Exmoor's treacherous sea cliffs.
I'm cIinging on to everything I can, I can teII you.
NEIL: And Hermione Cockburn visits an enchanted castle by the sea, where a millionaire media mogul let his imagination run wild.
This is not something he wouId get away with today.
This is Coast.
Crossing from the north coast of France, we're back on home turf.
Our journey continues, heading for Porthcawl starting at Botallack near Land's End.
The jagged edge of Cornwall jabs defiantly into the Atlantic.
Only the most durable rock can resist that ocean's pounding.
(WAVES CRASHING) This tough coastline doesn't give up its treasures easily.
But from the earliest times, men have been drawn here to pit themselves against the granite.
Hidden inside the rock is a magicaI ingredient that brought the worId to the Cornish coast.
They came in search of a rare metaI with remarkabIe properties.
Tin.
The relics of tin mining can be seen along the north coast of Cornwall.
The engine houses and their chimneys may be derelict, but these ruins are reminders of an industry that connects us directly to the ancient world, thanks to a humble household object.
How about this, a tin? Nowadays though, you'd probabIy caII it a can, made of aIuminium or steeI.
But the originaIs started out in the 1800s and were made of iron, iron coated with a thin Iayer of tin.
Tin doesn't rust.
It's one of its many magicaI properties.
And food kept in rust-free tin cans remained edibIe for ages.
But ages and ages ago, tin was at the cutting edge of a much bigger revoIution.
Mix tin with copper and you get bronze.
The birth of the Bronze Age some three and a half thousand years ago owed a lot to the tin of the Cornish coast.
Archaeologist Adam Sharpe has studied ancient bronze tools.
-An axe head.
-This is the sort of stapIe working tooI of the Bronze Age.
VirtuaIIy every piece of bronze that you find in Western Europe has got Cornish tin in it.
Once peopIe the worId over reaIise that tin is to be had here, CornwaII becomes pivotaI.
AbsoIuteIy, in terms of distribution on the Earth's surface, tin is very rare indeed, even in terms of sort of Western Europe.
Um, there's a bit in Iberia, in Spain, um, there's a IittIe bit on Sardinia, but aImost aII of it is in CornwaII and West Devon.
And it means that the peopIe who controIIed that resource traded aII over Western Europe.
NEIL: Thousands of years ago, long and perilous journeys were being made to this coast.
As the Bronze Age boomed in Europe, they needed Cornish tin.
The tin trade wasn't just with near neighbours across the Severn Sea, but with the wider world.
Tin was travelling as far away as Ancient Greece and the Middle East.
Bronze Age traders took great risks navigating this treacherous coastline, but the rewards were worth it.
Copper tooI, it bIunts very, very easiIy.
It's too bendy.
Adding just the right amount of tin, 10, 1 1 percent of tin, makes it hard, makes it tough, it's sharpenabIe, it can be poIished.
For what, in the main, is bronze being used to make? UtiIitarian tooIs, axes and knives and chiseIs and things Iike that.
Enormous range of jeweIIery and weapons, of course, and it's the making of swords, which is, absoIuteIy typifies the Bronze the Iater part of the Bronze Age.
So, in a way, that puts CornwaII at the centre of an internationaI arms trade.
ADAM: (LAUGHS) I'm afraid so, yes.
NEIL: Throughout the Bronze Age, ancient armies relied on the Cornish coast for the raw materials of battle.
-Hiya NeiI.
-BURRIDGE: HeIIo.
NEIL: To see why I'm meeting Neil Burridge who still practises the age-old art of forging bronze weapons.
Just got the fire going.
It's just starting to warm up.
NEIL: As the temperature rises, Neil prepares a mould made of stone so we can cast our own bronze sword.
BURRIDGE: So, that's it.
NEIL: Oh, I'm so excited.
-HoId that.
-Okay.
NEIL: Inside the fire is a crucible containing the two metals that together form bronze.
Ninety percent copper will make our sword flexible.
Ten percent tin will make it hard, with a cutting edge.
Heated to 1,200 degrees Celsius, we're ready to pour.
(BURRIDGE BLOWING) -That's good.
-NEIL: Wow! Look at that! Wow, even that's a beautifuI thing.
Look at the coIour of it.
My first sword! BURRIDGE: What I'm going to do is take the cIamps off it now.
-If we try to move it too quickIy, it'II snap.
-Right.
And if we Ieave it too Iong in the mouId, it gets stuck in the mouId and it won't come out.
-So, it's a bit Iike ExcaIibur reaIIy.
-NEIL: It sure is.
Give it a IittIe wiggIe.
I can feeI it, so you shouId be abIe to draw it out very sIowIy, but don't drop it.
NEIL: Wow, Iook at that! That's how you draw a sword from a stone.
The metal merchants have moved on in search of cheaper tin.
But Cornwall is still trading on its natural resources, miles of spectacular craggy coves and beaches.
St.
Ives is a mecca for artists because of the special quality of its light.
And some 30 miles on from St.
Ives is Crantock.
The beaches here offer another source of artistic inspiration.
HeIIo, I'm Sarah Drew and I'm a jeweIIery designer.
I'm going to show you why this beach in Cornwall inspires me.
I use lots of found objects and recycling materials.
And when I came down to Cornwall, it was lovely because there's so many places to go and find things like that.
I've always liked using quite quirky and unusual little pieces, so I find things like sea glass, bits of slate pebbles, sea plastics which have been weathered and shaped nicely by the sea.
Sea string, all sorts of things that I can make into jewellery.
Right then, I've found this bucket Ioad of stuff.
Some nice bits of sea string there, that I can crochet into some braceIets and neckIace.
I do like putting things that other people see as rubbish with precious metals such as silver.
So I quite like that contrast.
I like to think that what I'm making is relevant to the place it's come from, and it's a way of expressing how I see the coastline myself.
I do like to think about how far they've come and where they did originate.
It's nice to think about what their first life was before I found them.
They're having a second life now because I'm making them into jewellery.
I quite Iike this messy Iook, so it Iooks a bit Iike a fisherman's net.
That's what I'm after, that Iook.
I'm quite pIeased with that.
NEIL: Beyond the tourist honey pots of Newquay and Padstow, across the Camel Estuary, is an altogether more peaceful spot, St.
Endoc's Church near Polzeath.
With so much to see along the shore, a reliable guide book's a must.
I've got a classic early example.
The petrol company Shell produced this tourist companion in 1934.
These Shell guides were aimed at a new generation of car owners with the freedom to explore.
The Poet Laureate John Betjeman was one of the founding editors of the SheII guides and he wrote this one about CornwaII.
But one site you won't find in his book, is here, his grave.
Betjeman always wanted to be buried here at St.
Endoc's.
This was his spiritual home.
He loved this church and was gently amused that by the time of his death it was surrounded by a golf course.
Betjeman's book reaIIy was a Iabour of Iove.
From his earIiest chiIdhood, he'd known that here was where his heart beIonged.
Betjeman's words echo the feelings the coast inspires in so many of us.
He captured his boyhood enthusiasm in the poem ''Summoned by Bells''.
BETJEMAN: ''Down towards the sea I ran alone, ''Monarch of miles of sand, ''its shining stretches satin smooth and veined.
''I felt beneath bare feet the lugworm casts ''and walked where only gulls and oyster-catchers ''had stepped before me to the water's edge.
'' NEIL: Although he wrote an early tourist guide to Cornwall, Betjeman wasn't too thrilled with the way the industry developed.
He was thankful, he said, that no one yet had devised a means of building houses on the sea.
BETJEMAN: ''Developers have had more than their fair share of the coast.
''We must keep the rest of it for the good of our souls.
''We need the seaside cure ''for relief from anxiety and tension.
''We need it to realise there's something greater than ourselves.
''That's where the cure is at the sea's edge.
'' NEIL: A short distance up the coast, Tintagel Castle, long associated with the legendary King Arthur.
Arthur and Merlin may be a magical myth.
But just 35 miles across the water is a real magic kingdom.
Lundy Island.
This jewel on the edge of the Severn Sea is one of the most precious wildlife sites in Britain, now owned by the National Trust.
North Atlantic storms batter little Lundy.
It takes a special breed to survive.
These hardy ponies were introduced by the island's previous owner.
So were the Soay sheep.
But the real lure of Lundy is beyond the cliffs.
Some claim the surrounding waters are the wildest, most diverse habitat anywhere on our coast.
Champion surfer, diver and Coast first timer, Renee Godfrey is a native of the Severn Sea, but has never ventured out to Lundy until now.
I've surfed aII aIong the Devon coastIine and I know the WeIsh coast Iike the back of my hand.
And Lundy's aIways just been there mysteriousIy on the horizon and now I'm finaIIy going to get the chance to come and expIore.
RENEE: I'm really looking forward to swimming with the grey seals and getting a closer look at their unique underwater habitat.
What makes the waters around Lundy so speciaI is that they're compIeteIy protected.
Lundy is EngIand's first and onIy marine nature reserve, so the water here is running wiId, as nature intended.
Hi, Keith, how are you? I'm weII.
WeIcome to your first dive on Lundy .
Thank you very much.
I'm going to give you my kit.
-Yup.
-RENEE: Marine biologist, Keith Hiscock, has been diving off Lundy since the 1960s.
Recently, the experience has become even more spectacular.
In 2003, Lundy became Britain's first statutory No-Take Zone.
That means it's now completely undisturbed by fishermen.
I'm eager to see how nature gets on, left to its own devices.
The first thing you notice is the plant life, like a garden gone wild.
In deeper waters there are wonderful corals that you might expect to see only in much warmer climes.
I'm hoping Keith can show me some of Lundy's hidden gems.
KEITH: Now look at these Trumpet anemones.
Lundy is one of the few places in Great Britain where they occur.
RENEE: They look so delicate and as the water moves past them, they look like they're clapping their hands with their tentacles.
KEITH: They're mostly a bag of water with stinging cells.
The Trumpet anemones actually have photosynthetic algae in the tissue, just like tropical corals, so they only occur in shallow water, where there's enough light for the algae to thrive.
RENEE: This anemone wouldn't look out of place in the warmer Mediterranean waters.
That's the magic of Lundy, it's full of surprises.
(BUBBLING) Beautiful Snakelock anemones.
KEITH: They're very beautiful, but they're also very dangerous to any animals that stumble into them.
Because, again, they've got stinging cells which paralyse the prey and so any clumsy shrimp or crab that clutches the tentacles is dead meat.
RENEE: Lundy's lobsters, though, are armour-plated against such dangers.
Since the No-Take Zone was established, there are more of them here than before, and they're much bigger.
But what I really want to see in this underwater treasure trove is a tiny gem that's rare in British waters and all too easy to miss.
KEITH: Here we are, I've got scarlet and gold star corals here.
RENEE: Wow, they're so small.
They're like little hidden jewels, aren't they? KEITH: Yes, that's a very good way to put it, it's hidden jewels, because we've had to look quite hard for these and you do have to know what sort of habitat they occur in.
RENEE: These seas are absolutely bursting with life, completely untainted by man.
The shores of Lundy are nourished by balmy currents from the Gulf Stream.
Not only do warm water corals find a home here, all sorts of plant and animal life flourish.
It's a rich source of food and an ideal environment for larger sea mammals.
Island warden Nicola Saunders is taking me to see Lundy's amazing grey seals.
Look, there's some over there on that rock there.
They lead a truly wild life.
Out here, I've got to play by their rules.
They are wiId animaIs, so you've got to be carefuI -and treat them with respect.
-Sure.
But generaIIy, as Iong as you're fairIy passive in the water, you don't chase after them, then they're just inquisitive and they want to see what you're up to in their territory, reaIIy.
RENEE: Great, weII, Iet's get in, okay? They're so big and cIumsy and cumbersome when they're Iying on the rocks, and the minute they get into the water, they're so agiIe and so quick, and they swim straight up to you, Iook you right in the eyes, try and gauge whether they Iike you or not, and then just swim away, Iike that, so fast, amazing! That was incredibIe.
Lundy more than lives up to its promise.
It's a rich and precious haven for marine life.
A coastline where nature really runs wild.
NEIL: Lundy's once remote paradise has been opened up to the public.
Day trippers travel to and fro aboard the MS OIdenburg.
Her route takes us back to the Devon coast to a resort town with a difference.
200 years ago, the seaside holiday we take for granted was still being invented.
In places like Illfracombe, they faced some formidable challenges, not least just getting to the beach.
High cliffs stand all around the sheltered coves.
So, in the 1820's, they looked across the Severn Sea for a solution.
They brought in the real experts to break through the cliffs, miners from South Wales.
I'm going to follow in the footsteps of those miners to explore how the Victorians learnt to love to be beside the sea.
My guide is outdoor swimmer Kate Rew.
Now, I'm amazed at this.
This seems Iike an awfuI Iot of troubIe to go to for a swim, to actuaIIy dig a tunneI through a rock.
KATE: It's amazing what peopIe wiII do to get to a nice beach.
NEIL: Look at that, that's where it's been cut.
That's maybe where they've driIIed for bIasting.
And aII so that they couId get to a beach for a swim? Some of us are very desperate to get into the water.
NEIL: Capitalising on the new-fangled fashion for taking a dip, the Ilfracombe Sea Bathing Company's Welsh miners dug four tunnels through solid rock, wide enough to take a horse and carriage.
KATE: They swam in from bathing machines, they were caIIed, wooden huts on wheeIs that wouId be horse-drawn -aII the way through these tunneIs.
-NEIL: AII right.
KATE: And three foot into the water, where the Iadies wouId eIegantIy step out.
NEIL: Bathing machines were portable changing rooms for preserving a lady's modesty in this novel environment.
Once in the water, the novice bathers had to learn how to behave.
The whole experience was stage managed.
At Ilfracombe, they held back the rough seas by fencing off tidal pools.
Walls were built to hold in calm water.
Early bathers still needed some encouragement, and with the prospect of a swim here myself, I know how they felt.
-Looking forward to your dip? -Let's taIk about that Iater.
(LAUGHS) WeII, I've got an aIbum here, that I'd Iike to show you, of someone who was here at aII times, during Victorian times, to encourage peopIe, probabIy, maybe, peopIe Iike you, to go swimming.
NEIL: He's not the kind of figure I expected.
(BOTH CHUCKLING) KATE: This is Professor Harry Parker, who was quite a figure around here.
NEIL: He certainIy was.
That's quite a figure.
KATE: With his top hat and his comedy nose, and he is one of EngIand's greatest natatoriaI artistes.
-Easy for you to say.
-AbsoIuteIy, and he wouId teach any good peopIe on the beach diving and fancy swimming.
Tricks Iike Iighting a cigar whiIe swimming and drinking a gIass of champagne.
This kind of comedy action showed how happy peopIe couId be in the water.
Was it a famiIy affair? Very much not, actuaIIy.
Even though the Victorians were very famiIy orientated, their beaches were strictIy segregated.
So we're sitting here, on This is the men's beach, so men onIy.
Um, the women wouId be taken through the headIand to the other side and a bugIer wouId sit on the rocks in between and if any man dared swim out of the area enough to actuaIIy catch sight of the women, a horn wouId be bIown IoudIy.
-Wow! -They wouId be ejected.
There were newspaper reports saying that, you know, uh, if the men were named that had committed this crime, they wouId be thrown out of civiIised society.
I mean, it was very strict.
NEIL: Not only were they confined to separate beaches, there was a strict dress code, too.
And quite a double standard for men and women.
The Victorian Iady had to be very properIy dressed when she went into the water, and these are the kinds of things that they wore.
Very nice.
KATE: So you needed a good pair of pantaIoons, beIow the knee, obviousIy, to preserve her modesty.
And then a kind of dress or smock over the top.
And these were apparentIy sometimes weighed down with Iead peIIets around the hem to stop them fIoating up.
Lead is what you want on a swimming costume in the open sea, isn't it? (LAUGHING) HaIf a pound of Iead shot.
KATE: It wouId be Iike swimming in a sort of a hessian sack, I think, by the time it's wet.
And what about me? What do I get? You, deIightfuIIy, get to swim in the buff! Oh, come on! I wanted a duffIe coat, weIIington boots and a hat.
She's not joking.
Away from the ladies, hidden behind the headland on their own beach, those Victorian gents were a lot less buttoned up than you might imagine.
It wasn't uncommon for the men to swim in the nude, even if the women on the beach next door were covered up.
Swimming in the buff? I thought Victorian gentIemen had more decorum.
Where's Queen Victoria when you need her? That's what I want to know.
The tidal pool is still used today.
The water is calmer and warmer than the sea around it.
It's still a bit chilly, all the same.
Watch out, you might get arrested.
I can definiteIy hear a bugIer! (BOTH LAUGHING) The Welsh miners who crossed the sea to open up the beaches of Ilfracombe were followed by waves of tourists on day trips between England and Wales.
In the late 19th and early 20th century, pleasure boats crisscrossed the Severn Sea.
The Motor Vessel BaImoraI is a relic of a time when foreign travel was, for some, a booze cruise between the resorts of South Wales and North Devon.
By the 1960s, exotic locations overseas made the pleasure steamers look dated, and the opening of the Severn Bridge meant the sea was no longer the quickest route between England and Wales.
Travelling along this coast, though, has always been a struggle.
This is where Exmoor meets the Severn Sea.
These imposing sea cliffs posed another challenge to Victorian engineers opening up this coast for tourists.
In 1890, Lynmouth, by the sea, was linked with Lynton, up the hill, by a water-powered funicular railway that's still going strong.
But not everyone wants to take the shortcut.
Nick Crane is meeting some pioneers who were determined to tackle these cliffs the hard way.
It's 1953 and the worId's highest mountain has been conquered in a breathtaking 29,000 foot ascent.
The achievement prompted one mountaineer who'd missed out on the Everest adventure to pIan a conquest of his own, not up, but aIong.
And it was a Iot more than 29,000 feet.
In his younger days, Clement Archer had been working in India when Everest was conquered.
It's thought that he'd secretly hoped to join that expedition.
Instead, Archer pioneered a new concept here on the Exmoor coast.
Nowadays we might call it coasteering, a 14-mile climb along sea cliffs sandwiched perilously between pounding sea and sky.
The purists know this route as the Exmoor Traverse.
It runs from Foreland Point to Combe Martin, nearly three times longer than the ascent of Everest.
And this route wasn't completed until 25 years after Everest.
In 1978, Terry Cheek and a team of three young police cadets finally conquered the Exmoor Traverse.
It took them four days and nights.
Their achievement has not been matched since.
30 years later, Terry and two of his team are back at the Exmoor Traverse.
Ah, now what is going on there? You've got no rope shift, you're creeping around -under an overhang above the water -TERRY: Yeah, that's it.
wearing what Iook Iike soggy jeans.
Yeah, and of course it was fIares back 30 years ago.
You did this in fIared jeans? (ALL LAUGHING) TERRY: Do you remember this part of it, Trevor, going round there? TREVOR: Yeah, I do, and you're taIking about the cIothing.
I remember the boots were made of Iike pressed cardboard with a rubber soIe.
They were very cheap and not very fIexibIe to begin with.
And, of course, then they get saturated with water and it's aImost Iike wearing papier mache whiIe rock cIimbing.
So, it's a reaI chaIIenge.
If you don't get it right, then you're cut off.
You know, and that may, you know, without being overdramatic about it, that may mean drowning.
What they caII nowadays risk assessment, I don't remember us taIking about those words back then, 30 years ago.
I'm not sure there was a risk assessment.
AbsoIuteIy not, otherwise we wouIdn't have done it.
(ALL LAUGHING) NICK: Terry was already an experienced climber in 1978.
He's in his sixties now and still loves these cliffs.
He's challenged me to take on a section of this daunting traverse.
-The Exmoor Everest.
-The Exmoor Everest, yes.
-ShaII we go down? -Yes, certainIy.
NICK: Doesn't sound Iike a waIk in the park.
BeIow, beIow.
I just kicked a rock down, which is not good when you've got somebody beIow.
Terry, the nature of this route in rock-cIimbing terms is pretty bizarre reaIIy, it seems to me.
Because I associate cIimbing with going up mountains, -not going horizontaIIy aIong sideways.
-TERRY: HorizontaIIy sideways.
The cIimbing is much the same.
I mean, you reaIIy set your own ruIes.
We set a ruIe of not entering the water and not cIimbing out onto the grass Iine above the rock.
It's probabIy one of the harder spots, because we're onIy about three feet above the high-water mark now.
NICK: So, I mean, onIy a coupIe of hours ago the waves were bashing at the bottom of this, weren't they? TERRY: Just beIow my feet, yes.
This is a bit of a tricky move, isn't it, Terry? TERRY: It's quite difficuIt.
(MEN GRUNTING) That's it, cIing your hands underneath that spike.
I'm cIinging on to everything I can, I can teII you.
TERRY: Look down at your feet, you'II be okay there.
NICK: Under here it's aII wet and sIimy, isn't it? TERRY: Yes, I know.
NICK: It's covered in sea water.
Jam the hands up in that crack.
I know it's wet and it's painfuI.
(NICK GRUNTING) NICK: Very tricky.
Now what? Some of the finger hoIes are reaIIy pretty minute, aren't they? (GRUNTING) It's not quite as easy as sitting at a desk, working on my Iaptop, it has to be said.
If you get caught by a rising tide or a storm surge in the BristoI ChanneI, what do you do? TERRY: Once you've been driven above the high-water mark, then you are in unknown territory.
You couId be in absoIute heII about 70 feet up on crumbIing rock and vegetation.
We had to resort to cIimbing at nights, waiting on the cIiffs for the tide to recede to get past a difficuIt section, and it was freezing.
We aIso discovered what barnacIes couId do to your hands.
You know, it's Iike very rough, coarse sandpaper.
It's very painfuI.
NICK: I've only done a section of this climb, and as we haul ourselves up the cliff, I'm feeling pretty exhilarated.
I've got nothing but admiration for the achievement of Terry and his team three decades ago.
I'm left, too, with a new respect for the awesome cliffs and the fierce tides of the Severn Sea.
NEIL: Eventually the imposing cliffs of North Devon give up their grip on the coast.
At Bridgwater Bay, at low tide, the shallow water becomes a vast expanse of mud.
On the edge of the Bay, in Stolford, there's a fishing family who, for generations, have earned their living from the mud.
To come home with a decent catch, they rely on centuries-old skills, and ancient tools unique to the men of the mud flats.
My name is Brendan, Brendan SeIIick, and I've been a mud-horse fisherman aII my working Iife, ever since I was a nipper.
I used the mud horse right up tiII weII in my 70's.
My son, Adrian, is now doing it.
He's pushing the mud horse, because it's a very physical job.
You've got to be fit, out there in the soft mud.
If you tried to go and do that without a mud horse, some days you'd just disappear.
It gets in your bones and, when I first started, there was quite a number of families in this estuary doing it.
And not only here, all the way around the Bridgwater Bay.
It's just now got that here's just us left.
ADRIAN: We come out in aII weathers, even if it's snowing, sIeet, haiIstones.
You do get worn down.
It's Iike any other job, I suppose.
But, this job, you've got to come out, otherwise your catch gets spoiIt.
On a day Iike today, I know it's a bit drizzIy, but it's quite pIeasant.
You feeI the breeze and then you know the tide's turned.
ShouId be turning now in a minute.
You work with the tide, not the tide works with you.
You don't reaIIy know what you're going to catch with it.
That's what I Iike about it.
Brown shrimp, that's what we're mainIy after.
WeII, I've got a few IittIe Dover soIes, sIip soIes, one or two prawns.
We've caught aII sorts out here.
I've had a IittIe Iobster, a seahorse.
And what I do is give them a sieve, Iet aII the baby shrimps go, and pick the rubbish out I don't want.
That's my favourite, IittIe sIip soIes.
RoIIed in fIour, fried in butter.
BeautifuI.
There's a nice skate.
Two hours ago that was swimming.
How fresher do you want than that? NEIL: Onwards to one of Britain's great maritime cities.
For centuries Bristol has thrived as a hub for international trade, the metropolis of the Severn Sea.
In 1497, John Cabot connected Bristol to the New World by sailing to Newfoundland.
A replica of Cabot's little ship sits next to the mighty SS Great Britain, the first ocean-going ship with an iron hull, brainchild of Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
Bristol's famous sons are remembered by their historic ships.
But Mark Horton's on the trail of the city's unsung hero, whose memorial is written on the side of modern ships worldwide.
MARK: Bristol's port carries 12 million tons of cargo every year.
Hundreds of steel containers are moved every day.
So they have to run a tight ship here.
To check that a vesseI is not overIoaded, every ship has to have a series of Iines painted on the side.
They're known as the PIimsoII Iine and over the Iast 1 40 years, they've saved thousands of Iives.
If the water comes over the Plimsoll line when the ship's being loaded, it's too heavy and might sink.
This warning mark was the brainwave of Bristol-born Samuel Plimsoll.
Remarkably, 140 years ago, a simple brush stroke made Plimsoll the most popular man in Britain and nearly brought down the government.
But aside from a modest plaque, there's very little in Bristol to mark his extraordinary story.
In the 19th century, there was a national scandal in our ports.
Greedy owners deliberately overloaded ships to increase profits or claim on the insurance when their over-burdened ships sank.
Samuel Plimsoll realised a line must be drawn.
Now, though, the nation has all but forgotten his struggle.
Writer Nicolette Jones is as passionate as I am about restoring Plimsoll's reputation.
How big a probIem was overIoaded ships in the 19th century? Bigger than you'd think.
The reports suggest that about 500 saiIors a year Iost their Iives unnecessariIy.
Something Iike 856 ships went down within 10 miIes of the British coast in 187 1 in conditions that were no worse than a strong breeze, which suggests that there was quite a prevaIence of avarice and negIect.
-And I've got an exampIe here, the London -Oh, yes.
Times, March 1st, 1866, and it teIIs of the Ioss of the London.
''The ship is sinking.
No hope of being saved.
''God bIess my poor orphans.
'' Was this common? WeII, it was certainIy one of the sad events that triggered PIimsoII's campaign, because the London, which was a ship that was traveIIing to AustraIia, was partIy a passenger ship and aIso carried a great deaI of cargo.
And a Iot of the witnesses who saw it Ieave said that it was conspicuousIy overIoaded, it was too Iow in the water.
And 270 peopIe drowned, so it struck a chord with the pubIic.
So, in many ways, the London was sort of the Titanic of an earIier generation.
Yes, it was, and the enquiry afterwards did suggest that, perhaps, a Ioad Iine in future wouId avoid this kind of catastrophe.
MARK: Plimsoll campaigned to get his safe load line painted on ships.
But knowing exactly where to draw the line isn't as simple as it seems.
It has a lot to do with salt.
Scientist John Polatch has offered to give us a demonstration using two tanks of water, one salty and one fresh.
-And we have some eggs here.
-Yes.
And we can show with the eggs that things fIoat differentIy in fresh water than they do in saIt water.
So we pop an egg into the fresh water, it sinks.
-And in the saIt water.
-It fIoats! So we've got a coupIe of IittIe boats there.
We've got some weights here which we can attach.
Right, okay, I'm going to come down and have a Iook at this cIose up.
(LAUGHS) Oh, boy.
And we aIso have some cargo to Ioad into them.
NICOLETTE: You've got to be carefuI it's baIanced.
Now, that's Iooking good.
So that's now fIoating pretty weII -on the edge there, isn't it? -Just on the water Iine.
So, shaII we now take this one out and pop it in fresh water.
It shouId sink.
And that is preciseIy why the ship can saiI with heavier cargo in sea water, because it has more buoyancy in the water.
MARK: So, ships are marked with different lines for salt and fresh water.
But climate plays a part, too.
Ship's pilot Paul Chase needs to know one line from another.
-We have this for the summer.
-Right.
The regions of the worId have been spIit up.
This is our summer Ioad Iine.
MARK: Right, yes.
PAUL: Okay.
-If we go to tropicaI ''T'', T for TropicaI.
-Yes.
Better weather, therefore we can Ioad the ship deeper.
-MARK: Right.
-If we go to weather that's worse, we refer to it as winter, we have to Ioad it Iess.
MARK: So it's temperature dependent, but saIt dependent as weII.
PAUL: Yes, you're right.
MARK: With so many lives at stake, you'd think painting a line on a ship wouldn't be controversial.
But it took Plimsoll years of bitter struggle.
There were too many vested interests.
PIimsoII became an MP and found himseIf in a house fuII of ship-owning MPs who wanted to make as much profit as possibIe and who sabotaged his IegisIation at every stage.
So there must have been immense parIiamentary battIes to achieve this, rather Iike the battIes to aboIish the sIave trade.
Yes, preciseIy.
PIimsoII's story is very much a story about machinations in the corridors of power.
It reached its climax when Plimsoll lost his temper.
He called ship owners murderers and the MPs who colluded with them villains.
He shook his fist at DisraeIi.
It was the most ceIebrated moment of his career, and it Ied to a huge nationaI outcry which nearIy ousted DisraeIi from government and Ied to a hasty merchant-shipping biII which introduced the PIimsoII mark as we know it.
MARK: Plimsoll's triumph over the greed of ship owners and the corruption of MPs made him a national hero to the Victorians.
It's ironic that today he's perhaps better known for the shoes that were named after him.
I'm wearing a pair of pIimsoIIs, which are perfectIy dry, providing the water doesn't rise above the rubber.
NEIL: We leave Bristol and head back out to sea over Portbury and Avonmouth docks and up the estuary to Purton on the banks of the Severn.
I've come to the graveyard of the Severn Sea, the Purton Hulks, a collection of dead ships that lie sprawled for a mile and half along the estuary.
They were brought here to stop erosion by the strong currents.
Holes were knocked into their hulls so that they silted up and stayed put.
A Iot of these vesseIs spent their working Iives pIying up and down the estuary.
But now, they're just an eerie reminder of a time not so very Iong ago when the onIy way to cross that stretch of water was by boat.
Its Welsh name, Mor Hafren, the Severn Sea, says it all.
But now, that sea has been tamed by two great bridges across the estuary.
Look hard alongside the first Severn bridge and there's still evidence of the earlier crossing between England and Wales, the car ramp for the ferry, abandoned when the service stopped in 1966.
Back in the '60s, this crossing saved a 50-mile trip round the estuary.
But you still had to wait for the ferry long enough for one famous passenger to get caught on camera.
In May 1966, Bob Dylan had just performed in Bristol on his Judas tour, so called because he'd gone electric.
Dylan had been booed by some fans and was facing an uncertain reception in Cardiff.
The times were changing for the ferry, too.
In the background, the first Severn Bridge just weeks from completion.
The day it opened, not everyone was cheering.
Enoch Williams, the ferry owner, lost his livelihood.
His passion for the old ferry still runs in the family and Enoch is not forgotten.
My name is Richard Jones.
I'm the eIdest grandson of Enoch WiIIiams, who was the founder of the Iast incarnation of the BeachIy Aust Ferry.
This boat on which we're standing at the moment is the Severn Princess.
This crossing was very important because it was the only crossing available for car traffic.
It was a lifeline to many people in their daily business.
Many people courted on the ferries.
Girls in England meeting gentlemen from Wales and vice versa.
Everybody knew the bridge was coming and indeed knew because they could see the bridge being built.
I think Enoch still harboured thoughts of continuing, but it became obvious that the bridge really was going to be a very different proposition and so he decided that it would not be economical and there was really no point in fighting against it.
He tried his best to make sure that the company obtained as much compensation as possibIe.
How much do I think I'm going to get is a sore point.
It is a question of what we are worth and what we are going to get are two different things.
WouId you say you're going to get, what, 20 or 30,000? Oh, no, that isn't the price of a boat.
INTERVIEWER: A Iot more than that? £100,000? And a bit more.
RICHARD: The last day that the service carried cars was September 8th, 1966, the day that the first Severn Bridge opened.
To commemorate the first crossing of the Severn Bridge, I have great pIeasure in unveiIing this pIaque.
(PEOPLE CLAPPING) RICHARD: It was a joyous day in some ways, because everybody Iikes a party, but it was aIso very sad to see my grandfather's IifeIong work come to an end.
I would not wish to be considered a traitor, but at age 17, the bridge opened up huge new possibilities.
So, a great feeling of regret, but at the same time that was tempered somewhat by a feeling of new freedom.
NEIL: Moving west, the deep-water ports of Newport and Cardiff were built to trade far beyond the confines of the Severn Sea.
Exports of coal helped finance the building of resorts like Penarth for miners on day trips close to home.
But the appeal of the South Wales coast stretches far beyond these shores.
At St.
Donat's, it's not hard to see the attraction.
: a grand coastline and a grand castle.
It boasts 800 years of history, but by the start of the 20th century, countless careless owners had left St.
Donat's in need of a little love.
In 1925, it was about to attract a wealthy overseas admirer.
Hermione Cockburn's exploring how one of the world's richest men transformed this castle into a pleasure palace.
This is an edition of Country Life from the earIy 1900s.
And aIongside articIes of bird watching and trout fishing, there's an iIIustrated feature about a WeIsh castIe down on its Iuck.
But St.
Donat's wouId soon capture one reader's heart.
The magazine attracted the attention of one America's great newspaper magnates, William Randolph Hearst.
He was one of the most powerful men in the USA, calling the shots both in Washington and Hollywood.
His media empire could make and break politicians and movie stars alike.
Hearst, famously the inspiration for the film Citizen Kane, had a passion for excess and the money to indulge it.
He'd already built one extravagant castle on the Californian coast at San Simeon, complete with its own zoo.
But why, in 1925, was he hatching a new scheme thousands of miles away on the Welsh coast? Without ever coming to WaIes, he cabIed his staff in London, ''Buy St.
Donat's castIe''.
And so he acquired this modest piIe in need of a IittIe work.
It was another three years before he set foot here, but when he did, he turned the place upside down.
Before Hearst, St.
Donat's boasted just three bathrooms.
He fitted another 32.
Like all good fixer-uppers, he installed central heating, as well as connecting the castle to the water mains.
And he added not one, but three tennis courts and a heated pool.
With the essentials fixed, Hearst really started to show off and decided the Welsh history of the house wasn't quite enough.
To discover the full extent of Hearst's fantasies, I'm meeting Thea Osborne, who's studied the man and his dream castle.
-Look at this room.
-Yeah, it's amazing, isn't it? It is fantastic.
And Iook at the ceiIing.
It's absoIuteIy beautifuI.
What's the history of this part of the castIe? Hearst actuaIIy buiIt this room himseIf.
OriginaIIy, this was the outer waII and he added on these three extra waIIs and he imported the ceiIing from the Braydon Stoke Priory in WiItshire.
It's a 1 4th-century ceiIing and he brought it in here and buiIt the room around it.
HERMIONE: It's quite unbeIievabIe.
I mean, you wouId never guess to Iook at it.
I mean, it Iooks so weII integrated, doesn't it? The ceiIing and the windows both come from Braydon Stoke Priory.
HERMIONE: But what kind of reaction did he get? This is not something he wouId get away with today.
WeII, it did cause some controversy at the time.
Various members of parIiament caIIed it vandaIism of historic buiIdings.
But he had enough money and he was quite determined about what he wanted to do and create the right entertaining space for himseIf, so Entertaining space? So what, was this IiteraIIy his party room? LiteraIIy, this was his party room, yeah, he'd sort of, um, have dance and dinners here for aII of his various famous guests.
(HERMIONE LAUGHS) And what kind of peopIe wouId have come? WeII, he had members of the HoIIywood eIite, incIuding CharIie ChapIin and the Warner brothers.
And then peopIe from the UK, Iike Winston ChurchiII, David LIoyd George, the Mountbattens, came and stayed.
And what about the firepIaces? There's a beautifuI one at that end of the room and a very ornate one there.
These presumabIy aren't originaI either? THEA: No, no, he had quite a thing for firepIaces.
He brought in 18 in totaI and put them aII over the castIe.
These ones are both from France.
He pIucked them from various areas within France and the UK and wouId even cut them down to size so that they fitted into the room just in the way that he wanted.
HERMIONE: Quite extraordinary.
THEA: Yeah, it's amazing.
HERMIONE: So what else did Hearst get away with? Gothic screens, ancient coats of arms and the gilded ceiling from St.
Botolph's, a celebrated parish church in Boston, Lincolnshire, all found their way here to satisfy Hearst's insatiable appetite for history.
In truth, Hearst wasn't just a Iover of history.
He was a Iover, a man with a mistress.
So a IittIe WeIsh hideaway a few thousand miIes from home suddenIy starts to make sense.
Her name was Marion Davies, a Hollywood actress.
Marion and Hearst loved to entertain the rich and famous and she was the reason for this private little scheme, well away from prying eyes.
But for all the money he lavished on this castle, Hearst spent just a few months here.
He lost control of his empire in the Great Depression, and, with it, most of his wealth.
Hearst and Davies, the American Iovers, may have abandoned this WeIsh castIe, but the worId has moved in.
(PEOPLE CHATTERING) St.
Donat's is now home to Atlantic College, a private boarding school.
350 sixth-formers from 75 countries Iive and study here.
The students are encouraged to make the most of their coastal home.
They even run their own inshore life boat with the RNLI.
After a hard day on the water, they're probably grateful for the bathrooms and central heating put in by William Randolph Hearst.
NEIL: Atlantic College attracts students from all over the world, but just a little further down the coast, near the vast Merthyr Mawr dune system, one group of visitors came a lot less willingly, and were a little too eager to leave.
The wide, open spaces here are a good place to roam free, or to hide.
Around 60 years ago, a deadly serious game of hide and seek was about to begin.
It's the morning of Sunday, March 1 1th, 1945.
(BELLS CHIMING) Listen carefully and you might hear the sound of bells carried on the wind across this coast.
That ringing sound isn't a comforting call to prayer.
It's a grim call to action.
At the height of the war, church beIIs wouId onIy have been rung to signaI invasion.
But now, in 1945, they were sounded in a desperate attempt to warn that there might be Germans at Ioose in these dunes, not trying to invade, but to escape.
I've got a recording from the day the story broke.
ALVAR LIDELL: ''Here is the midnight news for today, Sunday 1 1th March, ''and this is Alvar Lidell reading it.
''70 Germans escaped from ''a Prisoner of War Camp at Bridgend, Glamorgan, last night ''and it is thought that the men may have found cover in the Welsh hills ''and sparsely populated valleys ''or in the caves and sand dunes on the coast a few miles from the camp.
'' So were there German prisoners of war roaming these sand dunes? Soon, a massive manhunt was underway.
It seemed like every available man and woman had been mobilised.
Even the IocaI girI guides wanted in on the act.
The fear was real enough.
By 1945, around 400,000 German prisoners of war were being held in camps up and down Britain.
BROADCASTER: At one of the camps somewhere in Britain, ex-German sailors saved from sunken U-boats and ex-German airmen whose planes were brought down are learning to start life afresh in more peaceful jobs.
NEIL: One of those camps was Island Farm near Bridgend, close to these dunes.
(GATE CLANGING) By March 1945, there were around 1,600 German prisoners of war in the camp here.
Most of it's been demoIished now.
In fact, that hut is aII that remains.
But that is hut number nine, the hut from which the escape attempt originated.
One of the main problems for prisoners of war is boredom.
So the men here spent time drawing sketches of naked women on the walls.
But they weren't drawing just to pass the time.
The racy paintings were there to distract the guards from a daring plan that was being hatched right under their noses.
The prisoners were busy making other drawings, too.
On this handkerchief, they sketched a plan of the Welsh and Irish coasts.
And on a shirt tail, they drew a map of the English Channel.
But the heavy work was happening silently, underground.
This is an oId tin can.
It was used for digging and for removing spoiI.
This is a rough, extremeIy primitive digging tooI made from two Iengths of pipe tied together with string or wire, just enough to give them purchase to cut at the cIay.
This is a bIock of the cIay, the actuaI cIay that was removed during the digging of the tunneI.
In a Iaborious process they had to compact it into baIIs, carry it in their pockets and then hide the whoIe heap inside that buiIding, so that the guards wouId be none the wiser.
But of course, after aII the eIaborate pIanning, the back-breaking work and the danger of it aII, there came the night when there was nothing Ieft to do but put it aII into action.
So how many Germans hid here in the dunes? Writer and historian Herbert Williams knows the full story of the Great Escape from hut nine.
Sixty-seven escaped.
They dug a 60-foot tunneI under the barbed wire into a fieId beyond.
Were they high-ranking officers? Rank and fiIe? They were young officers, they were determined reaIIy not to submit to being prisoners of war.
Some of them were really devoted Nazis.
They belonged to the Hitler Youth.
This was a big, big story when it broke.
All these Germans loose in South Wales.
So Fleet Street gobbled up this story.
It was big news all over Britain.
So there's the notorious tunneI.
HERBERT: There it is, yes.
Some were captured quickly, close to the prison camp.
Others were determined to make it across the sea to freedom.
Four of the Germans planned to get to an airfield.
They found a car, but it wouldn't start, so they persuaded prison guards coming home from the pub to give them a hand.
These Germans, they said to them, ''We are Norwegians, engineers, ''on important war work.
We must get to Croydon, but our car won't start.
''CouId you heIp us push-start it?'' And they were Iike, ''Yes, of course, boy, of course we'II get you.
''Get in the car.
We'II push-start.
'' So they push-started the car and off they went.
And how far did they get? They got 130 miIes, to the outskirts of an airport, and hid in a wood there, and some farm workers found them in the edge of the wood and the game was up.
But the furthest that anyone got were the coupIe of escaped prisoners that went to Southampton.
NEIL: All of the Germans were recaptured before they could cross the Channel.
The waters round our coastline, so long a barricade keeping the Nazis out, ultimately formed a stockade, holding them in.
On this journey, I've been impressed how the people of this coast have reached out together across the Severn Sea.
They've forged links overseas from the earliest times, like the early arms trade with warriors on distant shores, and cooperated closer to home, like the Welsh miners who cut tunnels through English rock at Ilfracombe.
Steamers, ferries and bridges have transformed these two coastlines into one.
Standing here on the WeIsh shoreIine Iooking out across Mor Hafren, the Severn Sea, it strikes me that the few miIes of water between WaIes and EngIand have done just as much to unite these two nations as they have to separate them.
Next time, we're in Southern Ireland.
I'll be joining the Irish Navy.
Alice learns to write her name, old style.
Miranda's away with the birds on the Wexford Slobs.
And Hermione? She's making the earth move.
As the AtIantic Ocean behind me surges aIong this coastIine, it gets squeezed towards the point over there where EngIand and WaIes meet.
In EngIish, that's the Severn Estuary.
In WeIsh, it's Mor Hafren, the Severn Sea.
The Severn Sea, now that's a name that makes you want to expIore.
On my expedition to the Severn Sea and beyond I'm joined by some familiar faces and a brand new addition to the team.
Champion surfer Renee Godfrey swims with seals and explores the unspoilt marine habitats of Lundy.
The water here is running wiId, as nature intended.
(MEN CHATTERING) NEIL: Mark Horton discovers how painting a simple line on the side of ships has helped save countless lives .
MARK HORTON: (LAUGHS) Fantastic! (GRUNTING) NEIL: Nick Crane gets the hang of climbing on Exmoor's treacherous sea cliffs.
I'm cIinging on to everything I can, I can teII you.
NEIL: And Hermione Cockburn visits an enchanted castle by the sea, where a millionaire media mogul let his imagination run wild.
This is not something he wouId get away with today.
This is Coast.
Crossing from the north coast of France, we're back on home turf.
Our journey continues, heading for Porthcawl starting at Botallack near Land's End.
The jagged edge of Cornwall jabs defiantly into the Atlantic.
Only the most durable rock can resist that ocean's pounding.
(WAVES CRASHING) This tough coastline doesn't give up its treasures easily.
But from the earliest times, men have been drawn here to pit themselves against the granite.
Hidden inside the rock is a magicaI ingredient that brought the worId to the Cornish coast.
They came in search of a rare metaI with remarkabIe properties.
Tin.
The relics of tin mining can be seen along the north coast of Cornwall.
The engine houses and their chimneys may be derelict, but these ruins are reminders of an industry that connects us directly to the ancient world, thanks to a humble household object.
How about this, a tin? Nowadays though, you'd probabIy caII it a can, made of aIuminium or steeI.
But the originaIs started out in the 1800s and were made of iron, iron coated with a thin Iayer of tin.
Tin doesn't rust.
It's one of its many magicaI properties.
And food kept in rust-free tin cans remained edibIe for ages.
But ages and ages ago, tin was at the cutting edge of a much bigger revoIution.
Mix tin with copper and you get bronze.
The birth of the Bronze Age some three and a half thousand years ago owed a lot to the tin of the Cornish coast.
Archaeologist Adam Sharpe has studied ancient bronze tools.
-An axe head.
-This is the sort of stapIe working tooI of the Bronze Age.
VirtuaIIy every piece of bronze that you find in Western Europe has got Cornish tin in it.
Once peopIe the worId over reaIise that tin is to be had here, CornwaII becomes pivotaI.
AbsoIuteIy, in terms of distribution on the Earth's surface, tin is very rare indeed, even in terms of sort of Western Europe.
Um, there's a bit in Iberia, in Spain, um, there's a IittIe bit on Sardinia, but aImost aII of it is in CornwaII and West Devon.
And it means that the peopIe who controIIed that resource traded aII over Western Europe.
NEIL: Thousands of years ago, long and perilous journeys were being made to this coast.
As the Bronze Age boomed in Europe, they needed Cornish tin.
The tin trade wasn't just with near neighbours across the Severn Sea, but with the wider world.
Tin was travelling as far away as Ancient Greece and the Middle East.
Bronze Age traders took great risks navigating this treacherous coastline, but the rewards were worth it.
Copper tooI, it bIunts very, very easiIy.
It's too bendy.
Adding just the right amount of tin, 10, 1 1 percent of tin, makes it hard, makes it tough, it's sharpenabIe, it can be poIished.
For what, in the main, is bronze being used to make? UtiIitarian tooIs, axes and knives and chiseIs and things Iike that.
Enormous range of jeweIIery and weapons, of course, and it's the making of swords, which is, absoIuteIy typifies the Bronze the Iater part of the Bronze Age.
So, in a way, that puts CornwaII at the centre of an internationaI arms trade.
ADAM: (LAUGHS) I'm afraid so, yes.
NEIL: Throughout the Bronze Age, ancient armies relied on the Cornish coast for the raw materials of battle.
-Hiya NeiI.
-BURRIDGE: HeIIo.
NEIL: To see why I'm meeting Neil Burridge who still practises the age-old art of forging bronze weapons.
Just got the fire going.
It's just starting to warm up.
NEIL: As the temperature rises, Neil prepares a mould made of stone so we can cast our own bronze sword.
BURRIDGE: So, that's it.
NEIL: Oh, I'm so excited.
-HoId that.
-Okay.
NEIL: Inside the fire is a crucible containing the two metals that together form bronze.
Ninety percent copper will make our sword flexible.
Ten percent tin will make it hard, with a cutting edge.
Heated to 1,200 degrees Celsius, we're ready to pour.
(BURRIDGE BLOWING) -That's good.
-NEIL: Wow! Look at that! Wow, even that's a beautifuI thing.
Look at the coIour of it.
My first sword! BURRIDGE: What I'm going to do is take the cIamps off it now.
-If we try to move it too quickIy, it'II snap.
-Right.
And if we Ieave it too Iong in the mouId, it gets stuck in the mouId and it won't come out.
-So, it's a bit Iike ExcaIibur reaIIy.
-NEIL: It sure is.
Give it a IittIe wiggIe.
I can feeI it, so you shouId be abIe to draw it out very sIowIy, but don't drop it.
NEIL: Wow, Iook at that! That's how you draw a sword from a stone.
The metal merchants have moved on in search of cheaper tin.
But Cornwall is still trading on its natural resources, miles of spectacular craggy coves and beaches.
St.
Ives is a mecca for artists because of the special quality of its light.
And some 30 miles on from St.
Ives is Crantock.
The beaches here offer another source of artistic inspiration.
HeIIo, I'm Sarah Drew and I'm a jeweIIery designer.
I'm going to show you why this beach in Cornwall inspires me.
I use lots of found objects and recycling materials.
And when I came down to Cornwall, it was lovely because there's so many places to go and find things like that.
I've always liked using quite quirky and unusual little pieces, so I find things like sea glass, bits of slate pebbles, sea plastics which have been weathered and shaped nicely by the sea.
Sea string, all sorts of things that I can make into jewellery.
Right then, I've found this bucket Ioad of stuff.
Some nice bits of sea string there, that I can crochet into some braceIets and neckIace.
I do like putting things that other people see as rubbish with precious metals such as silver.
So I quite like that contrast.
I like to think that what I'm making is relevant to the place it's come from, and it's a way of expressing how I see the coastline myself.
I do like to think about how far they've come and where they did originate.
It's nice to think about what their first life was before I found them.
They're having a second life now because I'm making them into jewellery.
I quite Iike this messy Iook, so it Iooks a bit Iike a fisherman's net.
That's what I'm after, that Iook.
I'm quite pIeased with that.
NEIL: Beyond the tourist honey pots of Newquay and Padstow, across the Camel Estuary, is an altogether more peaceful spot, St.
Endoc's Church near Polzeath.
With so much to see along the shore, a reliable guide book's a must.
I've got a classic early example.
The petrol company Shell produced this tourist companion in 1934.
These Shell guides were aimed at a new generation of car owners with the freedom to explore.
The Poet Laureate John Betjeman was one of the founding editors of the SheII guides and he wrote this one about CornwaII.
But one site you won't find in his book, is here, his grave.
Betjeman always wanted to be buried here at St.
Endoc's.
This was his spiritual home.
He loved this church and was gently amused that by the time of his death it was surrounded by a golf course.
Betjeman's book reaIIy was a Iabour of Iove.
From his earIiest chiIdhood, he'd known that here was where his heart beIonged.
Betjeman's words echo the feelings the coast inspires in so many of us.
He captured his boyhood enthusiasm in the poem ''Summoned by Bells''.
BETJEMAN: ''Down towards the sea I ran alone, ''Monarch of miles of sand, ''its shining stretches satin smooth and veined.
''I felt beneath bare feet the lugworm casts ''and walked where only gulls and oyster-catchers ''had stepped before me to the water's edge.
'' NEIL: Although he wrote an early tourist guide to Cornwall, Betjeman wasn't too thrilled with the way the industry developed.
He was thankful, he said, that no one yet had devised a means of building houses on the sea.
BETJEMAN: ''Developers have had more than their fair share of the coast.
''We must keep the rest of it for the good of our souls.
''We need the seaside cure ''for relief from anxiety and tension.
''We need it to realise there's something greater than ourselves.
''That's where the cure is at the sea's edge.
'' NEIL: A short distance up the coast, Tintagel Castle, long associated with the legendary King Arthur.
Arthur and Merlin may be a magical myth.
But just 35 miles across the water is a real magic kingdom.
Lundy Island.
This jewel on the edge of the Severn Sea is one of the most precious wildlife sites in Britain, now owned by the National Trust.
North Atlantic storms batter little Lundy.
It takes a special breed to survive.
These hardy ponies were introduced by the island's previous owner.
So were the Soay sheep.
But the real lure of Lundy is beyond the cliffs.
Some claim the surrounding waters are the wildest, most diverse habitat anywhere on our coast.
Champion surfer, diver and Coast first timer, Renee Godfrey is a native of the Severn Sea, but has never ventured out to Lundy until now.
I've surfed aII aIong the Devon coastIine and I know the WeIsh coast Iike the back of my hand.
And Lundy's aIways just been there mysteriousIy on the horizon and now I'm finaIIy going to get the chance to come and expIore.
RENEE: I'm really looking forward to swimming with the grey seals and getting a closer look at their unique underwater habitat.
What makes the waters around Lundy so speciaI is that they're compIeteIy protected.
Lundy is EngIand's first and onIy marine nature reserve, so the water here is running wiId, as nature intended.
Hi, Keith, how are you? I'm weII.
WeIcome to your first dive on Lundy .
Thank you very much.
I'm going to give you my kit.
-Yup.
-RENEE: Marine biologist, Keith Hiscock, has been diving off Lundy since the 1960s.
Recently, the experience has become even more spectacular.
In 2003, Lundy became Britain's first statutory No-Take Zone.
That means it's now completely undisturbed by fishermen.
I'm eager to see how nature gets on, left to its own devices.
The first thing you notice is the plant life, like a garden gone wild.
In deeper waters there are wonderful corals that you might expect to see only in much warmer climes.
I'm hoping Keith can show me some of Lundy's hidden gems.
KEITH: Now look at these Trumpet anemones.
Lundy is one of the few places in Great Britain where they occur.
RENEE: They look so delicate and as the water moves past them, they look like they're clapping their hands with their tentacles.
KEITH: They're mostly a bag of water with stinging cells.
The Trumpet anemones actually have photosynthetic algae in the tissue, just like tropical corals, so they only occur in shallow water, where there's enough light for the algae to thrive.
RENEE: This anemone wouldn't look out of place in the warmer Mediterranean waters.
That's the magic of Lundy, it's full of surprises.
(BUBBLING) Beautiful Snakelock anemones.
KEITH: They're very beautiful, but they're also very dangerous to any animals that stumble into them.
Because, again, they've got stinging cells which paralyse the prey and so any clumsy shrimp or crab that clutches the tentacles is dead meat.
RENEE: Lundy's lobsters, though, are armour-plated against such dangers.
Since the No-Take Zone was established, there are more of them here than before, and they're much bigger.
But what I really want to see in this underwater treasure trove is a tiny gem that's rare in British waters and all too easy to miss.
KEITH: Here we are, I've got scarlet and gold star corals here.
RENEE: Wow, they're so small.
They're like little hidden jewels, aren't they? KEITH: Yes, that's a very good way to put it, it's hidden jewels, because we've had to look quite hard for these and you do have to know what sort of habitat they occur in.
RENEE: These seas are absolutely bursting with life, completely untainted by man.
The shores of Lundy are nourished by balmy currents from the Gulf Stream.
Not only do warm water corals find a home here, all sorts of plant and animal life flourish.
It's a rich source of food and an ideal environment for larger sea mammals.
Island warden Nicola Saunders is taking me to see Lundy's amazing grey seals.
Look, there's some over there on that rock there.
They lead a truly wild life.
Out here, I've got to play by their rules.
They are wiId animaIs, so you've got to be carefuI -and treat them with respect.
-Sure.
But generaIIy, as Iong as you're fairIy passive in the water, you don't chase after them, then they're just inquisitive and they want to see what you're up to in their territory, reaIIy.
RENEE: Great, weII, Iet's get in, okay? They're so big and cIumsy and cumbersome when they're Iying on the rocks, and the minute they get into the water, they're so agiIe and so quick, and they swim straight up to you, Iook you right in the eyes, try and gauge whether they Iike you or not, and then just swim away, Iike that, so fast, amazing! That was incredibIe.
Lundy more than lives up to its promise.
It's a rich and precious haven for marine life.
A coastline where nature really runs wild.
NEIL: Lundy's once remote paradise has been opened up to the public.
Day trippers travel to and fro aboard the MS OIdenburg.
Her route takes us back to the Devon coast to a resort town with a difference.
200 years ago, the seaside holiday we take for granted was still being invented.
In places like Illfracombe, they faced some formidable challenges, not least just getting to the beach.
High cliffs stand all around the sheltered coves.
So, in the 1820's, they looked across the Severn Sea for a solution.
They brought in the real experts to break through the cliffs, miners from South Wales.
I'm going to follow in the footsteps of those miners to explore how the Victorians learnt to love to be beside the sea.
My guide is outdoor swimmer Kate Rew.
Now, I'm amazed at this.
This seems Iike an awfuI Iot of troubIe to go to for a swim, to actuaIIy dig a tunneI through a rock.
KATE: It's amazing what peopIe wiII do to get to a nice beach.
NEIL: Look at that, that's where it's been cut.
That's maybe where they've driIIed for bIasting.
And aII so that they couId get to a beach for a swim? Some of us are very desperate to get into the water.
NEIL: Capitalising on the new-fangled fashion for taking a dip, the Ilfracombe Sea Bathing Company's Welsh miners dug four tunnels through solid rock, wide enough to take a horse and carriage.
KATE: They swam in from bathing machines, they were caIIed, wooden huts on wheeIs that wouId be horse-drawn -aII the way through these tunneIs.
-NEIL: AII right.
KATE: And three foot into the water, where the Iadies wouId eIegantIy step out.
NEIL: Bathing machines were portable changing rooms for preserving a lady's modesty in this novel environment.
Once in the water, the novice bathers had to learn how to behave.
The whole experience was stage managed.
At Ilfracombe, they held back the rough seas by fencing off tidal pools.
Walls were built to hold in calm water.
Early bathers still needed some encouragement, and with the prospect of a swim here myself, I know how they felt.
-Looking forward to your dip? -Let's taIk about that Iater.
(LAUGHS) WeII, I've got an aIbum here, that I'd Iike to show you, of someone who was here at aII times, during Victorian times, to encourage peopIe, probabIy, maybe, peopIe Iike you, to go swimming.
NEIL: He's not the kind of figure I expected.
(BOTH CHUCKLING) KATE: This is Professor Harry Parker, who was quite a figure around here.
NEIL: He certainIy was.
That's quite a figure.
KATE: With his top hat and his comedy nose, and he is one of EngIand's greatest natatoriaI artistes.
-Easy for you to say.
-AbsoIuteIy, and he wouId teach any good peopIe on the beach diving and fancy swimming.
Tricks Iike Iighting a cigar whiIe swimming and drinking a gIass of champagne.
This kind of comedy action showed how happy peopIe couId be in the water.
Was it a famiIy affair? Very much not, actuaIIy.
Even though the Victorians were very famiIy orientated, their beaches were strictIy segregated.
So we're sitting here, on This is the men's beach, so men onIy.
Um, the women wouId be taken through the headIand to the other side and a bugIer wouId sit on the rocks in between and if any man dared swim out of the area enough to actuaIIy catch sight of the women, a horn wouId be bIown IoudIy.
-Wow! -They wouId be ejected.
There were newspaper reports saying that, you know, uh, if the men were named that had committed this crime, they wouId be thrown out of civiIised society.
I mean, it was very strict.
NEIL: Not only were they confined to separate beaches, there was a strict dress code, too.
And quite a double standard for men and women.
The Victorian Iady had to be very properIy dressed when she went into the water, and these are the kinds of things that they wore.
Very nice.
KATE: So you needed a good pair of pantaIoons, beIow the knee, obviousIy, to preserve her modesty.
And then a kind of dress or smock over the top.
And these were apparentIy sometimes weighed down with Iead peIIets around the hem to stop them fIoating up.
Lead is what you want on a swimming costume in the open sea, isn't it? (LAUGHING) HaIf a pound of Iead shot.
KATE: It wouId be Iike swimming in a sort of a hessian sack, I think, by the time it's wet.
And what about me? What do I get? You, deIightfuIIy, get to swim in the buff! Oh, come on! I wanted a duffIe coat, weIIington boots and a hat.
She's not joking.
Away from the ladies, hidden behind the headland on their own beach, those Victorian gents were a lot less buttoned up than you might imagine.
It wasn't uncommon for the men to swim in the nude, even if the women on the beach next door were covered up.
Swimming in the buff? I thought Victorian gentIemen had more decorum.
Where's Queen Victoria when you need her? That's what I want to know.
The tidal pool is still used today.
The water is calmer and warmer than the sea around it.
It's still a bit chilly, all the same.
Watch out, you might get arrested.
I can definiteIy hear a bugIer! (BOTH LAUGHING) The Welsh miners who crossed the sea to open up the beaches of Ilfracombe were followed by waves of tourists on day trips between England and Wales.
In the late 19th and early 20th century, pleasure boats crisscrossed the Severn Sea.
The Motor Vessel BaImoraI is a relic of a time when foreign travel was, for some, a booze cruise between the resorts of South Wales and North Devon.
By the 1960s, exotic locations overseas made the pleasure steamers look dated, and the opening of the Severn Bridge meant the sea was no longer the quickest route between England and Wales.
Travelling along this coast, though, has always been a struggle.
This is where Exmoor meets the Severn Sea.
These imposing sea cliffs posed another challenge to Victorian engineers opening up this coast for tourists.
In 1890, Lynmouth, by the sea, was linked with Lynton, up the hill, by a water-powered funicular railway that's still going strong.
But not everyone wants to take the shortcut.
Nick Crane is meeting some pioneers who were determined to tackle these cliffs the hard way.
It's 1953 and the worId's highest mountain has been conquered in a breathtaking 29,000 foot ascent.
The achievement prompted one mountaineer who'd missed out on the Everest adventure to pIan a conquest of his own, not up, but aIong.
And it was a Iot more than 29,000 feet.
In his younger days, Clement Archer had been working in India when Everest was conquered.
It's thought that he'd secretly hoped to join that expedition.
Instead, Archer pioneered a new concept here on the Exmoor coast.
Nowadays we might call it coasteering, a 14-mile climb along sea cliffs sandwiched perilously between pounding sea and sky.
The purists know this route as the Exmoor Traverse.
It runs from Foreland Point to Combe Martin, nearly three times longer than the ascent of Everest.
And this route wasn't completed until 25 years after Everest.
In 1978, Terry Cheek and a team of three young police cadets finally conquered the Exmoor Traverse.
It took them four days and nights.
Their achievement has not been matched since.
30 years later, Terry and two of his team are back at the Exmoor Traverse.
Ah, now what is going on there? You've got no rope shift, you're creeping around -under an overhang above the water -TERRY: Yeah, that's it.
wearing what Iook Iike soggy jeans.
Yeah, and of course it was fIares back 30 years ago.
You did this in fIared jeans? (ALL LAUGHING) TERRY: Do you remember this part of it, Trevor, going round there? TREVOR: Yeah, I do, and you're taIking about the cIothing.
I remember the boots were made of Iike pressed cardboard with a rubber soIe.
They were very cheap and not very fIexibIe to begin with.
And, of course, then they get saturated with water and it's aImost Iike wearing papier mache whiIe rock cIimbing.
So, it's a reaI chaIIenge.
If you don't get it right, then you're cut off.
You know, and that may, you know, without being overdramatic about it, that may mean drowning.
What they caII nowadays risk assessment, I don't remember us taIking about those words back then, 30 years ago.
I'm not sure there was a risk assessment.
AbsoIuteIy not, otherwise we wouIdn't have done it.
(ALL LAUGHING) NICK: Terry was already an experienced climber in 1978.
He's in his sixties now and still loves these cliffs.
He's challenged me to take on a section of this daunting traverse.
-The Exmoor Everest.
-The Exmoor Everest, yes.
-ShaII we go down? -Yes, certainIy.
NICK: Doesn't sound Iike a waIk in the park.
BeIow, beIow.
I just kicked a rock down, which is not good when you've got somebody beIow.
Terry, the nature of this route in rock-cIimbing terms is pretty bizarre reaIIy, it seems to me.
Because I associate cIimbing with going up mountains, -not going horizontaIIy aIong sideways.
-TERRY: HorizontaIIy sideways.
The cIimbing is much the same.
I mean, you reaIIy set your own ruIes.
We set a ruIe of not entering the water and not cIimbing out onto the grass Iine above the rock.
It's probabIy one of the harder spots, because we're onIy about three feet above the high-water mark now.
NICK: So, I mean, onIy a coupIe of hours ago the waves were bashing at the bottom of this, weren't they? TERRY: Just beIow my feet, yes.
This is a bit of a tricky move, isn't it, Terry? TERRY: It's quite difficuIt.
(MEN GRUNTING) That's it, cIing your hands underneath that spike.
I'm cIinging on to everything I can, I can teII you.
TERRY: Look down at your feet, you'II be okay there.
NICK: Under here it's aII wet and sIimy, isn't it? TERRY: Yes, I know.
NICK: It's covered in sea water.
Jam the hands up in that crack.
I know it's wet and it's painfuI.
(NICK GRUNTING) NICK: Very tricky.
Now what? Some of the finger hoIes are reaIIy pretty minute, aren't they? (GRUNTING) It's not quite as easy as sitting at a desk, working on my Iaptop, it has to be said.
If you get caught by a rising tide or a storm surge in the BristoI ChanneI, what do you do? TERRY: Once you've been driven above the high-water mark, then you are in unknown territory.
You couId be in absoIute heII about 70 feet up on crumbIing rock and vegetation.
We had to resort to cIimbing at nights, waiting on the cIiffs for the tide to recede to get past a difficuIt section, and it was freezing.
We aIso discovered what barnacIes couId do to your hands.
You know, it's Iike very rough, coarse sandpaper.
It's very painfuI.
NICK: I've only done a section of this climb, and as we haul ourselves up the cliff, I'm feeling pretty exhilarated.
I've got nothing but admiration for the achievement of Terry and his team three decades ago.
I'm left, too, with a new respect for the awesome cliffs and the fierce tides of the Severn Sea.
NEIL: Eventually the imposing cliffs of North Devon give up their grip on the coast.
At Bridgwater Bay, at low tide, the shallow water becomes a vast expanse of mud.
On the edge of the Bay, in Stolford, there's a fishing family who, for generations, have earned their living from the mud.
To come home with a decent catch, they rely on centuries-old skills, and ancient tools unique to the men of the mud flats.
My name is Brendan, Brendan SeIIick, and I've been a mud-horse fisherman aII my working Iife, ever since I was a nipper.
I used the mud horse right up tiII weII in my 70's.
My son, Adrian, is now doing it.
He's pushing the mud horse, because it's a very physical job.
You've got to be fit, out there in the soft mud.
If you tried to go and do that without a mud horse, some days you'd just disappear.
It gets in your bones and, when I first started, there was quite a number of families in this estuary doing it.
And not only here, all the way around the Bridgwater Bay.
It's just now got that here's just us left.
ADRIAN: We come out in aII weathers, even if it's snowing, sIeet, haiIstones.
You do get worn down.
It's Iike any other job, I suppose.
But, this job, you've got to come out, otherwise your catch gets spoiIt.
On a day Iike today, I know it's a bit drizzIy, but it's quite pIeasant.
You feeI the breeze and then you know the tide's turned.
ShouId be turning now in a minute.
You work with the tide, not the tide works with you.
You don't reaIIy know what you're going to catch with it.
That's what I Iike about it.
Brown shrimp, that's what we're mainIy after.
WeII, I've got a few IittIe Dover soIes, sIip soIes, one or two prawns.
We've caught aII sorts out here.
I've had a IittIe Iobster, a seahorse.
And what I do is give them a sieve, Iet aII the baby shrimps go, and pick the rubbish out I don't want.
That's my favourite, IittIe sIip soIes.
RoIIed in fIour, fried in butter.
BeautifuI.
There's a nice skate.
Two hours ago that was swimming.
How fresher do you want than that? NEIL: Onwards to one of Britain's great maritime cities.
For centuries Bristol has thrived as a hub for international trade, the metropolis of the Severn Sea.
In 1497, John Cabot connected Bristol to the New World by sailing to Newfoundland.
A replica of Cabot's little ship sits next to the mighty SS Great Britain, the first ocean-going ship with an iron hull, brainchild of Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
Bristol's famous sons are remembered by their historic ships.
But Mark Horton's on the trail of the city's unsung hero, whose memorial is written on the side of modern ships worldwide.
MARK: Bristol's port carries 12 million tons of cargo every year.
Hundreds of steel containers are moved every day.
So they have to run a tight ship here.
To check that a vesseI is not overIoaded, every ship has to have a series of Iines painted on the side.
They're known as the PIimsoII Iine and over the Iast 1 40 years, they've saved thousands of Iives.
If the water comes over the Plimsoll line when the ship's being loaded, it's too heavy and might sink.
This warning mark was the brainwave of Bristol-born Samuel Plimsoll.
Remarkably, 140 years ago, a simple brush stroke made Plimsoll the most popular man in Britain and nearly brought down the government.
But aside from a modest plaque, there's very little in Bristol to mark his extraordinary story.
In the 19th century, there was a national scandal in our ports.
Greedy owners deliberately overloaded ships to increase profits or claim on the insurance when their over-burdened ships sank.
Samuel Plimsoll realised a line must be drawn.
Now, though, the nation has all but forgotten his struggle.
Writer Nicolette Jones is as passionate as I am about restoring Plimsoll's reputation.
How big a probIem was overIoaded ships in the 19th century? Bigger than you'd think.
The reports suggest that about 500 saiIors a year Iost their Iives unnecessariIy.
Something Iike 856 ships went down within 10 miIes of the British coast in 187 1 in conditions that were no worse than a strong breeze, which suggests that there was quite a prevaIence of avarice and negIect.
-And I've got an exampIe here, the London -Oh, yes.
Times, March 1st, 1866, and it teIIs of the Ioss of the London.
''The ship is sinking.
No hope of being saved.
''God bIess my poor orphans.
'' Was this common? WeII, it was certainIy one of the sad events that triggered PIimsoII's campaign, because the London, which was a ship that was traveIIing to AustraIia, was partIy a passenger ship and aIso carried a great deaI of cargo.
And a Iot of the witnesses who saw it Ieave said that it was conspicuousIy overIoaded, it was too Iow in the water.
And 270 peopIe drowned, so it struck a chord with the pubIic.
So, in many ways, the London was sort of the Titanic of an earIier generation.
Yes, it was, and the enquiry afterwards did suggest that, perhaps, a Ioad Iine in future wouId avoid this kind of catastrophe.
MARK: Plimsoll campaigned to get his safe load line painted on ships.
But knowing exactly where to draw the line isn't as simple as it seems.
It has a lot to do with salt.
Scientist John Polatch has offered to give us a demonstration using two tanks of water, one salty and one fresh.
-And we have some eggs here.
-Yes.
And we can show with the eggs that things fIoat differentIy in fresh water than they do in saIt water.
So we pop an egg into the fresh water, it sinks.
-And in the saIt water.
-It fIoats! So we've got a coupIe of IittIe boats there.
We've got some weights here which we can attach.
Right, okay, I'm going to come down and have a Iook at this cIose up.
(LAUGHS) Oh, boy.
And we aIso have some cargo to Ioad into them.
NICOLETTE: You've got to be carefuI it's baIanced.
Now, that's Iooking good.
So that's now fIoating pretty weII -on the edge there, isn't it? -Just on the water Iine.
So, shaII we now take this one out and pop it in fresh water.
It shouId sink.
And that is preciseIy why the ship can saiI with heavier cargo in sea water, because it has more buoyancy in the water.
MARK: So, ships are marked with different lines for salt and fresh water.
But climate plays a part, too.
Ship's pilot Paul Chase needs to know one line from another.
-We have this for the summer.
-Right.
The regions of the worId have been spIit up.
This is our summer Ioad Iine.
MARK: Right, yes.
PAUL: Okay.
-If we go to tropicaI ''T'', T for TropicaI.
-Yes.
Better weather, therefore we can Ioad the ship deeper.
-MARK: Right.
-If we go to weather that's worse, we refer to it as winter, we have to Ioad it Iess.
MARK: So it's temperature dependent, but saIt dependent as weII.
PAUL: Yes, you're right.
MARK: With so many lives at stake, you'd think painting a line on a ship wouldn't be controversial.
But it took Plimsoll years of bitter struggle.
There were too many vested interests.
PIimsoII became an MP and found himseIf in a house fuII of ship-owning MPs who wanted to make as much profit as possibIe and who sabotaged his IegisIation at every stage.
So there must have been immense parIiamentary battIes to achieve this, rather Iike the battIes to aboIish the sIave trade.
Yes, preciseIy.
PIimsoII's story is very much a story about machinations in the corridors of power.
It reached its climax when Plimsoll lost his temper.
He called ship owners murderers and the MPs who colluded with them villains.
He shook his fist at DisraeIi.
It was the most ceIebrated moment of his career, and it Ied to a huge nationaI outcry which nearIy ousted DisraeIi from government and Ied to a hasty merchant-shipping biII which introduced the PIimsoII mark as we know it.
MARK: Plimsoll's triumph over the greed of ship owners and the corruption of MPs made him a national hero to the Victorians.
It's ironic that today he's perhaps better known for the shoes that were named after him.
I'm wearing a pair of pIimsoIIs, which are perfectIy dry, providing the water doesn't rise above the rubber.
NEIL: We leave Bristol and head back out to sea over Portbury and Avonmouth docks and up the estuary to Purton on the banks of the Severn.
I've come to the graveyard of the Severn Sea, the Purton Hulks, a collection of dead ships that lie sprawled for a mile and half along the estuary.
They were brought here to stop erosion by the strong currents.
Holes were knocked into their hulls so that they silted up and stayed put.
A Iot of these vesseIs spent their working Iives pIying up and down the estuary.
But now, they're just an eerie reminder of a time not so very Iong ago when the onIy way to cross that stretch of water was by boat.
Its Welsh name, Mor Hafren, the Severn Sea, says it all.
But now, that sea has been tamed by two great bridges across the estuary.
Look hard alongside the first Severn bridge and there's still evidence of the earlier crossing between England and Wales, the car ramp for the ferry, abandoned when the service stopped in 1966.
Back in the '60s, this crossing saved a 50-mile trip round the estuary.
But you still had to wait for the ferry long enough for one famous passenger to get caught on camera.
In May 1966, Bob Dylan had just performed in Bristol on his Judas tour, so called because he'd gone electric.
Dylan had been booed by some fans and was facing an uncertain reception in Cardiff.
The times were changing for the ferry, too.
In the background, the first Severn Bridge just weeks from completion.
The day it opened, not everyone was cheering.
Enoch Williams, the ferry owner, lost his livelihood.
His passion for the old ferry still runs in the family and Enoch is not forgotten.
My name is Richard Jones.
I'm the eIdest grandson of Enoch WiIIiams, who was the founder of the Iast incarnation of the BeachIy Aust Ferry.
This boat on which we're standing at the moment is the Severn Princess.
This crossing was very important because it was the only crossing available for car traffic.
It was a lifeline to many people in their daily business.
Many people courted on the ferries.
Girls in England meeting gentlemen from Wales and vice versa.
Everybody knew the bridge was coming and indeed knew because they could see the bridge being built.
I think Enoch still harboured thoughts of continuing, but it became obvious that the bridge really was going to be a very different proposition and so he decided that it would not be economical and there was really no point in fighting against it.
He tried his best to make sure that the company obtained as much compensation as possibIe.
How much do I think I'm going to get is a sore point.
It is a question of what we are worth and what we are going to get are two different things.
WouId you say you're going to get, what, 20 or 30,000? Oh, no, that isn't the price of a boat.
INTERVIEWER: A Iot more than that? £100,000? And a bit more.
RICHARD: The last day that the service carried cars was September 8th, 1966, the day that the first Severn Bridge opened.
To commemorate the first crossing of the Severn Bridge, I have great pIeasure in unveiIing this pIaque.
(PEOPLE CLAPPING) RICHARD: It was a joyous day in some ways, because everybody Iikes a party, but it was aIso very sad to see my grandfather's IifeIong work come to an end.
I would not wish to be considered a traitor, but at age 17, the bridge opened up huge new possibilities.
So, a great feeling of regret, but at the same time that was tempered somewhat by a feeling of new freedom.
NEIL: Moving west, the deep-water ports of Newport and Cardiff were built to trade far beyond the confines of the Severn Sea.
Exports of coal helped finance the building of resorts like Penarth for miners on day trips close to home.
But the appeal of the South Wales coast stretches far beyond these shores.
At St.
Donat's, it's not hard to see the attraction.
: a grand coastline and a grand castle.
It boasts 800 years of history, but by the start of the 20th century, countless careless owners had left St.
Donat's in need of a little love.
In 1925, it was about to attract a wealthy overseas admirer.
Hermione Cockburn's exploring how one of the world's richest men transformed this castle into a pleasure palace.
This is an edition of Country Life from the earIy 1900s.
And aIongside articIes of bird watching and trout fishing, there's an iIIustrated feature about a WeIsh castIe down on its Iuck.
But St.
Donat's wouId soon capture one reader's heart.
The magazine attracted the attention of one America's great newspaper magnates, William Randolph Hearst.
He was one of the most powerful men in the USA, calling the shots both in Washington and Hollywood.
His media empire could make and break politicians and movie stars alike.
Hearst, famously the inspiration for the film Citizen Kane, had a passion for excess and the money to indulge it.
He'd already built one extravagant castle on the Californian coast at San Simeon, complete with its own zoo.
But why, in 1925, was he hatching a new scheme thousands of miles away on the Welsh coast? Without ever coming to WaIes, he cabIed his staff in London, ''Buy St.
Donat's castIe''.
And so he acquired this modest piIe in need of a IittIe work.
It was another three years before he set foot here, but when he did, he turned the place upside down.
Before Hearst, St.
Donat's boasted just three bathrooms.
He fitted another 32.
Like all good fixer-uppers, he installed central heating, as well as connecting the castle to the water mains.
And he added not one, but three tennis courts and a heated pool.
With the essentials fixed, Hearst really started to show off and decided the Welsh history of the house wasn't quite enough.
To discover the full extent of Hearst's fantasies, I'm meeting Thea Osborne, who's studied the man and his dream castle.
-Look at this room.
-Yeah, it's amazing, isn't it? It is fantastic.
And Iook at the ceiIing.
It's absoIuteIy beautifuI.
What's the history of this part of the castIe? Hearst actuaIIy buiIt this room himseIf.
OriginaIIy, this was the outer waII and he added on these three extra waIIs and he imported the ceiIing from the Braydon Stoke Priory in WiItshire.
It's a 1 4th-century ceiIing and he brought it in here and buiIt the room around it.
HERMIONE: It's quite unbeIievabIe.
I mean, you wouId never guess to Iook at it.
I mean, it Iooks so weII integrated, doesn't it? The ceiIing and the windows both come from Braydon Stoke Priory.
HERMIONE: But what kind of reaction did he get? This is not something he wouId get away with today.
WeII, it did cause some controversy at the time.
Various members of parIiament caIIed it vandaIism of historic buiIdings.
But he had enough money and he was quite determined about what he wanted to do and create the right entertaining space for himseIf, so Entertaining space? So what, was this IiteraIIy his party room? LiteraIIy, this was his party room, yeah, he'd sort of, um, have dance and dinners here for aII of his various famous guests.
(HERMIONE LAUGHS) And what kind of peopIe wouId have come? WeII, he had members of the HoIIywood eIite, incIuding CharIie ChapIin and the Warner brothers.
And then peopIe from the UK, Iike Winston ChurchiII, David LIoyd George, the Mountbattens, came and stayed.
And what about the firepIaces? There's a beautifuI one at that end of the room and a very ornate one there.
These presumabIy aren't originaI either? THEA: No, no, he had quite a thing for firepIaces.
He brought in 18 in totaI and put them aII over the castIe.
These ones are both from France.
He pIucked them from various areas within France and the UK and wouId even cut them down to size so that they fitted into the room just in the way that he wanted.
HERMIONE: Quite extraordinary.
THEA: Yeah, it's amazing.
HERMIONE: So what else did Hearst get away with? Gothic screens, ancient coats of arms and the gilded ceiling from St.
Botolph's, a celebrated parish church in Boston, Lincolnshire, all found their way here to satisfy Hearst's insatiable appetite for history.
In truth, Hearst wasn't just a Iover of history.
He was a Iover, a man with a mistress.
So a IittIe WeIsh hideaway a few thousand miIes from home suddenIy starts to make sense.
Her name was Marion Davies, a Hollywood actress.
Marion and Hearst loved to entertain the rich and famous and she was the reason for this private little scheme, well away from prying eyes.
But for all the money he lavished on this castle, Hearst spent just a few months here.
He lost control of his empire in the Great Depression, and, with it, most of his wealth.
Hearst and Davies, the American Iovers, may have abandoned this WeIsh castIe, but the worId has moved in.
(PEOPLE CHATTERING) St.
Donat's is now home to Atlantic College, a private boarding school.
350 sixth-formers from 75 countries Iive and study here.
The students are encouraged to make the most of their coastal home.
They even run their own inshore life boat with the RNLI.
After a hard day on the water, they're probably grateful for the bathrooms and central heating put in by William Randolph Hearst.
NEIL: Atlantic College attracts students from all over the world, but just a little further down the coast, near the vast Merthyr Mawr dune system, one group of visitors came a lot less willingly, and were a little too eager to leave.
The wide, open spaces here are a good place to roam free, or to hide.
Around 60 years ago, a deadly serious game of hide and seek was about to begin.
It's the morning of Sunday, March 1 1th, 1945.
(BELLS CHIMING) Listen carefully and you might hear the sound of bells carried on the wind across this coast.
That ringing sound isn't a comforting call to prayer.
It's a grim call to action.
At the height of the war, church beIIs wouId onIy have been rung to signaI invasion.
But now, in 1945, they were sounded in a desperate attempt to warn that there might be Germans at Ioose in these dunes, not trying to invade, but to escape.
I've got a recording from the day the story broke.
ALVAR LIDELL: ''Here is the midnight news for today, Sunday 1 1th March, ''and this is Alvar Lidell reading it.
''70 Germans escaped from ''a Prisoner of War Camp at Bridgend, Glamorgan, last night ''and it is thought that the men may have found cover in the Welsh hills ''and sparsely populated valleys ''or in the caves and sand dunes on the coast a few miles from the camp.
'' So were there German prisoners of war roaming these sand dunes? Soon, a massive manhunt was underway.
It seemed like every available man and woman had been mobilised.
Even the IocaI girI guides wanted in on the act.
The fear was real enough.
By 1945, around 400,000 German prisoners of war were being held in camps up and down Britain.
BROADCASTER: At one of the camps somewhere in Britain, ex-German sailors saved from sunken U-boats and ex-German airmen whose planes were brought down are learning to start life afresh in more peaceful jobs.
NEIL: One of those camps was Island Farm near Bridgend, close to these dunes.
(GATE CLANGING) By March 1945, there were around 1,600 German prisoners of war in the camp here.
Most of it's been demoIished now.
In fact, that hut is aII that remains.
But that is hut number nine, the hut from which the escape attempt originated.
One of the main problems for prisoners of war is boredom.
So the men here spent time drawing sketches of naked women on the walls.
But they weren't drawing just to pass the time.
The racy paintings were there to distract the guards from a daring plan that was being hatched right under their noses.
The prisoners were busy making other drawings, too.
On this handkerchief, they sketched a plan of the Welsh and Irish coasts.
And on a shirt tail, they drew a map of the English Channel.
But the heavy work was happening silently, underground.
This is an oId tin can.
It was used for digging and for removing spoiI.
This is a rough, extremeIy primitive digging tooI made from two Iengths of pipe tied together with string or wire, just enough to give them purchase to cut at the cIay.
This is a bIock of the cIay, the actuaI cIay that was removed during the digging of the tunneI.
In a Iaborious process they had to compact it into baIIs, carry it in their pockets and then hide the whoIe heap inside that buiIding, so that the guards wouId be none the wiser.
But of course, after aII the eIaborate pIanning, the back-breaking work and the danger of it aII, there came the night when there was nothing Ieft to do but put it aII into action.
So how many Germans hid here in the dunes? Writer and historian Herbert Williams knows the full story of the Great Escape from hut nine.
Sixty-seven escaped.
They dug a 60-foot tunneI under the barbed wire into a fieId beyond.
Were they high-ranking officers? Rank and fiIe? They were young officers, they were determined reaIIy not to submit to being prisoners of war.
Some of them were really devoted Nazis.
They belonged to the Hitler Youth.
This was a big, big story when it broke.
All these Germans loose in South Wales.
So Fleet Street gobbled up this story.
It was big news all over Britain.
So there's the notorious tunneI.
HERBERT: There it is, yes.
Some were captured quickly, close to the prison camp.
Others were determined to make it across the sea to freedom.
Four of the Germans planned to get to an airfield.
They found a car, but it wouldn't start, so they persuaded prison guards coming home from the pub to give them a hand.
These Germans, they said to them, ''We are Norwegians, engineers, ''on important war work.
We must get to Croydon, but our car won't start.
''CouId you heIp us push-start it?'' And they were Iike, ''Yes, of course, boy, of course we'II get you.
''Get in the car.
We'II push-start.
'' So they push-started the car and off they went.
And how far did they get? They got 130 miIes, to the outskirts of an airport, and hid in a wood there, and some farm workers found them in the edge of the wood and the game was up.
But the furthest that anyone got were the coupIe of escaped prisoners that went to Southampton.
NEIL: All of the Germans were recaptured before they could cross the Channel.
The waters round our coastline, so long a barricade keeping the Nazis out, ultimately formed a stockade, holding them in.
On this journey, I've been impressed how the people of this coast have reached out together across the Severn Sea.
They've forged links overseas from the earliest times, like the early arms trade with warriors on distant shores, and cooperated closer to home, like the Welsh miners who cut tunnels through English rock at Ilfracombe.
Steamers, ferries and bridges have transformed these two coastlines into one.
Standing here on the WeIsh shoreIine Iooking out across Mor Hafren, the Severn Sea, it strikes me that the few miIes of water between WaIes and EngIand have done just as much to unite these two nations as they have to separate them.
Next time, we're in Southern Ireland.
I'll be joining the Irish Navy.
Alice learns to write her name, old style.
Miranda's away with the birds on the Wexford Slobs.
And Hermione? She's making the earth move.