Great British Railway Journeys (2010) s05e15 Episode Script
Cheltenham to Wolverhampton
In 1840, one man transformed travel in Britain.
His name was George Bradshaw and his railway guides inspired the Victorians to take to the tracks.
Stop by stop, he told them where to go, what to see and where to stay.
And now, 110 years later, I'm aboard for a series of rail adventures across the United Kingdom to see what of Bradshaw's Britain remains.
I'm now completing my journey from England's south coast to the West Midlands.
This last leg will take me from Cheltenham Spa, where refined people took the waters for their health, to Wolverhampton, where amidst the coal and smoke, craftsmen developed techniques of the greatest finesse.
On this leg, I drive a car powered by the technology of the Victorians Whoa! This is real motoring.
This is the way it was.
i visit the castle of the King of Salt It's as though a French château had landed in the Worcestershire countryside.
You've got to take it with a pinch of salt.
and I fight a losing battle in the Wars of the Roses.
Ready for the slaughter.
Harder.
Come on! Getting a taste for blood.
My journey began in Southampton, took in Hampshire and Berkshire, went west to Bristol, crossed the River Severn, moved onto Gloucestershire and ends today in the West Midlands.
This leg begins in Cheltenham, takes in a Tewkesbury condiment, learns of another in Droitwich and ends in Wolverhampton.
I'm heading north on the old Great Western Railway, which in Bradshaw's day offered an escape from smoggy industrial cities to the country's most famous spa towns, like my first destination, Cheltenham.
Legend has it that in 1716, a flock of pigeons discovered the town's first spring and local entrepreneurs, noticing how the birds thrived, realised that there was money to be made.
My "Bradshaw's" suggests that they were right.
"Cheltenham," says Bradshaw's, "is celebrated for its medicinal waters.
" "It's been, for the last 60 years, one of the most elegant and fashionable watering places in England.
" "The promenade leads to the Montpellier Spa and the Rotunda pump room.
" The trouble is, you can never bank on things remaining the same.
King George Ill took the waters here in 1788 and the town's popularity grew.
New spas and, from the 1840s, up to six railway stations were built.
A bank since 1882, the Montpellier Spa building opened in 181'! and nine years later, architect JB Papworth added the Rotunda pump room mentioned in my "Bradshaw's".
Well, it's evident why this lovely pump room was called the Rotunda, with its classical dome.
In fact, it reminds me of the Pantheon in Rome.
How wonderfully suited to Cheltenham, a place of the utmost fashion.
Excuse me.
You're doing a guided tour, obviously.
This lovely pump room, was it inspired by the Pantheon in Rome? (guide) Much of Cheltenham is inspired by classical architecture.
And what would have been going on here in the days of the spa? Well, the ladies and gentlemen would have come in here and there would have been a large Grecian urn where the pump was installed.
They would have taken the waters, listened to music, clone a little dancing.
It was a social as well as a health-giving experience.
It was a place of sophistication and elegance.
Yes, Cheltenham was known for leisure and pleasure.
(Michael) I can see from your group that elegance and sophistication remain the key words today.
- Well, since you came in, of course.
- Thank you so much.
I'm intrigued by how people reached here before the railways arrived in 1840, and "Bradshaw's" may have the answer.
My guide describes how Mr Gurney's locomotive carriages took 55 minutes to get from Cheltenham to Gloucester.
Not along tracks, but by road.
I had never heard of locomotive road carriages.
I've travelled to Elmstone Hardwicke, five miles northwest of Cheltenham, to meet director of the National Steam Car Association, Stuart Gray.
- Stuart.
- Hello, Michael.
What a lovely sight.
By the vapour rising all around us, I take it this is a steam car? It is, yeah.
It's a Stanley.
1910 Stanley Steamer.
I never thought about steam cars.
Were they common? (Stuart) In the United States they were common, because the United States had gone down the route of developing steam cars as their sort of pioneering car before Henry Ford came along in about 1910.
Now, Mr Gurney apparently was running a steam carriage in 1831.
I mean, that is just, well, you know, decades and decades before the petrol car.
(Stuart) He was very much a pioneer.
He was a Cornish scientist.
He was also a chemist and inventor.
He invented the Gurney Stove, an early type of boiler, and the Bude-Light, which was bright enough to light London's streets, and many other steam-based innovations.
Goldsworthy Gurney was appointed the Superintendent of Heating, Lighting and Ventilation in the Houses of Parliament in 1854 and knighted by Queen Victoria in recognition of his inventions.
But back in 1831, he had found himself running steam-powered buses in Gloucestershire.
You know, 55 minutes from Cheltenham to Gloucester is not bad, is it? - He was going some.
- He was going some.
(Stuart) He had a successful boiler.
He had found out how he could maximise heat transfer.
Reaching speeds of up to 15mph, Gurney's steam carriages first ran in London, and then from the capital to Bath.
But the turnpike trustees on the Cheltenham to Gloucester route, favouring the stagecoach, imposed prohibitive tolls on mechanically propelled carriages.
Those protectionist measures quickly halted Goldsworthy's transport business.
So, Stuart, give me a guided tour of a steam car.
I've no idea what we'll find.
So, first of all, underneath the hood is the boiler.
The boiler's a fire-tube boiler.
It has 527 tubes.
- Just like a locomotive on a railway.
- Just like a locomotive.
The engine is actually at the back of the car.
Very good acceleration.
Stanleys were the first cars to exceed 100 miles an hour.
- No! - Yes.
Well, I don't think we should do 100 today, but can we take a ride? Absolutely.
- Would you mind holding my Bradshaw's? - Indeed.
- (Michael) Brake off? - Brake off.
Oh, and we are moving.
Whoa! I've driven steam engines before, but of course they were on rails and you didn't have to think about steering at the same time.
- I'm enjoying this.
- (Stuart) Plenty of stored power.
We've got nearly 500lbs of steam pressure.
- How good are the brakes on this thing? - They're reasonable.
(laughs) Stuart, this is real motoring.
This is the way it was.
You could imagine being on the top of Gurney's carriage.
I'd love it.
I had never heard of Gurney.
Yet another great discovery in Bradshaw's.
Back to Cheltenham Spa Station to continue towards my next destination, Tewkesbury.
Bradshaw's tells me that at Tewkesbury, "Cloth and mustard were made in Shakespeare's time, hence the proverb 'as thick as Tewkesbury mustard'.
" Not one that I know.
Tewkesbury now has no railway stations.
It used to have two.
But I shall be getting off at Ashchurch and looking for traces of old railway lines.
(tannoy) Ladies and gentlemen, now arriving at Ashchurch.
Tewkesbury Station fell victim to the railway cuts and closed in 1961, but a remnant of the line is still causing controversy.
Flanked by two rivers, low-lying Tewkesbury sits on one of Britain's most risky flood plains.
The track embankment in this field is thought to have hindered drainage during the floods of 2007, the worst in living memory.
Removing the embankment is the job of Flood Risk Manager Anthony Perry.
What's the lie of the land? We've got the Warwickshire Avon behind us that flows from Coventry, through Stratford, and then it meets the River Severn just over to our right here in Tewkesbury.
So am I right in thinking that it's the very convergence, confluence of two rivers here that gives you the big problems? Yes.
There's a lot of run-off.
A lot of water has to flow through Tewkesbury.
The Victorians were excellent engineers.
Didn't they understand the flood plain issue when they put the embankment in here? Well, they did put some culverts through the embankment, but at those times people lived with the flooding.
When a flood occurred, they would brush out the flagstones and they would be back in their homes very quickly.
Now when flooding occurs, people can be out for 12 months.
Despite its propensity to flood, Tewkesbury is one of England's best preserved medieval towns.
Excuse me, just before you go.
I've been looking at some of the lovely buildings in Tewkesbury and your office is one of the finest.
When does it date back to? (woman) Well, actually it dates back to 1431.
I was looking at these things.
What is this iron structure? I've never seen that before.
Well, it was a fish shop and a game shop, so they used to hang hare and pheasant and things from here.
So before all the health and safety legislation, you could hang your hare outside and it didn't matter if it gathered a few flies.
In Shakespeare's play "Henry IV", that master of insults, Falstaff, says of an adversary that "his wit's as thick as Tewkesbury mustard".
I'm told its flavour and consistency come from pungent local horseradish.
Supposedly, Tewkesbury mustard balls covered in gold leaf were presented to Henry VIII in 1535, and I wonder whether this condiment is still fit for a king.
- (woman) Hello.
- Hello.
Hi.
I was looking for some Tewkesbury mustard, please.
Yes, of course.
Yeah.
Have you heard an expression or a proverb which is mentioned in Bradshaw's Guide, "as thick as Tewkesbury mustard"? - Have you heard that? - You know, I have, yes.
It's not something that I tend to use personally.
I think people might be a bit offended.
- There's various varieties? - There are, yes.
Different strengths, different names, all sorts.
- Do you want to? - Yeah, please.
(woman) OK.
At the moment we've got in the Catherine Parr's Tewkesbury mustard and we've also got in the Queen Margaret's.
Oh, it's got to be the Queen Margaret, because she was the queen of Henry VI and she came a cropper here at Tewkesbury.
- Yes.
- Mm.
Pungent, English, thick - (laughs) - .
.
and strong.
Mm.
Wow.
Queen Margaret must have been a strong lady, and I've met some of those in my time.
I'm sure you have.
Following my guidebook, I'm heading a mile south of the town toward Tewkesbury's most grisly spot.
Bradshaw's has brought me to the Bloody Meadow, which the book tells me "is famous for the great defeat by Edward IV of the Lancastrians under Queen Margaret in 1417".
But clearly Bradshaw's has the date wrong.
Typographical error.
1471.
From the mid-15th century, the House of York, led by Edward IV, and the House of Lancaster, led by Henry VI, fought a series of civil wars over 30 years known as the Wars of the Roses.
Each was directly descended from Edward Ill and they were fighting for the English crown.
Their final brutal battle took place here at Tewkesbury's Bloody Meadow.
Armour-maker Bernie Willoughby knows more.
So tell me what happened at the Battle of Tewkesbury.
The Lancastrians had been effectively run to ground.
Their lines broke.
They started to run and this is where the Yorkists caught up with them.
This is where they were cut to pieces.
(Michael) Now, Bradshaw's says that, "The heroic Queen Margaret was taken prisoner by the Yorkists and her son was killed.
" - ls that accurate? - That's true, yes.
(Bernie) They took her back to London in a cage.
She was exhibited through the streets.
(Michael) Very humiliating end for poor Queen Margaret.
A few members of the Plantagenet Medieval Society are training today and I'm hoping they've not sharpened their swords.
- Ready for the slaughter.
- Oh, yes.
- Hello, gentlemen.
- Good afternoon, Michael.
Good afternoon.
So, let me just get my helmet on, ready for action.
Thank you.
- So, you guys re-enact the battles? - (man) We do.
- And you actually fight? - Full contact.
(Michael) How many injuries do you have? (man) Most of the fingers on my hands are broken, but that's about it.
(Michael) Just show me some basics.
OK.
What I'm going to do, Michael, is I'm going to try and hit you four times.
I'm going to be going for your shoulders, then your legs.
Alright.
So I'm coming for your shoulder.
And again.
And again.
That's it.
- Now, I want you to do the same to me.
- OK.
- Come to me.
- Shoulder.
Harder, come on! And then the head.
Go for my head.
(chuckles) I'm getting a taste for blood.
How many people do you get for one of your re-enactments? Usually about 3,000 re-enactors for a whole weekend and then probably 10,000 people watching, maybe 15,000 on a good year.
So you've got hundreds of people on either side.
What's it like? Exhilarating.
Fearful.
Your bloodlust's up.
My ancestors fought in many battles over the centuries and being able to take on that mantle, put the armour on, dressed as one of my ancestors, very, very exciting.
(Michael) Can I see the professionals in action? Thank you.
Unwilling to put my helmet to the test, I'm beating a hasty retreat to Ashchurch Station, from where I'll travel to Worcester Shrub Hill and change onto a northbound London Midland service.
Having changed trains in Worcester, I'm now headed for Droitwich.
Bradshaw's tells me, "The principal manufacture is fine salt, obtained by evaporating the water of brine springs more than 100 feet below the surface of the earth.
" And tonight I shall stay in what was once the house of one who produced the finest quality, known locally as the King of Salt.
Droitwich sits on beds of rock salt and the brine springs emanating from them have made it synonymous with the condiment since the Iron Age.
In the 19th century, John Corbett, the son of a lowly boatman, made his fortune from the mineral.
The King of Salt's castle, Chateau Impney, is my hotel for the night.
What a beautiful place to end my day and spend the night.
It's as though a French château had landed in the Worcestershire countryside.
You've got to take it with a pinch of salt.
Rejuvenated, I'm breakfasting with local historian Barbara Middlemass to find out more about John Corbett.
Explain to me how, in Victorian times, you could make a fortune out of salt.
(Barbara) Well, salt was a commodity that everybody wanted.
You needed salt for flavouring.
You flavoured your egg with salt this morning.
The housewife needed it for preservation.
They didn't have deep freezes, Michael.
Salt was needed by everybody.
The Romans made salt in Droitwich 2,000 years ago and they used it at times for wages.
At the age of 29, John raised the finance to buy a contaminated brine well at nearby Bromsgrove.
Using engineering knowledge that he'd gleaned from his apprenticeship, he fixed it, sank deep new wells and created the biggest salt factory in Europe, producing 120,000 tons per year.
The salt was delivered by canal barge and filled a staggering 1,000 railway freight wagons daily.
I'm bowled over by the house, but why did he decide to do it in the French style? (Barbara) Because of his wife's connections with Paris.
She'd been born in Paris, so it reminded her of home.
- (Michael) What is the style, exactly? - Louis XIII.
Apart from this house, did he leave his mark on Droitwich? Very much so.
In 1899 he provided the money and the land to build a railway station to bring people into Droitwich.
He was trying to promote the town as a spa resort.
He's a real Victorian figure, isn't he? Self-made man, engineer, philanthropist.
(Barbara) Yes.
Very much so.
The Salt King opened St Andrew's Brine Baths in 1887, making Droitwich the only salt spa town in Britain.
The baths closed recently, and I wonder whether the locals remember them.
- Hi.
- Hello there.
Have you had any experience of brine yourself in Droitwich? Oh, yeah.
I used to come up a lot and go to the brine baths up here.
Was it pleasant? Was it not kind of oily? No, but you had to be very careful not to get it in your eyes.
And you'd come out after a Two or three days, you'd still be finding bits of salt in your ears and in your hair, but it was very relaxing, anyway.
I'm leaving Droitwich and heading northwest to Smethwick Galton Bridge to change onto the final train of my current journey.
My very last stop will be Wolverhampton.
Bradshaw's has some good news and some bad.
"Wolverhampton has never suffered from the plague, but it did not escape the cholera in 1849.
" "The houses are of brick and there are not any remarkable edifices.
" Nonetheless, using Bradshaw's, I will discover remarkable things about Wolverhampton.
Few places better represent the Industrial Revolution than Wolverhampton.
In the 17th century the town made shoe buckles.
By the 19th, it was at the heart of British manufacturing.
And the Great Western Railway was here, too, running locomotives to and from this station, now disused.
Bradshaw's reminds us that there used to be two ways from London to Wolverhampton.
"126 miles on the narrow gauge, or 142 miles on the broad gauge via Oxford and Worcester.
" This was the most northerly outpost of the Great Western Railway.
And although it's many years since this station was used, luckily it's quite well preserved.
The GWR opened Wolverhampton Low Level Station in 1854 and in November 1866, an eagerly awaited train arrived.
Its feted passenger alighted and took an open carriage to the town square re-named in her honour.
Here in Queen Square in Wolverhampton there stands a fine equestrian statue of Prince Albert, the husband of Queen Victoria.
It looks as though they're just finishing the restoration of the statue and I've arranged to take a closer look.
Victoria had withdrawn from public life for five years to mourn Albert, but ended her exile that day in Wolverhampton.
I'm keen to know how the town prepared for such a momentous visit.
Museum curator Helen Steatham should know more.
It's a lovely statue.
Where was Queen Victoria at that moment of the unveiling? (Helen) A great pavilion had been built that was festooned with flowers and ribbons and drapes and she was sitting in the pavilion.
It was actually Mr Thornycroft, who created the statue, who unveiled it.
The queen stood up and acknowledged and it was said she had a tear in her eye.
It's thought that the reason she decided to come to Wolverhampton, having turned down lots of other invitations, was because she'd received letters from some widows from Wolverhampton, offering condolences, and she'd remembered this.
People came from all over the Midlands on the train.
It was a real grand occasion.
With only nine days' notice, the town went into full speed ahead and created marvellous arches to illustrate the crafts of the town.
They included coal and all the metal and ironworks and one full of shopkeepers' goods that was topped off with japanned ware, which must have looked amazing.
I couldn't tell you what japanning is, so I'm heading to Bantock House Museum, southwest of the city centre.
Since the town showed off its japanning skills to Her Majesty, I want to discover what it is and what, if anything, links Wolverhampton to Japan.
My guide is former curator Yvonne Jones.
Hello, Yvonne.
What exactly is japanning? It's a means of decorating a variety of materials with a varnish which came to be known as Japan Varnish.
It took its name from that country simply because it was imitating the Oriental lacquers that were imported into this country from Japan, China and India some centuries earlier.
(Michael) Give me an idea of how popular japanned items became in Victorian Britain.
A lady writing in the 1850s described japanned goods as being so popular that there wasn't a home in the country that could be found without an example.
There were japanned papier mâché hats.
Japanned coffins.
They weren't very common, though.
And perhaps most interesting of all were railway carriage doors, many of which were shipped to Italy.
Ah, yes.
They would have very elegant carriage doors in Italy.
Sadly, japanning has virtually died out, but in the museum workshop, metalsmith John Grayson is placing images on metal using 19th-century enamelling techniques.
- Hello, John.
- Hello, Michael.
I understand you've been doing work that's reminiscent of what was being done in Wolverhampton 100 years ago.
Yeah.
I'm interested in keeping alive some of that history and some of that tradition.
How do you set about enamelling? Well, pop on an apron and we'll give it a go.
So, what we're going to do is put some enamel onto a plain piece of copper and then fire it in a kiln, so fusing glass basically to the copper surface.
- Right.
- OK? We're going to dip the copper into the enamel and just let the enamel drain off a little bit.
Put it onto the trivet and then it'll be ready to go in the kiln.
- Pop it right in the middle.
- Right in the middle, like that? Whoa! The heat coming out of there is amazing.
Obviously this is a little kiln.
In the Victorian era, when they'd have been enamelling big railway signs, they'd have had massive kilns to do eight-foot square panels.
(Michael) Those beautiful station names were enamelled? Yes, because it's a very durable surface.
Ideally these should have a number of coats, a bit like japanning, building up the layers to make the colours nice and bright.
The next thing we're going to do is put an image onto the surface.
Is that again something the Victorians would have done? - Yes.
We're going to use a transfer.
- Familiar building.
I think so.
A few years spent there, I should imagine.
A few years.
First of all we need to cut it roughly to size, so what I'd do is use the enamel as a template.
(Michael) Parliament faces cuts.
(John) We've got a tray of water, so the transfer just needs to go in there and then we slide it onto the surface of the enamel.
Now you've got to stretch all of the air bubbles out of it.
- How's that looking? - Yep, that's perfect.
- One Houses of Parliament.
- Mm.
- That has to be fired again, does it? - Yeah.
I commit Parliament to the fire.
So now that it's cooled down, that beautiful yellow colour has re-emerged.
Yeah, it's nice and bright again and really glossy, so that's virtually finished.
Just needs to be put into its mount.
There you go.
Ah, I can wear Parliament close to my heart.
Just as I do my "Bradshaw's".
The names of great Victorians like Brunel and Prince Albert are familiar to us all.
What I enjoy about my journeys is uncovering the lives of other admirable figures previously unknown to me.
Goldsworthy Gurney and John Corbett were both brilliant engineers who deserve to be commemorated.
Thanks to my travels with my Bradshaw's, I've remembered them today.
On my next adventure, I'll hang out with a notorious Victorian criminal This is a replica of James Rush's death mask.
It does show very, very clearly where the rope has cut directly into his neck.
Isn't that grim? âMeet a polecat who's just a nipper Ooh! (both laugh) You've got a claim to fame.
You bit a politician.
and chip away at an age-old craft.
- Could you make a flint out of that? - Yeah, perfect.
Let's see how you did.
His name was George Bradshaw and his railway guides inspired the Victorians to take to the tracks.
Stop by stop, he told them where to go, what to see and where to stay.
And now, 110 years later, I'm aboard for a series of rail adventures across the United Kingdom to see what of Bradshaw's Britain remains.
I'm now completing my journey from England's south coast to the West Midlands.
This last leg will take me from Cheltenham Spa, where refined people took the waters for their health, to Wolverhampton, where amidst the coal and smoke, craftsmen developed techniques of the greatest finesse.
On this leg, I drive a car powered by the technology of the Victorians Whoa! This is real motoring.
This is the way it was.
i visit the castle of the King of Salt It's as though a French château had landed in the Worcestershire countryside.
You've got to take it with a pinch of salt.
and I fight a losing battle in the Wars of the Roses.
Ready for the slaughter.
Harder.
Come on! Getting a taste for blood.
My journey began in Southampton, took in Hampshire and Berkshire, went west to Bristol, crossed the River Severn, moved onto Gloucestershire and ends today in the West Midlands.
This leg begins in Cheltenham, takes in a Tewkesbury condiment, learns of another in Droitwich and ends in Wolverhampton.
I'm heading north on the old Great Western Railway, which in Bradshaw's day offered an escape from smoggy industrial cities to the country's most famous spa towns, like my first destination, Cheltenham.
Legend has it that in 1716, a flock of pigeons discovered the town's first spring and local entrepreneurs, noticing how the birds thrived, realised that there was money to be made.
My "Bradshaw's" suggests that they were right.
"Cheltenham," says Bradshaw's, "is celebrated for its medicinal waters.
" "It's been, for the last 60 years, one of the most elegant and fashionable watering places in England.
" "The promenade leads to the Montpellier Spa and the Rotunda pump room.
" The trouble is, you can never bank on things remaining the same.
King George Ill took the waters here in 1788 and the town's popularity grew.
New spas and, from the 1840s, up to six railway stations were built.
A bank since 1882, the Montpellier Spa building opened in 181'! and nine years later, architect JB Papworth added the Rotunda pump room mentioned in my "Bradshaw's".
Well, it's evident why this lovely pump room was called the Rotunda, with its classical dome.
In fact, it reminds me of the Pantheon in Rome.
How wonderfully suited to Cheltenham, a place of the utmost fashion.
Excuse me.
You're doing a guided tour, obviously.
This lovely pump room, was it inspired by the Pantheon in Rome? (guide) Much of Cheltenham is inspired by classical architecture.
And what would have been going on here in the days of the spa? Well, the ladies and gentlemen would have come in here and there would have been a large Grecian urn where the pump was installed.
They would have taken the waters, listened to music, clone a little dancing.
It was a social as well as a health-giving experience.
It was a place of sophistication and elegance.
Yes, Cheltenham was known for leisure and pleasure.
(Michael) I can see from your group that elegance and sophistication remain the key words today.
- Well, since you came in, of course.
- Thank you so much.
I'm intrigued by how people reached here before the railways arrived in 1840, and "Bradshaw's" may have the answer.
My guide describes how Mr Gurney's locomotive carriages took 55 minutes to get from Cheltenham to Gloucester.
Not along tracks, but by road.
I had never heard of locomotive road carriages.
I've travelled to Elmstone Hardwicke, five miles northwest of Cheltenham, to meet director of the National Steam Car Association, Stuart Gray.
- Stuart.
- Hello, Michael.
What a lovely sight.
By the vapour rising all around us, I take it this is a steam car? It is, yeah.
It's a Stanley.
1910 Stanley Steamer.
I never thought about steam cars.
Were they common? (Stuart) In the United States they were common, because the United States had gone down the route of developing steam cars as their sort of pioneering car before Henry Ford came along in about 1910.
Now, Mr Gurney apparently was running a steam carriage in 1831.
I mean, that is just, well, you know, decades and decades before the petrol car.
(Stuart) He was very much a pioneer.
He was a Cornish scientist.
He was also a chemist and inventor.
He invented the Gurney Stove, an early type of boiler, and the Bude-Light, which was bright enough to light London's streets, and many other steam-based innovations.
Goldsworthy Gurney was appointed the Superintendent of Heating, Lighting and Ventilation in the Houses of Parliament in 1854 and knighted by Queen Victoria in recognition of his inventions.
But back in 1831, he had found himself running steam-powered buses in Gloucestershire.
You know, 55 minutes from Cheltenham to Gloucester is not bad, is it? - He was going some.
- He was going some.
(Stuart) He had a successful boiler.
He had found out how he could maximise heat transfer.
Reaching speeds of up to 15mph, Gurney's steam carriages first ran in London, and then from the capital to Bath.
But the turnpike trustees on the Cheltenham to Gloucester route, favouring the stagecoach, imposed prohibitive tolls on mechanically propelled carriages.
Those protectionist measures quickly halted Goldsworthy's transport business.
So, Stuart, give me a guided tour of a steam car.
I've no idea what we'll find.
So, first of all, underneath the hood is the boiler.
The boiler's a fire-tube boiler.
It has 527 tubes.
- Just like a locomotive on a railway.
- Just like a locomotive.
The engine is actually at the back of the car.
Very good acceleration.
Stanleys were the first cars to exceed 100 miles an hour.
- No! - Yes.
Well, I don't think we should do 100 today, but can we take a ride? Absolutely.
- Would you mind holding my Bradshaw's? - Indeed.
- (Michael) Brake off? - Brake off.
Oh, and we are moving.
Whoa! I've driven steam engines before, but of course they were on rails and you didn't have to think about steering at the same time.
- I'm enjoying this.
- (Stuart) Plenty of stored power.
We've got nearly 500lbs of steam pressure.
- How good are the brakes on this thing? - They're reasonable.
(laughs) Stuart, this is real motoring.
This is the way it was.
You could imagine being on the top of Gurney's carriage.
I'd love it.
I had never heard of Gurney.
Yet another great discovery in Bradshaw's.
Back to Cheltenham Spa Station to continue towards my next destination, Tewkesbury.
Bradshaw's tells me that at Tewkesbury, "Cloth and mustard were made in Shakespeare's time, hence the proverb 'as thick as Tewkesbury mustard'.
" Not one that I know.
Tewkesbury now has no railway stations.
It used to have two.
But I shall be getting off at Ashchurch and looking for traces of old railway lines.
(tannoy) Ladies and gentlemen, now arriving at Ashchurch.
Tewkesbury Station fell victim to the railway cuts and closed in 1961, but a remnant of the line is still causing controversy.
Flanked by two rivers, low-lying Tewkesbury sits on one of Britain's most risky flood plains.
The track embankment in this field is thought to have hindered drainage during the floods of 2007, the worst in living memory.
Removing the embankment is the job of Flood Risk Manager Anthony Perry.
What's the lie of the land? We've got the Warwickshire Avon behind us that flows from Coventry, through Stratford, and then it meets the River Severn just over to our right here in Tewkesbury.
So am I right in thinking that it's the very convergence, confluence of two rivers here that gives you the big problems? Yes.
There's a lot of run-off.
A lot of water has to flow through Tewkesbury.
The Victorians were excellent engineers.
Didn't they understand the flood plain issue when they put the embankment in here? Well, they did put some culverts through the embankment, but at those times people lived with the flooding.
When a flood occurred, they would brush out the flagstones and they would be back in their homes very quickly.
Now when flooding occurs, people can be out for 12 months.
Despite its propensity to flood, Tewkesbury is one of England's best preserved medieval towns.
Excuse me, just before you go.
I've been looking at some of the lovely buildings in Tewkesbury and your office is one of the finest.
When does it date back to? (woman) Well, actually it dates back to 1431.
I was looking at these things.
What is this iron structure? I've never seen that before.
Well, it was a fish shop and a game shop, so they used to hang hare and pheasant and things from here.
So before all the health and safety legislation, you could hang your hare outside and it didn't matter if it gathered a few flies.
In Shakespeare's play "Henry IV", that master of insults, Falstaff, says of an adversary that "his wit's as thick as Tewkesbury mustard".
I'm told its flavour and consistency come from pungent local horseradish.
Supposedly, Tewkesbury mustard balls covered in gold leaf were presented to Henry VIII in 1535, and I wonder whether this condiment is still fit for a king.
- (woman) Hello.
- Hello.
Hi.
I was looking for some Tewkesbury mustard, please.
Yes, of course.
Yeah.
Have you heard an expression or a proverb which is mentioned in Bradshaw's Guide, "as thick as Tewkesbury mustard"? - Have you heard that? - You know, I have, yes.
It's not something that I tend to use personally.
I think people might be a bit offended.
- There's various varieties? - There are, yes.
Different strengths, different names, all sorts.
- Do you want to? - Yeah, please.
(woman) OK.
At the moment we've got in the Catherine Parr's Tewkesbury mustard and we've also got in the Queen Margaret's.
Oh, it's got to be the Queen Margaret, because she was the queen of Henry VI and she came a cropper here at Tewkesbury.
- Yes.
- Mm.
Pungent, English, thick - (laughs) - .
.
and strong.
Mm.
Wow.
Queen Margaret must have been a strong lady, and I've met some of those in my time.
I'm sure you have.
Following my guidebook, I'm heading a mile south of the town toward Tewkesbury's most grisly spot.
Bradshaw's has brought me to the Bloody Meadow, which the book tells me "is famous for the great defeat by Edward IV of the Lancastrians under Queen Margaret in 1417".
But clearly Bradshaw's has the date wrong.
Typographical error.
1471.
From the mid-15th century, the House of York, led by Edward IV, and the House of Lancaster, led by Henry VI, fought a series of civil wars over 30 years known as the Wars of the Roses.
Each was directly descended from Edward Ill and they were fighting for the English crown.
Their final brutal battle took place here at Tewkesbury's Bloody Meadow.
Armour-maker Bernie Willoughby knows more.
So tell me what happened at the Battle of Tewkesbury.
The Lancastrians had been effectively run to ground.
Their lines broke.
They started to run and this is where the Yorkists caught up with them.
This is where they were cut to pieces.
(Michael) Now, Bradshaw's says that, "The heroic Queen Margaret was taken prisoner by the Yorkists and her son was killed.
" - ls that accurate? - That's true, yes.
(Bernie) They took her back to London in a cage.
She was exhibited through the streets.
(Michael) Very humiliating end for poor Queen Margaret.
A few members of the Plantagenet Medieval Society are training today and I'm hoping they've not sharpened their swords.
- Ready for the slaughter.
- Oh, yes.
- Hello, gentlemen.
- Good afternoon, Michael.
Good afternoon.
So, let me just get my helmet on, ready for action.
Thank you.
- So, you guys re-enact the battles? - (man) We do.
- And you actually fight? - Full contact.
(Michael) How many injuries do you have? (man) Most of the fingers on my hands are broken, but that's about it.
(Michael) Just show me some basics.
OK.
What I'm going to do, Michael, is I'm going to try and hit you four times.
I'm going to be going for your shoulders, then your legs.
Alright.
So I'm coming for your shoulder.
And again.
And again.
That's it.
- Now, I want you to do the same to me.
- OK.
- Come to me.
- Shoulder.
Harder, come on! And then the head.
Go for my head.
(chuckles) I'm getting a taste for blood.
How many people do you get for one of your re-enactments? Usually about 3,000 re-enactors for a whole weekend and then probably 10,000 people watching, maybe 15,000 on a good year.
So you've got hundreds of people on either side.
What's it like? Exhilarating.
Fearful.
Your bloodlust's up.
My ancestors fought in many battles over the centuries and being able to take on that mantle, put the armour on, dressed as one of my ancestors, very, very exciting.
(Michael) Can I see the professionals in action? Thank you.
Unwilling to put my helmet to the test, I'm beating a hasty retreat to Ashchurch Station, from where I'll travel to Worcester Shrub Hill and change onto a northbound London Midland service.
Having changed trains in Worcester, I'm now headed for Droitwich.
Bradshaw's tells me, "The principal manufacture is fine salt, obtained by evaporating the water of brine springs more than 100 feet below the surface of the earth.
" And tonight I shall stay in what was once the house of one who produced the finest quality, known locally as the King of Salt.
Droitwich sits on beds of rock salt and the brine springs emanating from them have made it synonymous with the condiment since the Iron Age.
In the 19th century, John Corbett, the son of a lowly boatman, made his fortune from the mineral.
The King of Salt's castle, Chateau Impney, is my hotel for the night.
What a beautiful place to end my day and spend the night.
It's as though a French château had landed in the Worcestershire countryside.
You've got to take it with a pinch of salt.
Rejuvenated, I'm breakfasting with local historian Barbara Middlemass to find out more about John Corbett.
Explain to me how, in Victorian times, you could make a fortune out of salt.
(Barbara) Well, salt was a commodity that everybody wanted.
You needed salt for flavouring.
You flavoured your egg with salt this morning.
The housewife needed it for preservation.
They didn't have deep freezes, Michael.
Salt was needed by everybody.
The Romans made salt in Droitwich 2,000 years ago and they used it at times for wages.
At the age of 29, John raised the finance to buy a contaminated brine well at nearby Bromsgrove.
Using engineering knowledge that he'd gleaned from his apprenticeship, he fixed it, sank deep new wells and created the biggest salt factory in Europe, producing 120,000 tons per year.
The salt was delivered by canal barge and filled a staggering 1,000 railway freight wagons daily.
I'm bowled over by the house, but why did he decide to do it in the French style? (Barbara) Because of his wife's connections with Paris.
She'd been born in Paris, so it reminded her of home.
- (Michael) What is the style, exactly? - Louis XIII.
Apart from this house, did he leave his mark on Droitwich? Very much so.
In 1899 he provided the money and the land to build a railway station to bring people into Droitwich.
He was trying to promote the town as a spa resort.
He's a real Victorian figure, isn't he? Self-made man, engineer, philanthropist.
(Barbara) Yes.
Very much so.
The Salt King opened St Andrew's Brine Baths in 1887, making Droitwich the only salt spa town in Britain.
The baths closed recently, and I wonder whether the locals remember them.
- Hi.
- Hello there.
Have you had any experience of brine yourself in Droitwich? Oh, yeah.
I used to come up a lot and go to the brine baths up here.
Was it pleasant? Was it not kind of oily? No, but you had to be very careful not to get it in your eyes.
And you'd come out after a Two or three days, you'd still be finding bits of salt in your ears and in your hair, but it was very relaxing, anyway.
I'm leaving Droitwich and heading northwest to Smethwick Galton Bridge to change onto the final train of my current journey.
My very last stop will be Wolverhampton.
Bradshaw's has some good news and some bad.
"Wolverhampton has never suffered from the plague, but it did not escape the cholera in 1849.
" "The houses are of brick and there are not any remarkable edifices.
" Nonetheless, using Bradshaw's, I will discover remarkable things about Wolverhampton.
Few places better represent the Industrial Revolution than Wolverhampton.
In the 17th century the town made shoe buckles.
By the 19th, it was at the heart of British manufacturing.
And the Great Western Railway was here, too, running locomotives to and from this station, now disused.
Bradshaw's reminds us that there used to be two ways from London to Wolverhampton.
"126 miles on the narrow gauge, or 142 miles on the broad gauge via Oxford and Worcester.
" This was the most northerly outpost of the Great Western Railway.
And although it's many years since this station was used, luckily it's quite well preserved.
The GWR opened Wolverhampton Low Level Station in 1854 and in November 1866, an eagerly awaited train arrived.
Its feted passenger alighted and took an open carriage to the town square re-named in her honour.
Here in Queen Square in Wolverhampton there stands a fine equestrian statue of Prince Albert, the husband of Queen Victoria.
It looks as though they're just finishing the restoration of the statue and I've arranged to take a closer look.
Victoria had withdrawn from public life for five years to mourn Albert, but ended her exile that day in Wolverhampton.
I'm keen to know how the town prepared for such a momentous visit.
Museum curator Helen Steatham should know more.
It's a lovely statue.
Where was Queen Victoria at that moment of the unveiling? (Helen) A great pavilion had been built that was festooned with flowers and ribbons and drapes and she was sitting in the pavilion.
It was actually Mr Thornycroft, who created the statue, who unveiled it.
The queen stood up and acknowledged and it was said she had a tear in her eye.
It's thought that the reason she decided to come to Wolverhampton, having turned down lots of other invitations, was because she'd received letters from some widows from Wolverhampton, offering condolences, and she'd remembered this.
People came from all over the Midlands on the train.
It was a real grand occasion.
With only nine days' notice, the town went into full speed ahead and created marvellous arches to illustrate the crafts of the town.
They included coal and all the metal and ironworks and one full of shopkeepers' goods that was topped off with japanned ware, which must have looked amazing.
I couldn't tell you what japanning is, so I'm heading to Bantock House Museum, southwest of the city centre.
Since the town showed off its japanning skills to Her Majesty, I want to discover what it is and what, if anything, links Wolverhampton to Japan.
My guide is former curator Yvonne Jones.
Hello, Yvonne.
What exactly is japanning? It's a means of decorating a variety of materials with a varnish which came to be known as Japan Varnish.
It took its name from that country simply because it was imitating the Oriental lacquers that were imported into this country from Japan, China and India some centuries earlier.
(Michael) Give me an idea of how popular japanned items became in Victorian Britain.
A lady writing in the 1850s described japanned goods as being so popular that there wasn't a home in the country that could be found without an example.
There were japanned papier mâché hats.
Japanned coffins.
They weren't very common, though.
And perhaps most interesting of all were railway carriage doors, many of which were shipped to Italy.
Ah, yes.
They would have very elegant carriage doors in Italy.
Sadly, japanning has virtually died out, but in the museum workshop, metalsmith John Grayson is placing images on metal using 19th-century enamelling techniques.
- Hello, John.
- Hello, Michael.
I understand you've been doing work that's reminiscent of what was being done in Wolverhampton 100 years ago.
Yeah.
I'm interested in keeping alive some of that history and some of that tradition.
How do you set about enamelling? Well, pop on an apron and we'll give it a go.
So, what we're going to do is put some enamel onto a plain piece of copper and then fire it in a kiln, so fusing glass basically to the copper surface.
- Right.
- OK? We're going to dip the copper into the enamel and just let the enamel drain off a little bit.
Put it onto the trivet and then it'll be ready to go in the kiln.
- Pop it right in the middle.
- Right in the middle, like that? Whoa! The heat coming out of there is amazing.
Obviously this is a little kiln.
In the Victorian era, when they'd have been enamelling big railway signs, they'd have had massive kilns to do eight-foot square panels.
(Michael) Those beautiful station names were enamelled? Yes, because it's a very durable surface.
Ideally these should have a number of coats, a bit like japanning, building up the layers to make the colours nice and bright.
The next thing we're going to do is put an image onto the surface.
Is that again something the Victorians would have done? - Yes.
We're going to use a transfer.
- Familiar building.
I think so.
A few years spent there, I should imagine.
A few years.
First of all we need to cut it roughly to size, so what I'd do is use the enamel as a template.
(Michael) Parliament faces cuts.
(John) We've got a tray of water, so the transfer just needs to go in there and then we slide it onto the surface of the enamel.
Now you've got to stretch all of the air bubbles out of it.
- How's that looking? - Yep, that's perfect.
- One Houses of Parliament.
- Mm.
- That has to be fired again, does it? - Yeah.
I commit Parliament to the fire.
So now that it's cooled down, that beautiful yellow colour has re-emerged.
Yeah, it's nice and bright again and really glossy, so that's virtually finished.
Just needs to be put into its mount.
There you go.
Ah, I can wear Parliament close to my heart.
Just as I do my "Bradshaw's".
The names of great Victorians like Brunel and Prince Albert are familiar to us all.
What I enjoy about my journeys is uncovering the lives of other admirable figures previously unknown to me.
Goldsworthy Gurney and John Corbett were both brilliant engineers who deserve to be commemorated.
Thanks to my travels with my Bradshaw's, I've remembered them today.
On my next adventure, I'll hang out with a notorious Victorian criminal This is a replica of James Rush's death mask.
It does show very, very clearly where the rope has cut directly into his neck.
Isn't that grim? âMeet a polecat who's just a nipper Ooh! (both laugh) You've got a claim to fame.
You bit a politician.
and chip away at an age-old craft.
- Could you make a flint out of that? - Yeah, perfect.
Let's see how you did.