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00:00I'm setting out on a new series of railway adventures.
00:05How exciting!
00:06To explore some of Britain's most beautiful and historic regions.
00:12From Epping Forest to the Black Country.
00:15We have achieved locomotion.
00:18And from the Lake District to the Weald.
00:20This is beyond all expectation.
00:23I'll uncover how nature and history have shaped life in settings
00:28that are both scenic and intriguing.
00:31I'm so happy I could whistle!
00:58I am enjoying my investigation of the Weald.
01:10Trying to discover whether that broad area of southern England
01:14is most defined by its geology, its boundaries, its customs or its history.
01:20The distinctive fruit of Kentish trees will give me some new information to chew on.
01:26I may be driven off course at a church,
01:29whose beautiful windows are designed not by a maid or man of Kent,
01:33but a native of Belarus.
01:35But I hope to get back on track at a heritage railway
01:39whose future looks as interesting as its past.
01:43Sandwiched between the North and South Downs,
01:48the Weald is an historically wooded area
01:51that spans four counties of south-east England.
01:54And today is divided between the High Weald and the Low Weald.
01:59I'll use this region's extensive rail network to explore.
02:04My first stop, Tunbridge, is a junction at the heart of the Weald's web of railways.
02:20This major station has long been an important railway interchange
02:24between three busy lines,
02:26the London to Dover, the London to Hastings,
02:30and a line running west to Redhill and beyond.
02:55The first railway line between London and Dover
02:58was built under an Act of Parliament of 1836.
03:01It headed pretty much due south towards Redhill
03:04and then turned sharply eastwards to Tunbridge.
03:07And the sector of 19 miles between those two towns
03:13is until this day one of the straightest stretches in England.
03:17And that's because the point was to get to the coast as quickly as possible,
03:21ignoring the towns along the way that were close to the line.
03:25In the 20th century,
03:27aircraft that were landing at Croydon Airport
03:30used the tracks on that line for navigation.
03:34And for the benefit of the pilots,
03:36the names of the stations were displayed in white paint on their roofs.
03:42I'm heading north, one stop up the line from Tunbridge to Hildenborough.
03:57I'm heading north, one stop up the line from Tunbridge to Hildenborough.
04:00I'm heading north to Tunbridge to Hildenborough.
04:01I'm heading north to Tunbridge to Hildenborough.
04:02My destination is a farm whose crop has shaped the character and landscape of this region.
04:31I'm heading north to Tunbridge to Hildenborough.
04:36Since the word wild, like the German walt, meant wood,
04:41I thought I should turn my attention to trees.
04:44They are described by Latin names, which enables them to be catalogue precisely by species.
04:50I'm on the lookout for the Corallus avellana, which could be a hazel,
04:56but in Kent, likely to be a cob nut.
05:00Now, that was created by human intervention,
05:03and it's possible to eat it directly from the tree.
05:09For decades, these fields and orchards have produced cob nuts.
05:13And for over 50 years, Roughway Farm has been in the family of Giles Cannon.
05:19Giles, a wonderful landscape with an oast house behind us.
05:22I feel that we're firmly intent to talk about cob nuts.
05:26What is a cob nut?
05:28A cob nut is a cultivated form of hazelnut.
05:33And cultivated means that humankind intervened. Why?
05:36The wild hazelnut is quite small, and it doesn't crop reliably from year to year.
05:42So, back in the 19th century, various very clever and diligent people
05:47took the wild hazelnut and developed a bigger form of the nut
05:52that was easier to handle, easier to harvest,
05:55and also cropped reliably from year to year.
05:58We're here in early summer, and the leaves have that gorgeous green of early summer.
06:04But there doesn't seem to be much else going on in the tree.
06:08What happens across the course of the year?
06:10Well, there is something else happening.
06:12If you look carefully, we can see right here the developing nut cluster,
06:16which will be a full-grown nut sometime in late August or early September
06:21when it can be picked.
06:23How absolutely fantastic.
06:24And were this the right season, I would be able to pluck a cob nut
06:28straight off the tree and eat it, would I?
06:30Yes, you would. Absolutely.
06:32How did your family enter the world of cob nuts?
06:35It stems from my father.
06:37He bought some land in the 1970s with a nut orchard already on it,
06:43and we gradually started to expand our nut area
06:46until we became one of the larger growers of nuts in the country.
06:51John Cannon was a legend in the cob nut world.
06:56He created the Cob Nut Growers Association and spearheaded the fight
07:00against a European Union ban on the sale of fresh nuts.
07:05His passion in protecting this Kentish product earned him an MBE,
07:10as well as the nickname the Cob Nut King.
07:13Hello, Tom.
07:14Michael.
07:15Lovely to meet you.
07:16Lovely to see you.
07:17I'm Charles' nephew.
07:18Therefore, John's grandson.
07:19John's grandson, yes.
07:20Exactly.
07:21I've got you.
07:22Like his trailblazing grandfather, Tom is dedicated to the Cob Nut's future
07:35and has been finding ways to drive the industry forward.
07:39So, this is your machine room.
07:41What machines do you have here?
07:43So, there's the grader, and this is sizing the nuts on their diameter
07:48before they're cracked, and then we're taking them over to the cracker.
07:52With the Kent Cobb, it's quite a tricky nut to crack, forgive the pun,
07:55because a lot of the crackers are made for cracking spherical nuts,
07:59whereas the Kent Cobb is an oval nut.
08:02Can I give you a hand with that?
08:04Yes, certainly, yeah.
08:06Thank you very much.
08:08Nice crop.
08:10With these machines, the farm can process the nuts on a much larger scale
08:14and transform them into products with a longer shelf life.
08:18Right, let the cracking begin.
08:19Excellent.
08:23The fresh nuts have already been dried, and once released from their husks,
08:30they can be roasted and turned into other products, like granola.
08:36And Tom has been experimenting with adding them to chocolate.
08:45These are still warm out of the roasted.
08:47Yep.
08:50Oh, they're delicious.
08:51If you don't mind me saying so, you're quite a young man.
08:53You obviously think there's a future in Cobb nuts.
08:55Yeah, I'm very excited for the future of Cobb nuts.
08:57I think if we do lots of interesting things, we roast them and make Cobb nuts more accessible to more people,
09:03because not everyone wants to crack a Cobb nut.
09:05So if you can have it in a granola or in a chocolate bar, that's sort of introducing Cobb nuts to more people, which is a good thing.
09:11Tell me about this.
09:12I mean, for example, where do you get the chocolate from?
09:14So this, we've roasted the nuts, and we send this to a lovely chocolatier near Tunbridge Wells,
09:20which is in the Weald, and they mix up our roasted nuts with the chocolate.
09:25So it's a local product all the way through.
09:28Now to taste it.
09:29That's marvellous. You've cracked it.
09:40Returning to Hildenborough station, I'll head south back to the railway junction at Tunbridge.
09:52From there, I travel out of town.
09:54Two miles east lies the rural hamlet of Chudley, sitting on the edge of the High Weald.
10:06I've come to enjoy some stained glass, which is not medieval, but 20th century.
10:13The artist was Jewish and born in Belarus when it was under the Russian Tsar.
10:19And his stained glass adorns the synagogue of the Hebrew University Medical Center in Jerusalem.
10:27The building of the United Nations in New York City.
10:31And, in the tiny Kent village of Tudley, All Saints Church.
10:41I'm meeting Josephine Willoughby, an art enthusiast and member of the congregation.
10:46Josephine, hello, I'm Michael.
10:49Hello, very nice to meet you.
10:55With its striking brick tower, this small parish church is very unusual.
11:01But what we discover inside is even more remarkable.
11:05A series of stained glass windows by the great 20th century Belarusian French artist, Marc Chagall.
11:18Josephine, this is beyond all expectation.
11:22All the windows so beautiful.
11:24And this one in front of us, the largest of them.
11:28Just absolutely stunning.
11:31Yes, it does make quite an impact, doesn't it?
11:33Josephine, we're talking about the amazing artist Marc Chagall.
11:37At the time that these windows were put in, he was a global superstar.
11:42How did it happen that his windows are here in Tudley?
11:45Well, he definitely was a superstar.
11:48He didn't take up working with glass until he was in his 70s.
11:52He was introduced by his friend Matisse to the medium of glass.
11:56And he was commissioned by the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem to make the stained glass windows depicting the 12 tribes of Israel.
12:04And because he was so famous and he knew that his public would want to see what he had created, there was an exhibition at the Louvre in 1963 to which two individuals from this church went.
12:19And that's where our story begins.
12:21These individuals, who were they?
12:23So there was a family that lived up the road in this tiny hamlet of Tudley called the Davidor Goldsmiths.
12:29Sir Henry was a prominent politician, very successful businessman, and he was Jewish.
12:36But his wife, Lady Rosemary Davidor Goldsmith, was a Christian and worshipped in this church with her two daughters, Sarah and Chloe.
12:45And Sarah was mad about modern art.
12:48And she saw the Chagalls in Paris?
12:50So she went with her mother and was absolutely blown away.
12:54And when she came back, Sarah talked about nothing else.
12:55Tragically, not long afterwards, Sarah, aged 21, died in a boating accident off the coast of Rye.
13:05And her mother was determined to have a lasting memorial to her daughter.
13:10So she wrote to Chagall, as one does.
13:13And she had to write a few times, but eventually he answered her letter and accepted the commission.
13:19Is this window then related to the life and death of Sarah?
13:24It is. What I should say is that Chagall did not provide a guidebook to his glassworks.
13:30He said, you know, look and you will see what you want to see in them.
13:34But there is a weeping figure in the bottom, which is actually incredibly moving.
13:37There's a body of what we believe to be Sarah on the water with arms outstretched.
13:44There's a character on horseback, which is believed to be Sarah.
13:48Chagall believed that blue is the colour for love and red was the colour for joy.
13:53And he also said that horses were for happiness and Sarah is on horseback.
13:57Then you have the cross, the crucifix with Christ, with arms outstretched.
14:01And you have a ladder leading up to the cross with a character at the bottom and one at the top.
14:09This very poignant work was inaugurated in 1967.
14:15Chagall was here on the day of the inauguration of the East Window.
14:19He very definitely was. And he made quite an impact.
14:22He at that time was living in the south of France. He was used to much warmer climates.
14:25He was wearing a rather lightweight suit and his hostess, Lady Rosemary, noticing that her guest, the great Marc Chagall, was shivering.
14:34She offered up her fur coat to him.
14:37So in all the photographs that we have of that marvellous occasion, Chagall is wearing Lady Rosemary's fur coat, which is very amusing.
14:45On visiting the church, Chagall announced that he would like to do all the windows and went on to design another 11.
14:53This is the only church in the world to have all Chagall windows.
14:59The last was installed in 1985, the year that the artist died, aged 97.
15:05Josephine, what's it like as a parishioner living with these windows?
15:09It's an absolute privilege and an honour.
15:12And, I mean, no matter how many times you come to this church, each time you come, the experience is different.
15:18Because it depends on what the light is doing outside.
15:20Chagall believed that blue was the colour of love.
15:24And in this church, sometimes we'll be sitting, listening to a sermon, and you'll be distracted because the floor will turn blue.
15:34You will literally be enveloped in love.
15:36My tour continues southwards, and my next stop is considered a gem of the Kentish Weald.
15:54Surrounded by woods and rolling hills, it's been a popular place to visit for over 400 years.
16:14Thanks to its beautiful architecture above ground and the rich geology beneath.
16:26Royal Tunbridge Wells.
16:28The word wells implies that this was a spa.
16:32It was in 1606 that the Third Baron North first reported that he was deriving benefit from drinking the Calibut or Feruginous waters.
16:44Both words mean laced with iron.
16:47I learn something every day.
16:48..and the calibert spring that puts the wells in Tunbridge Wells still flows.
16:57Ah! Not quite.
17:00Today, the waters are behind a low iron barrier.
17:05The chance to take the waters attracted fashionable society
17:10from the 17th century onwards,
17:12and Tunbridge Wells became a popular spa resort.
17:16One of the first iron ladies was Henrietta Maria,
17:21the queen of King Charles I, who was persuaded to visit.
17:25And in the late 17th century, an elegant walk was created.
17:28It's been rebuilt several times since.
17:31It's now known as the Pantiles, a route for regal perambulation.
17:46MUSIC PLAYS
17:57From Tunbridge Wells, I continue south in the direction of Hastings.
18:01And my next stop is Roberts Bridge.
18:04MUSIC PLAYS
18:09The river Rother flows 35 miles through Kent and East Sussex,
18:22past the motive castle of Bodium to reach the English Channel at Rye.
18:26It was an important means of navigation for the Romans.
18:30The Kent and East Sussex Railway closed to passengers in 1954.
18:36But part of it is open again between Tenterton and Bodium.
18:40And it's hoped that it too could be an important route for those navigating the wheel.
18:46We will shortly be arriving at Roberts Bridge.
18:56At Roberts Bridge, I leave the main line, but not the rail network.
19:02Because although it's not quite up and running yet,
19:07this is due to become a very exciting rail interchange.
19:12With a newly created station just a few metres away, Roberts Bridge Junction.
19:21I'm meeting Trevor Streeter of the Rother Valley Railway.
19:28Trevor, here we are at Roberts Bridge Junction.
19:31You've got a great station here, but not much train activity.
19:34What's the story?
19:35Our objective is to connect two railway systems together.
19:39So, with the Kent and East Sussex at Bodium to Roberts Bridge to the main line here.
19:45So, at the moment, the Kent and East Sussex does not connect down to here.
19:49That's correct, yes. That's a gap of about three and a half miles.
19:53Presumably, trains used to run on this section.
19:55Yes, indeed.
19:56And what kind of struggle have you had to put together the line?
20:00Well, it's been a challenge for several decades.
20:05There's all the environmental aspects we have to deal with.
20:08Highways England, highways Sussex, where we've had to cross three major roads.
20:13So, the A21 being the most significant to that.
20:16Have you actually been able to lay track yet?
20:18Yes, we have.
20:19Over the last 15 years, we've laid three quarters of a mile at the Bodium end of this line.
20:24And we've laid half a mile on this end of the line.
20:27And in this first half mile are five bridges, which is quite an engineering feat.
20:32It sounds as though quite big money is involved.
20:35These projects must cost a fortune.
20:37Yes, we're talking more than seven million on this one.
20:40The importance of it is that we will be connecting the Rother Valley to the national network.
20:46And what it will mean is that people on the south coast, for example,
20:49can take a ride up to Roberts Bridge using Main Line
20:52and then a heritage experience all the way through to Tentany.
20:55The Rother Valley Railway Company was formed in 1991
21:00with the aim of reconstructing the missing three and a half miles of track.
21:04So, it's taken over 20 years to get to this point.
21:09I'm now going to take a railway journey of just half a mile,
21:12which normally would not seem significant.
21:15But it is a big step forward for the Rother Valley Railway.
21:19And this stretch of track is full of promise.
21:24Hello, Frim.
21:25Hello.
21:26What's this that we're driving?
21:28This is a British Railways Class 03.
21:32Built to replace little steam engines.
21:35Built in the early 60s or maybe late 50s.
21:38And still running reasonably well?
21:40Still runs, yes. Still runs.
21:41Is this locomotive going to be used in the construction project?
21:44Oh, yes, it will.
21:45Taking wagon loads of rail, barracks and sleepers down to the railhead
21:49and lay them in and advance as we go.
21:52My one question is, will it start?
21:54Yes, it will start. Anyone can start it. Even you can start it.
21:57I will then.
21:59Turn the switch and press the button.
22:08Here we go.
22:14So, out we popped from your beautiful Roberts Bridge Junction Station.
22:30And ahead of us now, we've got a Labour gang.
22:33We've got a whole group of people out today shoveling aggregate.
22:37So, this is a P-Way crew, permanent way crew.
22:41They are setting up the points and making them level.
22:50Ahead of us stretch some of the lovely bridges that you've built.
22:53Indeed. So, we're just going over bridge number one at the moment.
22:56This was the toughest one to build.
22:58And we're actually going over the Rother as we speak.
23:02So, it's not a very big river at this point.
23:04And coming up on our right, a very beautiful view over the cricket field.
23:16What could be more English?
23:18What could be more Wielden than this view?
23:21Indeed.
23:22This section of track goes as far as the first main road.
23:36Once work starts on the next section,
23:39it's hoped to be completed within two years.
23:48But for now, it's back the way we came.
23:52So, the Rother Valley Railway may be quite short at the moment,
23:59but it has some beautiful kit,
24:01including this very elegant turntable,
24:04onto which we are now reversing.
24:06Great excitement!
24:15A bit further for the middle.
24:20Excellent!
24:21The 1930s turntable was recovered from the Hithergreen Freight Depot
24:26in south-east London in 2020.
24:31And after a major restoration,
24:33has recently become operational.
24:37Now for a test of strength.
24:38A single man versus a locomotive.
24:42And a very well-designed turntable.
24:45Here goes.
24:46Yes!
24:47She's moving!
24:48She is moving!
24:52And at this point, it's actually getting quite easy,
24:54because momentum is now with me.
24:55This is a lesson in physics.
24:56What a beautiful piece of machinery!
25:04This is a double.
25:05Now, I have been warned that difficult as it may be to get the thing started,
25:13it is substantially harder to stop it.
25:14So I think I might refrain at this point, and see whether we end up in the right place.
25:26I think it's going to need one tiny push.
25:51What do you think? Not too bad?
26:08The Rother Valley Railway recently welcomed the steam locomotive Britannia on its metals.
26:18And it's hoped that in the next few years,
26:21engines will regularly power through Roberts Bridge Junction.
26:25And it's all thanks to the dedication and hard graft of the volunteers.
26:30Hello, merry railway workers. Are you happy in your labours?
26:39Yes!
26:40Yes!
26:41Is the Rother Valley Railway going to be a reality?
26:44Yes!
26:45I hope so.
26:46Is it going to be soon?
26:47No.
26:51Give it three years and come back again.
26:53I'd love to.
27:00When I contemplated visiting the Weald, I could anticipate an orchard,
27:21because Kent and Cobnuts go together like Devon and Clotted Cream.
27:26And going to a heritage railway was no great surprise.
27:31But the extraordinary and moving story about how a small church acquired all its windows by the artist Marc Chagall was absolutely unexpected.
27:42And it goes to show that a region is shaped not just by its geography, but also by the fortunes and misfortunes of its people.
27:52Next time in the Weald, now what tool shall I use?
27:55You can use a pair of loppers. You seem like a lopper man.
27:58Yeah, I am a lopper man. I'll use a pair of loppers. Very good.
28:03So what is this you're playing with here?
28:05So this is a model of our ExoMars rover. We're building instruments here that will actually go to Mars.
28:12This is a fantastic moment. This really is one of the sort of aristocrats of birds, isn't it?
28:17She is rather lovely.
28:24You're welcome.
28:25Thank you, sir.
28:27If you'd like to see the next time, let us know.
28:29We'll see you next time.
28:30We'll see you next time.
28:31Bye.
28:33Bye.
28:34Bye.
28:54You