Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Who is the best in the world at engineering?
00:28Well the British invented the steam engine, the internal combustion engine, the jet engine,
00:36steel ropes, steel ships, in fact steel, come to think of it.
00:41Look closely and you'll find that the British were behind almost every big advance that
00:45shaped the modern world.
00:48In this series I'm off in search of the best of British engineering.
01:02Some top boffins have steered me towards their favourite icons, which they feel best reflect
01:07our practical genius and form part of the story of how Britain came to lead the world
01:12in engineering.
01:21When it comes to buildings it's a tough choice.
01:24Which ones do you think represent British engineering at its best?
01:29Our short list has some familiar faces and some real surprises, but it's no surprise
01:34best of British buildings top five would have to include a cathedral.
01:46Britain's medieval cathedrals are among the most awe-inspiring structures ever built.
01:52But they were Catholic of course and they look like other Catholic cathedrals in Europe.
02:00It wasn't until Britain shook off the papist yoke that we came up with a religious building
02:04for the capital which is so distinctively, unforgettably British.
02:11In 1666 a small fire started behind a bakery in Pudding Lane.
02:17Within five days the greatest city in the world lay in ashes.
02:22From those ashes a great phoenix rose, St Paul's.
02:35If one building symbolises London, this is it.
02:38It was the Empire State Building of its age.
02:41St Paul's is the building the Nazis couldn't destroy.
02:46This is a Protestant British cathedral.
02:50British Protestants were not above nicking ideas from Catholic foreigners.
02:54We pinched their ideas then showed them how to do it properly.
02:59Take the famous dome which looks distinctly Roman.
03:02In fact Protestant hardliners thought it was too much.
03:06It was too fancy, too extravagant, too Catholic.
03:15Unlike England's other cathedrals, St Paul's is the creative vision of just one man,
03:21Sir Christopher Wren.
03:23Wren was a scientist, professor of astronomy at Oxford.
03:27He wasn't an architect and he wasn't interested in theological disputes about domes.
03:33He wanted to build a massive dome because it was a terrific engineering challenge.
03:40Wren wanted his cathedral to be dazzlingly light.
03:45He didn't want all the windows to ruin his classical exterior.
03:49His solution was to hide them in a gully running alongside the roof of the nave.
03:55And he deployed other clever architectural tricks too.
04:00Here we see the pure genius of Wren.
04:03His plan was to fill this whole area with natural light.
04:06In the top of the outer dome is a small window, an oculus, which means little eye.
04:10Together with the hemispherical inner dome, this works like a microscope,
04:13covering the whole cathedral with light.
04:18Wren and his thousand workmen created the largest Protestant cathedral in the world,
04:23towering over London at a height of 365 feet.
04:28St Paul's has a message.
04:30Old Catholic Europe, it seems to say, was dark and gothic and oppressive,
04:35while modern Protestant Britain was light and classical and exciting.
04:42It took 33 years to build, cost nearly three quarters of a million pounds,
04:46and was financed by a special tax levied on coal coming into the port of London.
04:56This is called the geometric staircase.
04:59It's all a bit unnerving.
05:01These steps don't actually have any support.
05:03They just rest on top of one another.
05:06I can only go into the wall about five inches.
05:18When it came to the dome, Wren faced one huge engineering problem.
05:23Domes were foreign.
05:24Wren didn't know how they were built, nor did anyone else in Britain.
05:30So he travelled in Europe to look at their best domes.
05:33He drew ideas from French, Italian, Byzantine and Islamic domes.
05:37Eventually he decided the best method was an inner dome supporting an outer dome.
05:43The support for the outer dome is provided by this conical brick structure
05:47built above the inner dome with rafters radiating from it.
05:52Its design still amazes engineers today.
05:56In fact, it was Wren's dome which inspired the leading architect George Ferguson
05:59to go into buildings.
06:04Massive structure, this dome.
06:06I mean, how does it work from an engineering point of view?
06:08I mean, how does it stay up?
06:09Well, it's held up by these eight coupled columns
06:12that go right down through the crypt into the earth.
06:16And then they've got these arches, these eight arches that go around,
06:20which he wanted to be equal.
06:21He felt that aesthetically it was very important,
06:25and you can absolutely see what he meant,
06:26that this great circle was held up by a rhythm that was eight equal arches.
06:33And then he's got this great cone that goes through.
06:36And we can see actually the top of the cone.
06:39Those lights at the top are coming into the cone.
06:41They held up the cupola above, 850 tonnes of it.
06:46This is thousands and thousands of tonnes of stuff.
06:49And then outside this is the timber and lead structure of the outer dome
06:54that stands way above it.
06:56And without that device, the St Paul's dome would not play the great place it plays.
07:05But the secret of how Wren's dome stays up is buried in the walls.
07:11Wren realised that his heavenly dome was going to weigh around 65,000 tonnes.
07:16That's a lot of heaven.
07:18And thick columns weren't enough to support it
07:20because the weight of a dome pushes out as well as down.
07:25This solution was a massive metal chain hidden in the walls
07:29which acts as a belt around the base of the dome.
07:35The result looks effortless,
07:36an ethereal floating heaven from a distance and a dizzying drop from close up.
07:42Now, this gallery has a strange quirk to it.
07:45It's called the whispering gallery.
07:47Apparently, if you whisper something over here at this side,
07:49it can be heard all the way over there on the other side.
07:52Let's try it.
07:53Sir Christopher Wren said to some men,
07:56if anyone calls, I'm designing St Paul's.
08:01Isn't that amazing?
08:03I said, isn't that amazing?
08:05I said, isn't that amazing?
08:09I think it needs new batteries.
08:14Wren saw it through from the first designs in 1666
08:18right up to the finishing touches in 1708.
08:21But there were murmurs it was all taking too long.
08:26Wren complained to Queen Anne
08:27that the decoration of the dome had been taken out of his hands
08:30and he hadn't been paid for 14 years.
08:33It's a sad end to the story of St Paul's and Wren,
08:35but he kept coming back here to sit under his dome
08:38and contemplate his masterpiece until he died at the age of 91.
08:45Wren considered the work his lasting memorial.
08:48As it says here in Latin...
08:51..si monumentum requiris, circumspicae.
08:55If you seek his monument, look around you.
09:19I'm travelling Britain in search of the best of British engineering.
09:24And when it comes to buildings, the glorious Cathedral of St Paul's
09:27breezes into the top five without working up a sweat.
09:31After all, its dome was one of the great engineering wonders of its time.
09:37It looks as weightless as heaven itself,
09:39but in fact, it's a hulking great 65,000 tonnes.
09:43So, why doesn't it fall down?
09:49To find out more about the engineering principles behind Wren's dome,
09:52I'm heading to our Industrial Revelations Lab in Cambridge
09:55to visit our resident engineer, Claire Barrett.
09:59A dozen eggs, a few bricks and a roll of sellotape.
10:02The dome on St Paul's is actually a very special building.
10:07It's a very special building.
10:08It's a very special building.
10:10The dome on St Paul's is actually just like half an egg.
10:14And an egg and a dome are incredibly strong shapes.
10:18Yeah, we talked about arches, it's a 360-degree arch.
10:20That's right, that's right.
10:22So, that's an egg with nothing, no fancy, it hasn't even been boiled.
10:27I don't know how much weight this is going to take.
10:30OK. It doesn't have to be a free-range organic egg.
10:35Well, I think for the chicken's sake, yes.
10:37All right, then. OK, this is good.
10:39It's not breaking, is it? It's doing very well, actually.
10:41We're running out of... That's going to have to be you.
10:43Oh, there it goes!
10:45That's not bad, four blocks of wood.
10:47Four blocks and a huge bit of concrete to get up your sleeve, yeah.
10:51So, how do you make a delicate egg-like dome
10:53strong enough to support 65,000 tonnes?
10:57Wren's solution was to bind the base of the dome
11:00with a massive chain buried in the walls.
11:03But how did it work?
11:05Because all the way to the dome on St Paul's,
11:07it's pushing down, and then it's trying to push away
11:11around the centre line, and so Wren buried, very cleverly,
11:14this chain around the bottom in the Portland Stone,
11:18and then covered it with cement.
11:19So, draw on that egg where the great chain that he buried would have gone.
11:23So, that stops it spreading out.
11:25And I can draw a couple of eyes.
11:26This is an art class.
11:27I'm not going to bother putting a chain around the egg,
11:29but if I put a bit of Sellotape around it...
11:31Right, OK.
11:31OK, so Sellotape's going to act like a chain and stop it pushing out,
11:36and we'll see if we can put more weight on it.
11:39All right, so we have the great chain in place.
11:41We have the great chain in place.
11:45I believe we got four of these on before, didn't we?
11:48Yeah.
11:49And it was the block of concrete that just...
11:52I was just getting carried away with that.
11:53Yeah, well, careful, put it on carefully.
11:56It's impressive.
12:04It's holding.
12:04That is incredible.
12:07Incredible.
12:08Ooh, I think it's just unbalanced.
12:11Oh, you touched it!
12:13I did not!
12:14I didn't touch it!
12:15You're joking!
12:16Put your tape down and touch it.
12:21If no shortlist of best British engineering is complete without God,
12:26the same goes for war.
12:31It's given us rockets and jet engines and steel ships.
12:36And in buildings, it's given us the castle,
12:40an Englishman's home, warrior race and all that.
12:44And I've been steered towards one of the most loved castles in the land,
12:48Leeds, which, confusingly, is in Kent.
12:52I've only ever seen Leeds Castle on picture postcards before,
12:56and it looks just like it does on picture postcards.
13:00But if you turn it round, there's writing on the back.
13:03This has been called the loveliest castle in the world,
13:05partly because it's since been converted to a stately home,
13:08but it's also damn clever.
13:11The Normans were the biggest kick-ass bully boys of the Middle Ages.
13:15They were also the best military engineers in the world.
13:18In fact, our royal engineers today trace their lineage
13:21back to the warrior engineers who built Leeds Castle.
13:26As you approach the castle, the first thing you hit is the Barbican,
13:30which acts as a kind of heavily fortified porch.
13:34Now, the Barbican is an amazing piece of Norman architecture.
13:38Basically, it defends the castle's weakest point, the entrance.
13:42It's a bit of a ruin now, but it leads to the gatehouse.
13:51Now, the idea was to funnel the enemy together
13:54to make them more vulnerable to the castle's archers.
13:57In fact, you can still see some of the holes in the castle wall here.
14:00They'd have poured boiling oil through there,
14:02right down onto the heads of the enemy.
14:04Imagine the mess that would make.
14:06Ruin your hair.
14:09Now, older Saxon forts were so-called motte and bailey.
14:13They dug a round ditch, shoved the earth in the middle
14:16and built a wooden fort on the top.
14:18But at Leeds, we see the motte or moat taken to new heights of engineering.
14:23Leeds was built on a couple of small islands in a marsh,
14:26and around it was dug a large moat.
14:29But very cleverly, this great moat was fitted with sluice gates,
14:32so it could be drained and filled at speed
14:34by diverting the passing river Leng.
14:38So, up comes an invading army.
14:40They set up camp around the castle,
14:41start polishing their swords and getting their ladders out of the van,
14:44and then, surprise, surprise, you open the sluice gates
14:47and, instant moat, you drown the lot of them.
14:50Or at least send them running home to get dry clothes.
14:55And don't forget, at this time, the walls surrounding the castle
14:57would have been twice as high as they are now,
15:00with hundreds of soldiers living in them.
15:05Even if an invader managed to escape a watery grave,
15:08they'd have to storm three drawbridges and portcullises
15:10and fight off a battalion of guards on the largest island
15:13before they could reach the royal family
15:15in their effectively impregnable,
15:17known as the Gloriette.
15:22To find out more, I'm meeting up with historian Nick Fulcher.
15:27The Gloriette, it looks so pretty rising out of the lake, doesn't it, Nick?
15:30Is that intentional?
15:31No, it's not, actually. It's actually built for defence.
15:34Right.
15:35Very strong walls and surrounded by water.
15:38Edward I actually built this part of the castle
15:41for his wife, Eleanor of Castile.
15:43The Gloriette, I'm pretty sure,
15:45was built for Eleanor of Castile.
15:47The Gloriette, I believe, means pavilion.
15:49It does. It derives from the Spanish term for pavilion,
15:53the intersection in a Moorish garden,
15:55which is Eleanor of Castile's influence on the castle.
15:59But not somewhere she could have her tea and watch the cricket?
16:01Not quite, no.
16:07Fast forward to Henry VIII,
16:09who doesn't need a fortress so much as a country retreat.
16:13These days you wouldn't get planning permission
16:15to hack around a castle, but Henry was more carefree.
16:19He knocked down a few walls, shoved on an extension
16:21and generally turned Leeds Castle
16:23into one of Britain's finest stately homes.
16:29This is the perfect Englishman's home.
16:31No wonder they chose Leeds
16:33to film the classic Ealing comedy
16:35Kind Hearts and Coronets.
16:37And how did Henry VIII change the castle?
16:39Henry's not interested in a castle
16:41that can be easily defended.
16:43There's no particular threat
16:45in this part of the country.
16:47So he changes it from a castle
16:49into a royal palace.
16:51He removes the outer walls,
16:53reduces them in height
16:55so that the views from the windows are so much better.
16:57Indeed, installs much larger windows
16:59to bring light into the castle.
17:03This is the charming fountain court.
17:05Built in the 13th century,
17:07the fountain is actually built over a natural spring
17:09and involves an ingenious bit of 13th century engineering.
17:11Underneath these paving stones
17:13there's a cistern tank
17:15which stores enough water
17:17to keep the pressure of the fountain constant.
17:19But not everything about this castle
17:21is as it seems.
17:23The fountainhead itself
17:25and this glorious Tudor façade
17:27are in fact 20th century.
17:31Lady Bailey, an Anglo-American oil heiress
17:33bought Leeds in 1926
17:35and spent 40 years
17:37restoring it.
17:41Today the kings and queens are gone
17:43and instead of soldiers brandishing swords
17:45the castle is besieged by golfers
17:47waggling seven irons.
17:51But raising that sluice gate
17:53could still drown a lot of them.
17:55It's like a medieval water hazard.
17:59The British are very fond of tradition
18:01and from castles to commons
18:03you might think the style of our great buildings
18:05hasn't changed all that much over the years
18:07but we're also engineering innovators
18:09who have transformed the science of construction.
18:17In the 18th century Britain's industrial revolution
18:19changed the world forever.
18:21We became the first industrial nation
18:23the workshop of the world.
18:27We invented new materials
18:29and new uses for materials
18:31with which we built new ships
18:33and new buildings.
18:35So what radical building best reflects
18:37this engineering revolution?
18:39Get ready for a surprise.
18:451848
18:47Europe is convulsed by revolution
18:49Marx publishes his Communist Manifesto
18:51and British engineers build
18:53one of the wonders of the industrial age.
18:59The palm house at Kew made from iron and glass
19:01was unlike anything anyone had ever seen.
19:07I used to come here a lot when I lived in London
19:09to Kew Gardens and you'd always come to the palm house first
19:11this is the first place you'd come
19:13straight away you're sort of drawn to it
19:15and it's a strange thing because
19:17in a way what's interesting about it
19:19surely has to be the palm trees
19:21but the building itself is more interesting
19:23so people actually come to see the palm house
19:25not just the palms.
19:27The palm house was revolutionary
19:29it inspired Paxton to build Crystal Palace
19:31Brunel to shove a glass and iron roof
19:33on Paddington Station
19:35it sparked our national love affair
19:37with conservatories
19:39and started an engineering tradition
19:41that leads to Norman Foster's Gherkin.
19:47Nothing like this had been built before
19:49because it was impossible
19:51the palm house was created from materials
19:53which had only just been invented
19:55wrought iron and laminated glass.
19:59The man with the window lean
20:01is the palm house manager
20:03Wes Shaw.
20:05It's like good fun
20:07but it's more fun in the summer isn't it
20:09than it is in the winter.
20:11You don't trust me!
20:13It's high pressure stuff
20:15isn't it?
20:17Fantastic fun!
20:19This is wonderful!
20:23How long does it take to clean this up?
20:25It's an ongoing project
20:27it's pretty much about four times a year
20:29and this is just the low level glass
20:31it's like the first three planes.
20:35Look at that, beautiful!
20:41Loves the jobs you hate
20:47but it's not just its use of new materials
20:49which makes the palm house such an engineering achievement
20:53they were put together in an ingenious way
20:57and all the elegance in this building
20:59comes from the strange feeling
21:01that nothing is holding it up.
21:03So what's the secret of its strange design?
21:05Easy, it's an upside down ship.
21:09It looks like a ship
21:11and it's as big as a ship
21:13a whopping 363 feet long
21:15100 feet wide
21:17and 66 feet high.
21:21In the spirit of our modern age
21:23the workforce pieced together
21:25a giant flat pack
21:27containing 10 miles of iron bars
21:29and 16,000 panes of glass.
21:33The palm house at Kew
21:35made from iron and glass
21:37was unlike anything anyone had ever seen.
21:45That's a fun job cleaning the glass
21:47isn't it? But hard work.
21:49It's a great job but it's hard work that has to be done
21:51these are all tropical plants
21:53with lots of high radiation, lots of sunlight.
21:59But the elegant palm house had a serious industrial purpose.
22:03Britain's trading empire was opening up the world.
22:05In far off places
22:07new exotic plants and trees were being discovered
22:09with new potential uses.
22:11But how could they survive in Britain's cold climate
22:13long enough to be studied?
22:17The challenge was to reproduce the tropics
22:19in suburban London.
22:23The world is buried underground.
22:25I think you better go first
22:27in case there's trouble.
22:29Not a lot of people get to see this side of it.
22:31I'm very flattered.
22:33It's all modern.
22:35It's all high tech.
22:37We're in an old Victorian tunnel
22:39that stretches all the way past
22:41the palm house pond and over to Victoria Gate.
22:43And what was this for then?
22:45There used to be a little railway system
22:47and the old Victorian gardeners
22:49would push these truckloads of coal
22:51to the boilers that used to be situated
22:53in the palm house basement.
22:55So the broader gardeners had to carry loads of coal as well.
22:57It's not a gardener's brief, is it?
22:59It was in those days.
23:01There's a saying in London
23:03that you're never more than ten feet from a rat.
23:05You would think a tunnel like this would be full of rats
23:07because there's openings just up by the hedges.
23:09But no, I've never seen one.
23:11All the times I've been down the tunnel.
23:13I say that when you work at the BBC as well.
23:15OK, well the tunnel takes us
23:17round to this chimney here.
23:19And this is where all the smoke
23:21and the toxic fumes would be
23:23pumped up through here
23:25and out the top.
23:27This is a big chimney.
23:29Of course from the outside it doesn't look like a chimney.
23:31It just looks like an Italian bell tower.
23:33That's the ornamental bit of disguise.
23:37The coal used to feed twelve boilers
23:39heating the water that was pumped through pipes
23:41running under the palm house floor.
23:45It's a testament to the engineers
23:47who built the palm house
23:49that it still functions today
23:51as well as it did 150 years ago.
23:55We only think of date palms and coconut palms
23:57but there are lots and lots of different palms.
23:59There are loads of palms.
24:01We've got about 3,000 different species of palms
24:03throughout the world.
24:05Something like the coconut palm for example
24:07has got maybe 1,000 different uses
24:09just for one palm.
24:11You can eat coconuts, you can wear them.
24:13You can do anything.
24:15I've seen chocolate here, quinine.
24:17We've got lots of economic plants.
24:19We've got everything from
24:21chewing gum, coffee, bananas.
24:23Is there a beer tree?
24:25There's one that does a nice pint of Fosters
24:27just over there.
24:31And in the spirit of the palm house
24:33British engineers have now come up
24:35with another pioneering building for Kew
24:37the award winning Alpine House.
24:41And again they've borrowed ideas from naval engineering
24:43this time using sails.
24:49The greatness of Britain was first built
24:51not on manufacturing but seafaring.
24:53Long before the industrial revolution
24:55Britannia ruled the waves.
24:57We were the greatest maritime trading nation
24:59the world had ever known.
25:03You may not think of a shipyard as a building
25:05but I'm told it is
25:07and I'm visiting possibly the most famous in the world.
25:09Our next engineering marvel
25:11has dominated its city skyline
25:13for over 150 years.
25:17In Victorian times the largest ships
25:19in the world were built here
25:21towering over the city as evidence of
25:23great British engineering prowess.
25:33This gantry crane is called Samson.
25:35That one's called Goliath.
25:37That can mean only one thing.
25:39Arland and Wolfe in Belfast.
25:43Arland and Wolfe was built in 1861
25:45and for more than a century
25:47was the biggest shipyard in the world.
25:51It was the most technically advanced
25:53yard of its time
25:55and it was gigantic
25:57with capacity to build 17 large ships simultaneously
25:59from opulent ocean liners
26:01to the latest warships
26:03their decks bristling with guns.
26:05Needless to say it was here they came
26:07to build the Titanic.
26:11Now believe it or not
26:13this huge piece of dirt land here
26:15was where the Titanic was
26:17that is the birthplace of the Titanic
26:19in fact you can just see two tiny bits of wedge-shaped concrete sticking out
26:21that's part of its slipway
26:23and the superstructure was put in over here
26:25in the Thompson Dock.
26:29The biggest ship in the world
26:31built in the biggest shipyard
26:33with the biggest cranes
26:35I wonder what if it sank?
26:37But actually building the Arland and Wolfe
26:39shipyard was a monumental engineering
26:41challenge itself.
26:43They couldn't just flatten a large section of Belfast
26:45though later generations have tried their damnedest
26:47instead like Atlantis
26:49in reverse the yard rose
26:51from beneath the waves on land
26:53reclaimed from the Lagan estuary.
26:55Telling me how is the yard's
26:57former chief naval architect
26:59David Livingstone.
27:01The amount of earth that was shifted to construct this shipyard
27:03was absolutely amazing
27:05and of course
27:07a lot of that was done with horse and cart
27:09wheelbarrows, manual labour
27:11scores and scores
27:13and scores of navies
27:15must have been backbreaking work
27:17I think it ranks
27:19with many of the
27:21great engineering feats.
27:25In the yard's heyday up to 35,000 men
27:27welded, riveted and laboured
27:29in the yards
27:31and a ship a week was being
27:33launched from the slipways.
27:35Even today this is still the biggest
27:37dry dock in Europe.
27:39Today in one of the smaller
27:41dry docks repairs are being carried out
27:43on the Caledonian car ferry.
27:45I have to say
27:47this is the first time I've been
27:49under a ship, I mean
27:51voluntarily
27:53unknowingly in fact and I have to say
27:55it's a big ship.
27:57The Caledonian
27:59was built here in the 70s
28:01and has come home for some running repairs.
28:03Time for me to add a tiny white line
28:05with that which it'll probably sink.
28:11This is my Royal Ferris a moment.
28:15Now what am I doing here, what's the purpose of this?
28:17That's a draft mark, that tells the level
28:19of the water.
28:21Look at that eh, perfect.
28:23Good job.
28:25Any vacancies?
28:27At the end of the dock here
28:29we've got that big thick wall, that holds back the sea doesn't it?
28:31You trust that don't you?
28:33Well you have to.
28:35It's quite a scary thought though,
28:37I mean you're used to it, you've worked here for years but I mean
28:39it's quite scary.
28:41There's something slightly
28:43unnerving about standing under a big ship
28:45which is held up with old copies of the Encyclopedia
28:47Britannica and I don't like the look
28:49of that recently fixed gate.
28:51So I climb to safety on top of one of the famous
28:53Holland & Wolff cranes.
28:55Silly idea.
28:57Horrible view down there
28:59between the two sides of the crane.
29:01Horrible.
29:03Look at that, oh.
29:05And I want to go home now.
29:11But instead of letting me go home,
29:13they're sending me down a weird metal arm thing
29:15to a funny glass cockpit dangling
29:17in a frightening sort of way in mid-air.
29:19The things I do for money.
29:22Did I slip on your head then Billy?
29:24No you didn't.
29:26That's a nice place you've got here.
29:28So how high are we up here then?
29:30You're roughly about 280, 300 feet.
29:32Did we use fighting design whilst coming up here
29:34the first time?
29:36Probably not, I've seen your face now.
29:38You've got to have the best view of Belfast
29:40available don't you?
29:42You have.
29:44In fact you're actually higher than planes landing.
29:46It's a bit weird when you're looking down on them
29:48coming into land.
29:50How many bits of gear do you shift around
29:52with this then?
29:54It would be large ship sections.
29:56And how big are those?
29:58Plates, girders?
30:00It could be the size of a house,
30:02the size of a building,
30:04the size of a small factory,
30:06anything up to 840 tonnes.
30:08Primitive cranes have been around since ancient times
30:10and used to build the likes of Leeds Castle
30:12but it was the British who pioneered
30:14the modern industrial crane,
30:16having invented steel rope.
30:18With works which I confess I've never really understood
30:20I'm off to see Claire
30:22and I hear she loves picking up strange men.
30:24I've been thinking about
30:26all these buildings
30:28and the bit we don't see anymore is the scaffolding
30:30and the cranes.
30:32How they lifted those heavy loads.
30:34I'm going to put a part of my body in this hole
30:36and are you going to pull me up?
30:38Well yeah, so if you're
30:40a massive bit of stonework for Leeds Castle
30:42I'll pretend.
30:44You pretend.
30:46It's incredibly hard work.
30:48Jump up the rope.
30:50It's not going to work.
30:52I'm happy with you.
30:54Try it the other way round.
30:56I bet it's not going to work.
31:00We're not going very far are we?
31:02You think there's another
31:0445,000 tonnes to get up to the top of Leeds Castle?
31:06You're going to have to think of a better way.
31:08What is a better way?
31:10Block and tackle.
31:12Which is the block and which is the tackle?
31:14If we keep looping the rope
31:16backwards and forwards and backwards and forwards
31:18we make it a lot easier.
31:20We need much less effort.
31:22Why is that?
31:24Because the eight pulleys magnify the force eight times.
31:26And using this block and tackle
31:28it will be eight times easier
31:30than it would be at just once.
31:32So you're suggesting that if I get in that
31:34you'll be able to move me
31:36on your own
31:38with that tiny bit of string.
31:40There you are.
31:42What could be easier?
31:44Keep going.
31:46It's alright for you, I'm just hanging around.
31:48That's what I do well.
31:50So I've got to move it eight times as far up
31:52but it's eight times easier.
31:54But it's still quite hard work isn't it?
31:56It was for me.
31:58So when you look at the Harland and Walth building
32:00obviously they're not using blocks and tackle there
32:02they are on to tower cranes aren't they?
32:04Tower cranes.
32:06But all a tower crane is
32:08is basically a block and tackle
32:10on the end of a long arm.
32:12So on Harland and Walth you'll be able to swing it
32:14across the whole building site
32:16without having to have lots and lots of scaffolding.
32:18So you're going to take me up in this are you?
32:20Go on, go and put your harness on.
32:26Alright, so this is just like a job isn't it?
32:32Can you just sort me in?
32:38Ready?
32:42No is the answer, I'm not ready.
32:44Off you go.
32:46You see Roy, this makes my life so much easier
32:48having an electric connection.
32:50But people will ask
32:52it's because it's an electric motor, is it the same?
32:54It's exactly the same.
32:56So actually the electric motor doesn't have to do as much work
32:58as it would if it was just a rope slung over a hook.
33:02There you go, just like Harland and Walth.
33:04Yeah, this is actually more scary than Harland and Walth I think.
33:06So are you going to join me up here Claire?
33:08No, I was going to go and have a cup of tea actually.
33:12Claire was only joking of course
33:14and two hours later I was back on the ground.
33:16And now that the circulation
33:18has returned to my groin
33:20I'm off in search of our next engineering icon.
33:22An icon fit for the 21st century
33:24but which remains in its way
33:26distinctively British.
33:30Now it seems unlikely as I drive
33:32through this beautiful Surrey woodland
33:34but I'm about to enter
33:36the most testosterone-fuelled environment
33:38in the world.
33:40Formula One racing.
33:46To build cars you need a factory
33:48and we all know what factories look like.
33:50Frightening, smoky, dark,
33:52satanic places, usually in the Midlands.
33:54Well, think again.
33:56The British invented factories
33:58back in the 18th century
34:00and we've built some pretty impressive ones
34:02when you started doing your stuff
34:04but this one must rank as one of the most beautiful factories
34:06ever built.
34:08This is the McLaren
34:10Technology Centre.
34:12As you can see it's a spectacular building.
34:14I don't think we're doing it justice today
34:16because it's a really murky, overcast day.
34:18It's just started to rain.
34:20It probably looks a bit bleak here.
34:22A bit alien to me, a bit sort of space-age
34:24but alien, though I am assured there is a human heart
34:26in there beating away.
34:28It's a bit Thunderbirds-like actually.
34:30It's a bit sad, too, to come out of the lake
34:32though they actually don't do anything as useful
34:34as international rescue here.
34:36They don't save the world from rogue psychopaths
34:38in little states in South America.
34:40They just make racing cars.
34:42Interestingly enough, this was ranked fourth
34:44by the general public.
34:46Fourth favourite building by the public
34:48who've never seen it.
34:50Isn't that amazing?
34:52They've never seen it because they can't.
34:54This factory has been deliberately hidden from view.
34:56Why? Because these days when you tell a local council
34:58on the third field from the left,
35:00they get a bit uppity.
35:02They like the idea of the jobs,
35:04but they don't want you to spoil the view,
35:06such as it is.
35:08So McLaren were told they could have their factory
35:10so long as no-one could see it over the hedges.
35:12The result is one of the most graceful,
35:14flat, modern buildings in Britain.
35:16It's just a shame none of the locals can see it.
35:20The man responsible is Ron Dennis,
35:22McLaren's chief executive.
35:24You get this quite surreal situation
35:26where you emerge and you're absolutely
35:28faced by this tremendous view.
35:34We've won many, many awards for the building
35:36and probably the first award
35:38which actually put a smile on our face
35:40was when the French awarded it
35:42as they gave it the automotive
35:44architectural statement of the year.
35:46And of course the France that gave us Renault,
35:48whom you'll have heard of.
35:50Oh yes, vaguely.
35:52Now Ron, can I ask you, are you attracting
35:54creative people in here
35:56just because of the building and the space?
35:58Well I think so. I mean, I say to them,
36:00we're going to make this place so great
36:02you don't want to go home.
36:16Now what is truly amazing
36:18about this building is it's not just office space.
36:20Formula One cars are actually designed
36:22and built here.
36:24Isn't that right Chris?
36:26Would this be ready by Tuesday?
36:28Once Chris has built my car of the future,
36:30I imagine he'll bring it here to the wind tunnel
36:32to check that it's as aerodynamic
36:34as I am.
36:36Now I'm not going to tell you how long this is
36:38or how much the steel weighs because I can't remember.
36:40But this, the wind tunnel,
36:42is the most important tool in Formula One
36:44engineering.
36:46We can't actually film inside it because
36:48McLaren are very sensitive about their
36:50secrets. But I've seen them so if you want to know
36:52just give us a call after the show.
36:56Like my lovely assistant
36:58Claire, this building isn't just pretty,
37:00it's clever.
37:02The wind tunnel needs 6,000 litres of cold
37:04water every minute to cool the thing down
37:06and the builders have found an elegant
37:08economical way to do it.
37:10They use the water from this lake
37:12to cool down the turbines that drive the wind tunnel.
37:14The water goes into the system
37:16and is used in the air conditioning as well.
37:18Then it comes back into the system quite hot
37:20at the top of this cascade.
37:22Now the water is re-cooled by trickling down
37:24that cascade and it goes back into the lake
37:26warm. Actually there are carp in this lake
37:28and carp can withstand quite big variations
37:30in temperature. Obviously if the water goes in
37:32too hot, the carp explodes.
37:40Even Ron Dennis couldn't build a place like this on his own
37:42so being Ron, he brought in some of the
37:44best architects in the world.
37:46The British firm of Foster and Partners.
37:48David Nelson was the
37:50partner in charge.
37:52It's probably a compliment to you and
37:54Foster and Ron that you forget it's a
37:56manufacturing centre, don't you?
37:58This is a car factory.
38:00This is like no car factory you could ever imagine, isn't it?
38:02Ron had a very clear idea of what
38:04the ambitions for the building
38:06should be. He'd really spent a huge amount
38:08of time thinking about the project
38:10and that's rare.
38:12It sounds an unusual thing to say but it's a very unusual thing
38:14I said we're not here to talk about
38:16the building but we're talking about Ron instead
38:18but in fact in many ways he was very
38:20hands on, wasn't he, right from the beginning.
38:22I think we stopped counting
38:24after our 200th meeting, it became a bit academic
38:26and we used to meet every
38:28two weeks and they're about
38:30five, six, seven hours long each time.
38:34British architecture
38:36has a different character to French, say,
38:38or Italian. We don't mind our buildings
38:40looking pretty but we like them to work.
38:44For all the fancy architects, the McLaren
38:46factory remains essentially an engineer's
38:48building. As we say
38:50the Lloyds building in London, much of the
38:52industrial inner workings of this factory
38:54are proudly out on display,
38:56much to the delight of Ron.
38:58If you look up above your head here
39:00you can just see the efforts we
39:02went to, to actually make sure
39:04that all the mechanical and
39:06engineering services actually formed
39:08a bit of an architectural statement in themselves.
39:10Ron wanted
39:12engineering as art and this factory
39:14does it. We tried to
39:16impress on everybody that
39:18was involved that there was
39:20a strong desire for attention
39:22to detail and
39:24that sort of ended up
39:26in companies such as
39:28the supplier of this autoclave
39:30actually caring about the alignment
39:32and you can see all the alignment and the neatness
39:34of how that's done.
39:36That's a good looking machine.
39:38Not only that but it's also, you know,
39:40makes you proud to be English.
39:42A lot of the people
39:44are very quick to knock England
39:46as not having
39:48either an attention to detail
39:50or, more importantly, seeking
39:52perfection.
39:54It's easy to get confused these days.
39:56Our art galleries look like old
39:58factories and our new factories look
40:00like art galleries.
40:02But it's also a sad sign of the times that
40:04instead of showing off our building achievements
40:06planners want to hide buildings like this
40:08from view because this is
40:10one truly fantastic piece of
40:12industrial architecture.
40:14People come here and the best expression
40:16that I really like to hear is, we actually get it now.
40:18You know, some people thought I was complete
40:20barking mad to embark on this project.
40:22Some of my colleagues thought I was
40:24barking mad because it was a phenomenal
40:26investment.
40:32Just how big
40:34an investment has never been revealed
40:36but it's rumoured you could buy
40:381,000 of this £300,000 Mercedes
40:40McLaren SLRs for the same
40:42price.
40:50Engineering experts have picked five buildings
40:52which they believe represent British engineering
40:54at its historic best.
40:56But which do you think is the best of the best?
40:58Leeds Castle?
41:00The picture book castle comes stately home to beat them all.
41:02St Paul's Cathedral
41:04The Glorious Dome is one of the most recognisable
41:06of all British landmarks.
41:08The Palm House at Kew, the world's first iron and glass
41:10building, an elegant monument to the industrial age.
41:12Or Harland and Wolf
41:14the giant yard that built the Titanic.
41:16Or McLaren's new super duper
41:18space age racing car factory.
41:24Kew, Kew, that's my favourite.
41:26Kew, Kew, Barney McGrew, yeah.
41:28It's pretty.
41:30Elegant.
41:32Sophisticated.
41:34It's very impressive.
41:36And it does exactly what it should do.
41:38It's an amazing space for keeping the plants.
41:40So what's your favourite then?
41:42Well you have to say Leeds Castle
41:44the technology was very primitive wasn't it?
41:46So you have to say that is a hell of an achievement.
41:50Wren's Dome, we've looked at the eggs.
41:52That was a great,
41:54that was a very bold gesture.
41:58I suppose the McLaren centre
42:00benefits from science doesn't it?
42:02Yeah.
42:04Science that wasn't available to the other buildings.
42:06Harland and Wolf Dry Dock, not really a building is it?
42:08Well it is a building.
42:10It's a construction isn't it?
42:12And in many ways engineers, builders watching this
42:14think as difficult and complicated to construct as anything.
42:18I don't know, I think it's going to be St Paul's.
42:20I think there's something about,
42:22I think it's not just...
42:24You have St Paul's and I'll take Kew.
42:26You have Kew, I'll have St Paul's.
42:28I've gone for St Paul's as my favourite building.
42:30But actually Kew is definitely the best.
42:32That's clear.
42:34And she's entitled her opinion even though it's wrong.
42:38And what about the next generation of British building icons?
42:42Well there's the Battle of the Titans coming up
42:44Norman Foster's Gherkin versus Richard Rogers' Cheese Grater
42:48Sounds like a bust up in the supermarket.
42:50Or will it be Wembley Stadium
42:52sporting the biggest roof span in the world?
42:58But we hope you've enjoyed all the buildings we've looked at
43:00and we hope you've learnt something about the engineering
43:02that goes into building.
43:04From Clare, myself and all the buildings, goodbye.