HomeGreat British Railway Journeys

Great British Railway Journeys

Rating:3.5 of 5Total number of episodes:201Last broadcast:18/09/2020 at 06:00
September 2020
29:10

Season 4 Episode 4 - Dudley To Bridgnorth

3.0 2 x
Michael Portillo learns how Victorian blacksmithing was not for the faint-hearted, rides one of Britain’s most modern trains and traverses the remarkable Victoria Bridge.
29:08

Season 4 Episode 3 - Stoke-On-Trent To Winsford

3.0 0 x
Michael Portillo explores one of the greatest locomotive factories in railway history, discovers the dark side of the industrial revolution and learns how, in Victorian times, the potteries brought their products to the masses.
29:10

Season 2 Episode 18 - Canterbury To Margate

4.0 0 x
Michael Portillo takes to the tracks with a copy of George Bradshaw’s Victorian Railway Guidebook. In a series of five epic journeys, Portillo travels the length and breadth of the country to see how the railways changed us, and what of Bradshaw’s Britain remains. All this week, he journeys through Kent, from London Bridge...
29:10

Season 4 Episode 2 - Birmingham To Stafford

3.0 1 x
Michael Portillo learns how the railways helped to make Birmingham the pen-making capital of the world, hears the chilling tale of one of 19th century Britain’s most notorious murderers and samples the delicacies concocted in a Victorian kitchen at Shugborough Hall.
29:06

Season 4 Episode 1 - High Wycombe To Stratford Upon Avon

4.0 0 x
Michael Portillo looks ahead to his trip from High Wycombe to Stratford. He meets the remarkable craftsmen behind the Victorian furniture trade, discovers how George Bradshaw helped save Britain's canal heritage and sees Shakespeare through the eyes of a 19th Century tourist.
29:24

Season 2 Episode 17 - Aylesford To Tunbridge Wells

4.0 2 x
Michael Portillo takes to the tracks with a copy of George Bradshaw’s Victorian Railway Guidebook. In a series of five epic journeys, Portillo travels the length and breadth of the country to see how the railways changed us, and what of Bradshaw’s Britain remains. All this week, he journeys through Kent, from London Bridge...
29:09

Season 5 Episode 20 - Brighton To Chichester

3.0 0 x
On the final leg of his journey between the cathedral cities of Norwich and Chichester, Michael Portillo discovers the history behind the extraordinary Pavilion at Brighton and learns that Queen Victoria was not an admirer of the Prince Regent’s flamboyant taste. Michael finds that while above ground the railways brought ...
29:09

Season 5 Episode 19 - Faversham To Dorking

4.0 0 x
Michael Portillo continues his journey from Norwich to Chichester beginning today in Faversham in Kent, at one of the country’s oldest surviving breweries, Shepherd Neame. Michael discovers how the brewery invested heavily in the railways and even ran rolling stock with its own smart livery taking beer to London. After m...
29:06

Season 5 Episode 18 - Ilford To Rochester

4.0 2 x
Steered by his Bradshaw’s, Michael Portillo heads along the Essex bank of the Thames before crossing the river into the Garden of England, Kent. He begins today’s leg at Barkingside, where a Victorian philanthropist called Dr Thomas Barnardo made it his life’s work to transform the lives of destitute children. From Upminst...
29:09

Season 5 Episode 17 - Ipswich To Chelmsford

3.0 0 x
Michael Portillo continues his journey from the East Coast to the South Coast beginning today in the port of Ipswich, capital of the farming county of Suffolk. His first port of call is an agricultural implement works with its own railway sidings. Michael investigates what could have earned the Victorian manufacturer a spe...
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