Great British Railway Journeys
Documentary, Travel
3 seasonsEnglish
Presenter Michael Portillo, a British journalist, travels the railways throughout England using George Bradshaw's maps to compare 1840s-era Britain to modern-day Britain.
1. Oxford to Abingdon
Michael Portillo starts in the city of dreaming spires, Oxford, where in 1921, women were awarded degrees for the first time.
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2. Stoke Mandeville to Beaconsfield
Michael Portillo continues his travels through England's Home Counties at Stoke Mandeville in Buckinghamshire, where he discovers the legacy of a German Jewish doctor who fled the Nazis to settle in Britain.
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3. West Ruislip to Windsor
Michael Portillo heads for leafy Hatch End, where he investigates an illustrator whose work was so popular in the 1920s and '30s that his name entered the English dictionary.
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4. Guildford to Aldershot
Michael Portillo resumes his tour of the home counties in the picturesque and historic county town of Guildford. His 1936 Bradshaw's guide commends its "fine old castle keep" and guildhall, but makes no mention of its hilltop cathedral.
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5. Farnborough to Winchester
Michael heads for Farnborough, Hampshire, famous for its airshow and home to what was once the Royal Aircraft Establishment. Richard Gardner of the Farnborough Air Sciences Trust tells Michael about the boffins who worked here.
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6. Saxmundham to Dedham
Armed with his 1930s Bradshaw's guide, Michael Portillo explores East Anglia between the wars. His railway journey begins at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk, where archaeologists made a staggering discovery.
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7. Colchester to Chadwell Heath
Michael Portillo continues his Bradshaw's-inspired journey through East Anglia, where he discovers the Essex origins of the BBC, joins the Women's Land Army to pick damsons at Tiptree, and visits homes fit for heroes in Becontree.
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8. Potters Bar to Cardington
Michael Portillo's Bradshaw travels resume in leafy Hertfordshire, where he attempts a canoe slalom course at the Lee Valley White Water Centre, built for the London Olympics in 2012.
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9. Sawbridgeworth to Cambridge
Steered by his Bradshaw's guide, Michael Portillo heads for the Hertfordshire village of Perry Green, where, in 1940, a young couple fleeing the bombing of London chose to make their home.
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10. Newmarket to Walsingham
Michael Portillo is in Suffolk on the last leg of his tour of East Anglia. He begins at the home of British horseracing, Newmarket, where he learns of the interwar success of a jockey turned trainer and helps to care for a famous ex-racehorse.
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11. Crewe to Shotton
Michael Portillo is in Crewe, a town steeped in railway history and immortalised in Victorian music hall, to investigate the making of the iconic cinema classic The Night Mail during the 1930s.
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12. Rhyl to Anglesey
Michael Portillo's 1930s Bradshaw's inspired railway tour of north Wales takes him to a coast lined by magnificent castles and sweeping bays. In Colwyn Bay, he hears how an army of civil servants invaded the quiet seaside town.
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13. Bangor to Betws y Coed
Michael Portillo continues his 1936 Bradshaw's inspired railway tour of north Wales in the coastal city of Bangor before turning south from Llandudno Junction to travel the Conwy Valley line to Betws y Coed, the gateway to Snowdonia.
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14. Blaenau Ffestiniog to Barmouth
In the Welsh mountains of Snowdonia, Michael Portillo reaches an abandoned mine, where in 1940 the wartime government sought sanctuary for the National Gallery's priceless art collection.
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