Great British Railway Journeys (2010) s05e17 Episode Script
Ipswich to Chelmsford
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.
My journey continues through Suffolk.
This flat terrain produces a big beautiful dome of sky, and beneath it, the green land and the rivers that run between it are rich in food.
On this leg, I discover 19th-century engineering was pretty sharp And there it goes.
And the extraordinary thing is that a Victorian would recognise that - because it was made in the same way.
- Absolutely.
shell out for seafood near Mersea Island Enormous.
So this is the sort of oyster that, once cleaned up, - could appear on my plate? - It certainly is.
and I'm tainted in an Essex orchard.
That's where the phrase "caught red-handed" comes from.
The indelible stain of crime.
My journey, which began in Norwich, continues southwest through Suffolk, past Chelmsford in Essex, then across the Thames at Tilbury, through the Medway towns of Kent and its largest port, Dover, before moving west to Tonbridge, down to the Sussex coast and ending in the cathedral city of Chichester.
Today's leg begins in Ipswich, moves southwest to crack open the Essex delights of Colchester and Witham, and picks up radio waves in Chelmsford.
Bradshaw's tells me that Suffolk "is one of the best cultivated districts in England".
"Almost exclusively a farming county, being conducted upon the most improved principles.
" There was innovation in agriculture long before the Industrial Revolution, and East Anglia was in the forefront.
Set on the bank of the Orwell estuary, Ipswich, one of England's oldest towns, has been an important trading centre since the Saxons settled here.
It became one of the richest ports in medieval England, and thrived on shipbuilding.
When the railways arrived in Ipswich in 1846, they ran to the new docks, from where the town's iron goods and farm machinery could be moved easily to customers around the country.
Here I am at Ipswich, which Bradshaw's tells me is a port borough town and capital of Suffolk.
And then it tells me that, "Ransome and Sims machine and agricultural implement works cover 14 acres.
" Could that be instrumental in the agricultural improvement that Bradshaw's tells me about? Founded in 1189 by Robert Ransome during the agrarian revolution, Ransomes of Ipswich has been making agricultural equipment ever since.
The company was originally situated at the docks, where it also built its own railway sidings.
I'm keen to find out just how important Ransomes was to the economy of Ipswich in Bradshaw's day.
Richard Comely is the company's marketing director.
- Hello, Michael.
Welcome.
- Very good to see you.
Thank you.
Bradshaw's tells me that Ransomes and Sims covered an area of 14 acres.
That's in 1864, it must have been enormous.
(Richard) Some 3,500 people were employed here, making ploughs, mowing machinery, all kinds of agricultural equipment.
In 1832, Ransomes won the licence to manufacture a brand-new product.
Engineer Edwin Budding's invention, based on the napping of cloth in cotton mills, would revolutionise 19th-century gardening.
So until such time as the mower came along, people were cutting grass with scythes and that had limitations, especially with short grass.
What's the breakthrough about the lawnmower? So the principle is we have these rotating blades that are in a spiral and then we have a bed knife which is the stationary part that the rotating blades rotate against.
The reason they're in a spiral is to feed the power in more evenly and to eliminate the kind of chopping motion you would get if the blades were all in straight lines.
This is fundamentally what Budding invented.
That is a fantastic thought, isn't it? That a fellow came up with this idea, what, 180 years ago - and it's recognisable to this day.
- Exactly.
In 1867, the company produced more than a thousand lawnmowers.
And royal recognition followed when Queen Victoria acquired one to tend the lawns of her beloved Balmoral.
- Might I have a go at that? - Absolutely.
- Give it a whirl.
- Some gloves there.
Thank you.
Quite a heavy piece, isn't it? (man) Then catch the second roller as you go through.
- (man) Press the button there.
- Here we go.
- (Michael) Look at that, curving away.
- Mm-hmm.
That's basically what you've got.
It's formed a spiral.
And there it goes.
The extraordinary thing is that a Victorian would recognise that - because it was made in the same way.
- Absolutely.
In the 21 st century, Budding's blades are fitted to mowers that cut sports fields all over the world.
The factory is unexpectedly surrounded by top-quality grass and each model has to meet green-keeper Jamie Hughes 's standards.
(Michael) This is a golf course attached to a factory.
It is.
It's unusual to come on to an industrial estate and turn a corner, golf course.
(Michael) Gosh, you've got machinery old and new here.
This is what? (Jamie) We've got the Budding, the original.
This is the original? Can I have a go at it? - You can.
- Do you mind holding my book? (mower clatters) - Oh, look at that! It actually works! - It does, it takes a push.
"A Budding patent.
" It really was a Budding patent.
Never was a truer word said.
- This one is a bit easier, is it? - This one is far easier, yes.
- So - And we will have a go on this.
- Oh, good.
Does that mean me? - That does.
That means you, exactly.
- (engine starts) - Here we go.
(Jamie) These are your arms.
You know, this invention is really cutting edge.
Resuming my journey, I'm heading southwest on the Great Eastern mainline out of East Anglia and into Essex.
My next stop will be Colchester.
Bradshaw's tells me, "lt's formerly an important town of the Romans on the River Colne.
" "Silk from umbrellas is made here, and velvet.
" "Excellent oysters at Pyefleet.
" I sense there's important history to be prised open here.
Replete with its vast Victorian brick water tower, Colchester, once the Roman capital of Britain, is a bustling market town world famous for the oysters harvested from its nearby waters since 48AD.
To find out why its oysters are so renowned, I'm meeting Graham Larkin by Mersea Island at the confluence of the Pyefleet Channel and the River Colne.
Why is it that these waters give us such good oysters? It's a very high salinity area, which means the water is very salty, and we've got agricultural land around us that's giving us all the nutrients and food being washed off into the creek with the rain.
It's being filtered through by the oysters, fattening them up.
(Michael) Give me an idea of how many oysters you are dredging up.
On a weekly basis, between 60 and 65,000 rock oysters a week.
That's like a small town's worth of rock oysters every week.
Yeah, it's quite a lot.
Colchester oysters were a sought-after delicacy in Roman times.
Archaeological excavations have found evidence that they were even exported to Rome in nets trailing in the water from the boat.
But by the 19th century, the coming of the railways made oysters a plentiful and cheap food for the urban poor.
In 1864, more than 700 million oysters were eaten in London alone.
During the Victorian times, the oysters would have been taken from where they were gathered by boat to Brightlingsea in barrels, then transported from Brightlingsea by rail into London, where they would have been sold on street corners or in restaurants.
Oysters are in demand again today.
Although no longer cheap, they are harvested in much the same way as in Bradshaw's day, by dredger.
We're going to tow this dredger just over a walking pace for about 100 yards, then haul it up and see what we've got.
(Michael) Here it is.
Ah, we've got some stuff in there, that's great.
- (Graham) Got some nice oysters here.
- Enormous.
This is the sort of oyster that, once cleaned up, could appear on my plate? - It certainly is, yeah.
- I'd be extremely pleased - to find him in a restaurant.
- Shall we head back with your haul? Yeah, let's get underway.
The oyster fishery was granted to the people of Colchester by King Richard I.
Now owned by the council, the fishery is leased out to Graham's company, which ensures that every one of its rock oysters is made fit for human consumption by placing it in fresh sea water for at least 42 hours to flush out impurities.
ls it possible to have one of these lovely fellows? - Of course it is, yeah.
- So, down the hatch.
Mmm.
Talk about the taste of the sea.
- Wonderful burst of flavour.
- Very fresh.
Don't get any fresher than that.
Today you can enjoy one type of oyster or another throughout the year.
But historically, it was thought safest to avoid oysters in the heat of summer, so they were eaten only in months whose name contains a letter R.
On this balmy Colchester evening, I want to find out whether such caution persists.
- Good evening.
- Good evening.
I see that you're enjoying a lovely glass of Champagne.
- Very civilised - Lovely summer evening, isn't it? - Are you celebrating? - No, not really.
- Just a daily occurrence.
- Just going out for a drink.
Very good.
But I wondered whether you would have oysters to go with it, because Colchester is famous for oysters.
Yeah But no R in the month, is there? No.
No R in the month.
So you don't like having an oyster when there's no R in the month? - You don't eat them then.
- You like oysters? I love oysters, yes.
So are you longing for there to be an R in the month? November October, November, December.
- Yes, I am.
- Are you a chewer or a swallower? - A swallower.
- Really, no chewing? - No.
- I like to give them a good chew.
- Oh, no.
- Anyway, cheers to you both.
- Thank you.
- Bye-bye.
Bradshaw's promised me fragments of the ancient town walls.
In fact, they seem to be pretty well preserved.
The pub here is called The Hole in the Wall, which seems a strange way to refer to such a beautifully-formed Roman gate, but anyway, I feel thirsty.
I'm meeting local historian Patrick Denney to find out how a pub came to sit on an ancient ruin.
- Welcome to Colchester.
- Thank you very much.
The Hole in the Wall pub.
I assume it's a reference to that rather lovely gate out there, is it? Well, not actually.
No.
The name Hole in the Wall dates first to when the railway arrived in Colchester in 1843.
This pub, it was called The King's Head in those days, commanded the best view of the railway in the whole town.
So the landlord of this pub smashed a big hole in the Roman wall, which is just behind us here, extended his pub, put a window in so his customers could come and have a view of the railway.
He smashed a hole in the Roman wall.
I mean, today you'd be thrown in prison for picking up a bit that fell off, but he got away with it.
And of course, the town's cabbies did a roaring trade.
They'd see a train come in, leave their pint and off they'd go to the station.
Well, I have found it a wholly appropriate place to end the day.
- Cheers.
- OK, cheers, Michael.
Looking forward to the day ahead, this morning I'm travelling west into the Essex countryside.
This first train of the day will take me to Witham.
Bradshaw's draws my attention to Tiptree Heath, on which is Alderman Mechi's celebrated model farming establishment.
There is a corner of an English field that is forever linked to an Italian name.
The station at Witham, a fashionable 18th-century spa town, is close to Tiptree Heath, a once infertile, marshy comer of Essex.
I'm hoping that Ian Thurgood, joint managing director for the farm's current owners, will know how a London alderman turned it into a successful 19th-century farm.
- Hello, Ian.
- Hello, Michael.
- Welcome to Tiptree Hall - Thank you very much indeed.
Who was Alderman Mechi? Alderman Mechi was the son of an Italian immigrant who made his fortune in London.
He was a cutler, a silversmith, and very good in commerce, but turned his attention finally to Tiptree Hall and experimental farming, trying lots of different things to see if he could make sense of farming anywhere in the country.
He had a couple of particularly revolutionary ideas at the time.
One was that he would irrigate and drain the soil across the whole farm and it's said that he laid some 80 to 90 miles of drains just on Tiptree Hall farm.
The second thing he decided was his cattle would stand on grids.
They wouldn't stand in a courtyard in the mud, so the grids were used and then he was able to collect the manure, return the manure to the fields and thus improve the soil.
I'm guessing that he was successful because my Bradshaw's refers to it as a "model farm establishment".
So people were coming to learn, were they? (Ian) Mechi was successful, there's no doubt about that.
In fact, it's said that, at one point here at Tiptree Hall, he was bringing in 600 people from Witham Station who were coming in for Mechi's agricultural day where they could look at the wonderful things he was trying.
The first place they could see steam ploughing for many was at Tiptree Hall.
Mechi's annual agricultural shows and his modern techniques became so renowned that, in 1852, Charles Dickens reported on Tiptree in his weekly journal.
- Did his ideas spread far and wide? - Yes, they did.
Through the publication of his book, How To Farm Profitably.
(Michael) Bradshaw's calls him Alderman Mechi.
Alderman of what? (Ian) Mechi was alderman of the city of London.
He was actually in line to become the Lord Mayor of London.
Sadly, Alderman Mechi failed to became Lord Mayor because he lost his fortune in the collapse of the Unity Joint Stock Bank of which he was a governor.
Twelve days after being forced to liquidate his affairs, Mechi died here at Tiptree.
Some say of diabetes, others, oi a broken heart.
It's a sad story, but not, I think, the end of farming at Tiptree.
(Ian) That's not the end of the farming story.
Eventually, Tiptree Hall was bought by the Wilkin family.
Local jam-makers Wilkin & Sons bought the Tiptree estate in 1913.
It now covers a square acreage equivalent to around 300 cricket fields.
We're in the mulberry orchard now.
This is the oldest orchard on the estate, planted in Victorian times, in fact.
- Not planted by Alderman Mechi? - Not by Alderman Mechi, no.
In fact, just a little while after he'd departed Tiptree.
- Hello.
- (man) Hello.
- Is it difficult to pick mulberries? - Yeah, it's a little bit difficult because you need to be a little bit high.
- (Michael) Could I try one, please? - (man) Sure.
Thank you very much indeed.
Look at you, you're covered in juice.
Look at these red hands.
I look like a scene out of Macbeth.
Well, they say that's where the phrase "caught red-handed" comes from.
If you come in the mulberry orchard and scrump some mulberries, you won't get away with it because that will stay for three or four days.
The indelible stain of crime.
Back in 1885, fruit-grower Arthur Charles Wilkin had become so frustrated with the damage that his immaculate fruit suffered on the train journey to market that he turned his attention instead to making jam.
Wilkin & Sons factory now supplies conserves of many flavours to 60 countries.
The mulberry, a fruit which according to Greek mythology was turned deep red by the blood of Pyramus and Thisbe, is the queen oi the Tiptree crop and requires special attention.
What is it that you're doing to the fruit? We're taking out the stalk in the mulberry.
(Michael) I guess you don't want that in jam.
(woman) No, no.
Wow, and this really happens to every mulberry that goes into the jam? Every single one that's picked, the stalk's taken out.
That must make it a really special jam, I think.
Yes.
From its humble Victorian beginnings, the company's '21 st-century turnover has hit ã35 million.
A thoroughly modern-sounding revenue married to an age-old production process.
Well, like any good kitchen, jam needs a bit of a stir.
The mulberries are being boiled up here.
Do you want to have a go at stirring? - May I take your paddle for a moment? - Mind your hands.
- Mind my hands.
- As high as possible up there.
- Good tip.
- Backwards and forwards.
(Michael) What temperature does that boil at? - 104.
- 104? So you don't want to get too close to that.
Think I'll let you take over, I don't want to spoil the broth.
Thank you.
What's happening here, Ian? The fruit comes up on a conveyor system.
Just fruit and sugar and some pectin, if we need pectin to make it set.
Close the lid, 15 minutes later we've got some jam ready.
How long before that ends up in a jar? That will be in a jar in about 20 or 25 minutes from now.
Amazing.
(Ian) Come and taste some mulberry jam.
(Michael) Mulberry jam, I'd love to.
A lovely scone to put it on, Lay it on thick.
A little clotted cream.
Perfect.
Ideally, I won't get it all over my nose.
Mmm! It's exquisite.
I'm so lucky to get to sample things like this doing the Railway Journeys.
Some people think I'm really jammy.
Fortified by that cream tea, I'll continue my journey southwest towards this leg's final destination.
For many places in the United Kingdom, Bradshaw's lists a telegraph station.
In those days, towns were linked by wires down which people could send telegrams or cables.
The idea of communication without wire would have seemed extraordinary.
But since, as the book says, "Essex composes part of the largest connected space of level ground with not one lofty eminence or rocky ridge," this was a good place to test wireless communication.
Wireless technology has assumed a new importance in the 21st century.
Chelmsford, the county town of Essex, benefited from the first wireless revolution when in 1912 an Italian named Guglielmo Marconi established the world's first purpose-built radio equipment factory in New Street on the site of the town's old cricket ground.
Much of the old works has been demolished but to find out more, I'm meeting Chelmsford Museum Science Curator, Dr Geoff Bowles, in one of the surviving factory buildings.
- Hello, Geoff.
- Hello, Michael.
Did Marconi actually invent wireless technology? His fundamental breakthrough really was to erect an aerial and an earth connection.
Whereas others were trying it without those two things, and they could make wireless waves go across the laboratory, with an aerial and earth, Marconi was suddenly sending it hundreds of metres.
And that's what he was after.
Frustrated by Italy's lack of enthusiasm for technological innovation, Marconi settled in Chelmsford, beyond the area of the General Post Office monopoly on telegraphic communication.
In 1901, the immigrant scientist sent the first wireless signal across the Atlantic.
His high-quality Morse code transmitters and receivers were sold to maritime fleets, governments and radio hams across the world.
And in 1920, the Nobel prize-winning physicist achieved another communication milestone: a voice broadcast with edifying content by George.
One of the things they did was actually to read Bradshaw's timetable very slowly and clearly over the air.
A great deal more interesting than many broadcasts that we get today.
And when did we actually move to broadcasting in the fullest sense? Really, as a result of a very famous concert.
Dame Nelly Melba, the Australian prima donna, her voice went out from the enormous 450 foot mast which had been set up above the factory and she was heard all over the world.
Suddenly it became clear that you could also broadcast entertainment to people and that was a totally new idea.
The early factory studios no longer exist, but three miles east of the city centre, at Chelmsford's Sandford Mill Museum, I'm meeting Peter Watkins, who has firsthand experience of using early Marconi equipment.
- Hello, Peter.
- Hello, Michael.
A bit of personal nostalgia for you.
Yes.
I was doing this about 55 years ago.
You were on ships? Yes, I joined a ship in London Docks.
From there we went out to the Far East.
- (Michael) You were employed by whom? - I was employed by Marconi Marine.
I realise that Marconi put equipment for radio signals on to ships, but they put the people on as well, did they? It was a total package I imagine that putting the equipment on to ships improved the safety at sea? Oh, yes.
Titanic, for instance, would have had a range with its transmitters of at least 1,000 miles.
So when they collided with the iceberg, the radio officer would have sent a distress signal and, without that message, many of the people who survived just wouldn't have done and that was totally down to Marconi operators.
Would you like to have a go at sending some Morse? I would love to, but I don't know the signals.
- Well, we have a list here.
- I see, I follow that, do I? - OK, what would you like me to send? - How about "Marconi"? - (beeping) - Dash Dash-dash is M.
Dot-dash is A.
Dot-dash-dot.
C, dash-dot-dash-dot.
O three dashes, very simple.
N, I've lost N, is dash-dot.
And I, dot-dot.
- Well done.
- It was a bit slow, wasn't it? (both laugh) Some industries that I've seen on this journey are as old as the Romans, like oyster dredging, but others, like lawnmowers and wireless, required Victorian breakthroughs in technology.
John Mechi and Guglielmo Marconi showed that people with foreign-sounding names could make useful British citizens.
But then, Michael Portillo would say that, wouldn't he? On the next leg, I'll try my hand at lowering a massive container onto a freight train,â So now the moment of truth.
discover the work of a renowned Victorian philanthropist Each of the images has a before and after photograph.
and ask myself, âWho the Dickens are these characters?" No doubt about you.
You've got the iron around your leg and a rag on your head.
You're the convict, Magwitch, from Great Expectations.
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.
My journey continues through Suffolk.
This flat terrain produces a big beautiful dome of sky, and beneath it, the green land and the rivers that run between it are rich in food.
On this leg, I discover 19th-century engineering was pretty sharp And there it goes.
And the extraordinary thing is that a Victorian would recognise that - because it was made in the same way.
- Absolutely.
shell out for seafood near Mersea Island Enormous.
So this is the sort of oyster that, once cleaned up, - could appear on my plate? - It certainly is.
and I'm tainted in an Essex orchard.
That's where the phrase "caught red-handed" comes from.
The indelible stain of crime.
My journey, which began in Norwich, continues southwest through Suffolk, past Chelmsford in Essex, then across the Thames at Tilbury, through the Medway towns of Kent and its largest port, Dover, before moving west to Tonbridge, down to the Sussex coast and ending in the cathedral city of Chichester.
Today's leg begins in Ipswich, moves southwest to crack open the Essex delights of Colchester and Witham, and picks up radio waves in Chelmsford.
Bradshaw's tells me that Suffolk "is one of the best cultivated districts in England".
"Almost exclusively a farming county, being conducted upon the most improved principles.
" There was innovation in agriculture long before the Industrial Revolution, and East Anglia was in the forefront.
Set on the bank of the Orwell estuary, Ipswich, one of England's oldest towns, has been an important trading centre since the Saxons settled here.
It became one of the richest ports in medieval England, and thrived on shipbuilding.
When the railways arrived in Ipswich in 1846, they ran to the new docks, from where the town's iron goods and farm machinery could be moved easily to customers around the country.
Here I am at Ipswich, which Bradshaw's tells me is a port borough town and capital of Suffolk.
And then it tells me that, "Ransome and Sims machine and agricultural implement works cover 14 acres.
" Could that be instrumental in the agricultural improvement that Bradshaw's tells me about? Founded in 1189 by Robert Ransome during the agrarian revolution, Ransomes of Ipswich has been making agricultural equipment ever since.
The company was originally situated at the docks, where it also built its own railway sidings.
I'm keen to find out just how important Ransomes was to the economy of Ipswich in Bradshaw's day.
Richard Comely is the company's marketing director.
- Hello, Michael.
Welcome.
- Very good to see you.
Thank you.
Bradshaw's tells me that Ransomes and Sims covered an area of 14 acres.
That's in 1864, it must have been enormous.
(Richard) Some 3,500 people were employed here, making ploughs, mowing machinery, all kinds of agricultural equipment.
In 1832, Ransomes won the licence to manufacture a brand-new product.
Engineer Edwin Budding's invention, based on the napping of cloth in cotton mills, would revolutionise 19th-century gardening.
So until such time as the mower came along, people were cutting grass with scythes and that had limitations, especially with short grass.
What's the breakthrough about the lawnmower? So the principle is we have these rotating blades that are in a spiral and then we have a bed knife which is the stationary part that the rotating blades rotate against.
The reason they're in a spiral is to feed the power in more evenly and to eliminate the kind of chopping motion you would get if the blades were all in straight lines.
This is fundamentally what Budding invented.
That is a fantastic thought, isn't it? That a fellow came up with this idea, what, 180 years ago - and it's recognisable to this day.
- Exactly.
In 1867, the company produced more than a thousand lawnmowers.
And royal recognition followed when Queen Victoria acquired one to tend the lawns of her beloved Balmoral.
- Might I have a go at that? - Absolutely.
- Give it a whirl.
- Some gloves there.
Thank you.
Quite a heavy piece, isn't it? (man) Then catch the second roller as you go through.
- (man) Press the button there.
- Here we go.
- (Michael) Look at that, curving away.
- Mm-hmm.
That's basically what you've got.
It's formed a spiral.
And there it goes.
The extraordinary thing is that a Victorian would recognise that - because it was made in the same way.
- Absolutely.
In the 21 st century, Budding's blades are fitted to mowers that cut sports fields all over the world.
The factory is unexpectedly surrounded by top-quality grass and each model has to meet green-keeper Jamie Hughes 's standards.
(Michael) This is a golf course attached to a factory.
It is.
It's unusual to come on to an industrial estate and turn a corner, golf course.
(Michael) Gosh, you've got machinery old and new here.
This is what? (Jamie) We've got the Budding, the original.
This is the original? Can I have a go at it? - You can.
- Do you mind holding my book? (mower clatters) - Oh, look at that! It actually works! - It does, it takes a push.
"A Budding patent.
" It really was a Budding patent.
Never was a truer word said.
- This one is a bit easier, is it? - This one is far easier, yes.
- So - And we will have a go on this.
- Oh, good.
Does that mean me? - That does.
That means you, exactly.
- (engine starts) - Here we go.
(Jamie) These are your arms.
You know, this invention is really cutting edge.
Resuming my journey, I'm heading southwest on the Great Eastern mainline out of East Anglia and into Essex.
My next stop will be Colchester.
Bradshaw's tells me, "lt's formerly an important town of the Romans on the River Colne.
" "Silk from umbrellas is made here, and velvet.
" "Excellent oysters at Pyefleet.
" I sense there's important history to be prised open here.
Replete with its vast Victorian brick water tower, Colchester, once the Roman capital of Britain, is a bustling market town world famous for the oysters harvested from its nearby waters since 48AD.
To find out why its oysters are so renowned, I'm meeting Graham Larkin by Mersea Island at the confluence of the Pyefleet Channel and the River Colne.
Why is it that these waters give us such good oysters? It's a very high salinity area, which means the water is very salty, and we've got agricultural land around us that's giving us all the nutrients and food being washed off into the creek with the rain.
It's being filtered through by the oysters, fattening them up.
(Michael) Give me an idea of how many oysters you are dredging up.
On a weekly basis, between 60 and 65,000 rock oysters a week.
That's like a small town's worth of rock oysters every week.
Yeah, it's quite a lot.
Colchester oysters were a sought-after delicacy in Roman times.
Archaeological excavations have found evidence that they were even exported to Rome in nets trailing in the water from the boat.
But by the 19th century, the coming of the railways made oysters a plentiful and cheap food for the urban poor.
In 1864, more than 700 million oysters were eaten in London alone.
During the Victorian times, the oysters would have been taken from where they were gathered by boat to Brightlingsea in barrels, then transported from Brightlingsea by rail into London, where they would have been sold on street corners or in restaurants.
Oysters are in demand again today.
Although no longer cheap, they are harvested in much the same way as in Bradshaw's day, by dredger.
We're going to tow this dredger just over a walking pace for about 100 yards, then haul it up and see what we've got.
(Michael) Here it is.
Ah, we've got some stuff in there, that's great.
- (Graham) Got some nice oysters here.
- Enormous.
This is the sort of oyster that, once cleaned up, could appear on my plate? - It certainly is, yeah.
- I'd be extremely pleased - to find him in a restaurant.
- Shall we head back with your haul? Yeah, let's get underway.
The oyster fishery was granted to the people of Colchester by King Richard I.
Now owned by the council, the fishery is leased out to Graham's company, which ensures that every one of its rock oysters is made fit for human consumption by placing it in fresh sea water for at least 42 hours to flush out impurities.
ls it possible to have one of these lovely fellows? - Of course it is, yeah.
- So, down the hatch.
Mmm.
Talk about the taste of the sea.
- Wonderful burst of flavour.
- Very fresh.
Don't get any fresher than that.
Today you can enjoy one type of oyster or another throughout the year.
But historically, it was thought safest to avoid oysters in the heat of summer, so they were eaten only in months whose name contains a letter R.
On this balmy Colchester evening, I want to find out whether such caution persists.
- Good evening.
- Good evening.
I see that you're enjoying a lovely glass of Champagne.
- Very civilised - Lovely summer evening, isn't it? - Are you celebrating? - No, not really.
- Just a daily occurrence.
- Just going out for a drink.
Very good.
But I wondered whether you would have oysters to go with it, because Colchester is famous for oysters.
Yeah But no R in the month, is there? No.
No R in the month.
So you don't like having an oyster when there's no R in the month? - You don't eat them then.
- You like oysters? I love oysters, yes.
So are you longing for there to be an R in the month? November October, November, December.
- Yes, I am.
- Are you a chewer or a swallower? - A swallower.
- Really, no chewing? - No.
- I like to give them a good chew.
- Oh, no.
- Anyway, cheers to you both.
- Thank you.
- Bye-bye.
Bradshaw's promised me fragments of the ancient town walls.
In fact, they seem to be pretty well preserved.
The pub here is called The Hole in the Wall, which seems a strange way to refer to such a beautifully-formed Roman gate, but anyway, I feel thirsty.
I'm meeting local historian Patrick Denney to find out how a pub came to sit on an ancient ruin.
- Welcome to Colchester.
- Thank you very much.
The Hole in the Wall pub.
I assume it's a reference to that rather lovely gate out there, is it? Well, not actually.
No.
The name Hole in the Wall dates first to when the railway arrived in Colchester in 1843.
This pub, it was called The King's Head in those days, commanded the best view of the railway in the whole town.
So the landlord of this pub smashed a big hole in the Roman wall, which is just behind us here, extended his pub, put a window in so his customers could come and have a view of the railway.
He smashed a hole in the Roman wall.
I mean, today you'd be thrown in prison for picking up a bit that fell off, but he got away with it.
And of course, the town's cabbies did a roaring trade.
They'd see a train come in, leave their pint and off they'd go to the station.
Well, I have found it a wholly appropriate place to end the day.
- Cheers.
- OK, cheers, Michael.
Looking forward to the day ahead, this morning I'm travelling west into the Essex countryside.
This first train of the day will take me to Witham.
Bradshaw's draws my attention to Tiptree Heath, on which is Alderman Mechi's celebrated model farming establishment.
There is a corner of an English field that is forever linked to an Italian name.
The station at Witham, a fashionable 18th-century spa town, is close to Tiptree Heath, a once infertile, marshy comer of Essex.
I'm hoping that Ian Thurgood, joint managing director for the farm's current owners, will know how a London alderman turned it into a successful 19th-century farm.
- Hello, Ian.
- Hello, Michael.
- Welcome to Tiptree Hall - Thank you very much indeed.
Who was Alderman Mechi? Alderman Mechi was the son of an Italian immigrant who made his fortune in London.
He was a cutler, a silversmith, and very good in commerce, but turned his attention finally to Tiptree Hall and experimental farming, trying lots of different things to see if he could make sense of farming anywhere in the country.
He had a couple of particularly revolutionary ideas at the time.
One was that he would irrigate and drain the soil across the whole farm and it's said that he laid some 80 to 90 miles of drains just on Tiptree Hall farm.
The second thing he decided was his cattle would stand on grids.
They wouldn't stand in a courtyard in the mud, so the grids were used and then he was able to collect the manure, return the manure to the fields and thus improve the soil.
I'm guessing that he was successful because my Bradshaw's refers to it as a "model farm establishment".
So people were coming to learn, were they? (Ian) Mechi was successful, there's no doubt about that.
In fact, it's said that, at one point here at Tiptree Hall, he was bringing in 600 people from Witham Station who were coming in for Mechi's agricultural day where they could look at the wonderful things he was trying.
The first place they could see steam ploughing for many was at Tiptree Hall.
Mechi's annual agricultural shows and his modern techniques became so renowned that, in 1852, Charles Dickens reported on Tiptree in his weekly journal.
- Did his ideas spread far and wide? - Yes, they did.
Through the publication of his book, How To Farm Profitably.
(Michael) Bradshaw's calls him Alderman Mechi.
Alderman of what? (Ian) Mechi was alderman of the city of London.
He was actually in line to become the Lord Mayor of London.
Sadly, Alderman Mechi failed to became Lord Mayor because he lost his fortune in the collapse of the Unity Joint Stock Bank of which he was a governor.
Twelve days after being forced to liquidate his affairs, Mechi died here at Tiptree.
Some say of diabetes, others, oi a broken heart.
It's a sad story, but not, I think, the end of farming at Tiptree.
(Ian) That's not the end of the farming story.
Eventually, Tiptree Hall was bought by the Wilkin family.
Local jam-makers Wilkin & Sons bought the Tiptree estate in 1913.
It now covers a square acreage equivalent to around 300 cricket fields.
We're in the mulberry orchard now.
This is the oldest orchard on the estate, planted in Victorian times, in fact.
- Not planted by Alderman Mechi? - Not by Alderman Mechi, no.
In fact, just a little while after he'd departed Tiptree.
- Hello.
- (man) Hello.
- Is it difficult to pick mulberries? - Yeah, it's a little bit difficult because you need to be a little bit high.
- (Michael) Could I try one, please? - (man) Sure.
Thank you very much indeed.
Look at you, you're covered in juice.
Look at these red hands.
I look like a scene out of Macbeth.
Well, they say that's where the phrase "caught red-handed" comes from.
If you come in the mulberry orchard and scrump some mulberries, you won't get away with it because that will stay for three or four days.
The indelible stain of crime.
Back in 1885, fruit-grower Arthur Charles Wilkin had become so frustrated with the damage that his immaculate fruit suffered on the train journey to market that he turned his attention instead to making jam.
Wilkin & Sons factory now supplies conserves of many flavours to 60 countries.
The mulberry, a fruit which according to Greek mythology was turned deep red by the blood of Pyramus and Thisbe, is the queen oi the Tiptree crop and requires special attention.
What is it that you're doing to the fruit? We're taking out the stalk in the mulberry.
(Michael) I guess you don't want that in jam.
(woman) No, no.
Wow, and this really happens to every mulberry that goes into the jam? Every single one that's picked, the stalk's taken out.
That must make it a really special jam, I think.
Yes.
From its humble Victorian beginnings, the company's '21 st-century turnover has hit ã35 million.
A thoroughly modern-sounding revenue married to an age-old production process.
Well, like any good kitchen, jam needs a bit of a stir.
The mulberries are being boiled up here.
Do you want to have a go at stirring? - May I take your paddle for a moment? - Mind your hands.
- Mind my hands.
- As high as possible up there.
- Good tip.
- Backwards and forwards.
(Michael) What temperature does that boil at? - 104.
- 104? So you don't want to get too close to that.
Think I'll let you take over, I don't want to spoil the broth.
Thank you.
What's happening here, Ian? The fruit comes up on a conveyor system.
Just fruit and sugar and some pectin, if we need pectin to make it set.
Close the lid, 15 minutes later we've got some jam ready.
How long before that ends up in a jar? That will be in a jar in about 20 or 25 minutes from now.
Amazing.
(Ian) Come and taste some mulberry jam.
(Michael) Mulberry jam, I'd love to.
A lovely scone to put it on, Lay it on thick.
A little clotted cream.
Perfect.
Ideally, I won't get it all over my nose.
Mmm! It's exquisite.
I'm so lucky to get to sample things like this doing the Railway Journeys.
Some people think I'm really jammy.
Fortified by that cream tea, I'll continue my journey southwest towards this leg's final destination.
For many places in the United Kingdom, Bradshaw's lists a telegraph station.
In those days, towns were linked by wires down which people could send telegrams or cables.
The idea of communication without wire would have seemed extraordinary.
But since, as the book says, "Essex composes part of the largest connected space of level ground with not one lofty eminence or rocky ridge," this was a good place to test wireless communication.
Wireless technology has assumed a new importance in the 21st century.
Chelmsford, the county town of Essex, benefited from the first wireless revolution when in 1912 an Italian named Guglielmo Marconi established the world's first purpose-built radio equipment factory in New Street on the site of the town's old cricket ground.
Much of the old works has been demolished but to find out more, I'm meeting Chelmsford Museum Science Curator, Dr Geoff Bowles, in one of the surviving factory buildings.
- Hello, Geoff.
- Hello, Michael.
Did Marconi actually invent wireless technology? His fundamental breakthrough really was to erect an aerial and an earth connection.
Whereas others were trying it without those two things, and they could make wireless waves go across the laboratory, with an aerial and earth, Marconi was suddenly sending it hundreds of metres.
And that's what he was after.
Frustrated by Italy's lack of enthusiasm for technological innovation, Marconi settled in Chelmsford, beyond the area of the General Post Office monopoly on telegraphic communication.
In 1901, the immigrant scientist sent the first wireless signal across the Atlantic.
His high-quality Morse code transmitters and receivers were sold to maritime fleets, governments and radio hams across the world.
And in 1920, the Nobel prize-winning physicist achieved another communication milestone: a voice broadcast with edifying content by George.
One of the things they did was actually to read Bradshaw's timetable very slowly and clearly over the air.
A great deal more interesting than many broadcasts that we get today.
And when did we actually move to broadcasting in the fullest sense? Really, as a result of a very famous concert.
Dame Nelly Melba, the Australian prima donna, her voice went out from the enormous 450 foot mast which had been set up above the factory and she was heard all over the world.
Suddenly it became clear that you could also broadcast entertainment to people and that was a totally new idea.
The early factory studios no longer exist, but three miles east of the city centre, at Chelmsford's Sandford Mill Museum, I'm meeting Peter Watkins, who has firsthand experience of using early Marconi equipment.
- Hello, Peter.
- Hello, Michael.
A bit of personal nostalgia for you.
Yes.
I was doing this about 55 years ago.
You were on ships? Yes, I joined a ship in London Docks.
From there we went out to the Far East.
- (Michael) You were employed by whom? - I was employed by Marconi Marine.
I realise that Marconi put equipment for radio signals on to ships, but they put the people on as well, did they? It was a total package I imagine that putting the equipment on to ships improved the safety at sea? Oh, yes.
Titanic, for instance, would have had a range with its transmitters of at least 1,000 miles.
So when they collided with the iceberg, the radio officer would have sent a distress signal and, without that message, many of the people who survived just wouldn't have done and that was totally down to Marconi operators.
Would you like to have a go at sending some Morse? I would love to, but I don't know the signals.
- Well, we have a list here.
- I see, I follow that, do I? - OK, what would you like me to send? - How about "Marconi"? - (beeping) - Dash Dash-dash is M.
Dot-dash is A.
Dot-dash-dot.
C, dash-dot-dash-dot.
O three dashes, very simple.
N, I've lost N, is dash-dot.
And I, dot-dot.
- Well done.
- It was a bit slow, wasn't it? (both laugh) Some industries that I've seen on this journey are as old as the Romans, like oyster dredging, but others, like lawnmowers and wireless, required Victorian breakthroughs in technology.
John Mechi and Guglielmo Marconi showed that people with foreign-sounding names could make useful British citizens.
But then, Michael Portillo would say that, wouldn't he? On the next leg, I'll try my hand at lowering a massive container onto a freight train,â So now the moment of truth.
discover the work of a renowned Victorian philanthropist Each of the images has a before and after photograph.
and ask myself, âWho the Dickens are these characters?" No doubt about you.
You've got the iron around your leg and a rag on your head.
You're the convict, Magwitch, from Great Expectations.