Great British Railway Journeys S16E05 Chichester to Amberley
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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!
00:58As I conclude my study of the Weald, my mind will be on history.
01:09The Romans landed in Kent and in West Sussex bequeathed us a villa rich in mosaics.
01:16I'll immerse myself in the past as I move amongst buildings that span a millennium.
01:21And in one of the Weald's grandest buildings, I'll brush up against a humble-born painter.
01:30The Weald is a wooded region located between the North and South Downs.
01:35Which stretches across Kent, East and West Sussex and Surrey.
01:39And is made up of the High Weald and the Low Weald.
01:42I've been using its extensive rail network to explore and discover this fine terrain.
01:48We are now approaching Chichester, our final destination.
01:55The final part of my tour of the Weald begins in West Sussex.
02:01I'm making for Chichester, once an important Roman settlement,
02:06and now a pretty cathedral city sitting on the south-western edge of the Weald.
02:11Though still green and leafy, the Weald has changed enormously since medieval forests stretched across its rolling landscape.
02:31I'd like to imagine how people lived in past eras.
02:36And today, at a living museum, I hope to immerse myself in their daily experience.
02:42I've come to the Weald and Downland Living Museum, where a collection of historic buildings is set in 40 acres of the South Downs National Park.
03:00Its curator is Julian Bell.
03:10What a wonderful view over the village.
03:12Isn't it? Yes. Over the living museum.
03:15You've brought buildings, what, from far and wide, haven't you?
03:18Yeah. In essence, they're wheeled in the downland area of the south-east of England.
03:22The museum was set up in the mid-'60s by a guy called Roy Armstrong.
03:26It was his idea. He was an educationalist, historian.
03:29He was completely alarmed by the wholesale destruction of the built environment post-World War II,
03:35culminating in an image he saw of the centre of Crawley, town centre,
03:40where they basically bulldozed timber-framed buildings and set fire to them.
03:44So he wanted to make an impact, try and save as many buildings from the Weald and the downland area as he could.
03:50All of the 53 buildings rescued by the museum were at risk of dereliction
03:56or were casualties of developments, such as road-widening schemes or reservoirs.
04:03It's an astonishing grouping which spans from 950 AD up to 1910
04:09and represents aspects of rural life in the Weald.
04:13It feels like here you've recreated the centre of a small town.
04:16It's meant to look like that.
04:18We always try and look at where a building was originally situated.
04:22If it was a farmhouse that was located on its own somewhere, we'll try and give it a bit of space.
04:27But all these buildings would have been from a more urban setting.
04:31This one is quite intriguing.
04:32It's our market hall. It's very distinctive of a market hall.
04:35Some were bigger, some were smaller, but they generally had the two levels.
04:38This 16th century market hall came to the museum from Titchfield in Hampshire,
04:44where on market day it would have been bustling with activity, both good and bad.
04:50So this is our small jail for market day offenders.
04:54Oh my goodness.
04:56It's got straw on the floor and it's got a pail.
05:02It's got a pail.
05:06Please let me out.
05:08Please, I repent.
05:11And please give me some water.
05:14And change my pail.
05:18As well as public buildings, there are houses, working and farm buildings.
05:27And farm animals, all telling the story of Wealdon life.
05:32Agriculture was a key part of the local economy, producing food and wealth.
05:38Well, Julian, this is a splendid building, isn't it?
05:43Yeah, it's the centrepiece of the museum.
05:45This is Bayleaf, our Tudor Wealdon house.
05:47It's from Chiddingston in Kent.
05:49As with all the other buildings we've got on site, it was rescued.
05:52This would now be 30 feet under Bow Beach Reservoir.
05:55The first owner would have been what sort of person?
05:57He would have been a yeoman farmer.
05:58So the top of the sort of low status population, he would have had about 100 acres.
06:04The museum has painstakingly preserved the house and recreated the interior.
06:12Oh, wow, this is...
06:14This is majestic.
06:17Lots of surprising things about this building to me.
06:19Indeed.
06:20There isn't an upper storey as I thought there would be.
06:23And the fireplace is in the middle of the hall.
06:26That's right.
06:27Either end, there are two floors.
06:29Uh-huh.
06:30But this is the central hall, fireplace in the middle, primarily for heating.
06:33And the smoke, obviously no chimney, but we've got double height windows behind us here,
06:38which the smoke is designed to go out.
06:43Helping visitors to connect with the buildings and the lives of their inhabitants
06:48is a team of historical interpreters.
06:51Aaron, hello, I'm Michael.
06:52Hello.
06:53And you are in the costume of what?
06:56The master of bay leaf, the yeoman farmer who may have lived in this house in the mid-16th century.
07:02How wealthy is that yeoman farmer, do you think?
07:05The best way to describe him is he is farming for profit.
07:08Yes.
07:09So he has got money behind him.
07:12He can afford good clothes.
07:13We know quite a bit about the resident that lived here in the first half of the 16th century,
07:18because he has money.
07:19That's the way it was in those days.
07:21If you have money, you are leaving a record.
07:23His house is rented from his manorial lord.
07:26He has got a household probably of 10 or 11 people.
07:29There will be at least a couple of servants living in here.
07:31Servants are very different to what you think of servants today,
07:35the Downton Abbey type servant.
07:36They are very much part of their household.
07:38They are junior members of the family, if you like,
07:40and maybe cousins and distant relatives who have come here to learn.
07:46The buildings are maintained using traditional materials and methods.
07:51And one building technique has endured for centuries.
07:55Julian, wattle and daub.
07:59Indeed.
08:00What is it?
08:01Wattle is the wooden panel, or the wooden struts that form the background of the panel.
08:05Daub is the old-fashioned plaster that goes on top of it.
08:08And there's a section of wattle that needs its daub.
08:12Do we have a stick to mix it with?
08:14I'm afraid not. That's down to your feet.
08:16In you get.
08:18First thing we need is some water.
08:25Next is regular dirt.
08:27This is when you start the stamp around.
08:33There.
08:34And a bit of straw.
08:35Put the interesting bit in now.
08:37Ah, the interesting bit?
08:39Is cow dung.
08:40Which is why I'm putting some gloves on.
08:44It's quite dry.
08:51There's a certain fragrance.
08:52Not one of the world's leading brands, but, hmm, it's up there.
08:56And then all we're going to do is just pop it on.
08:59So, push it right in.
09:02And try and get it in between the cracks formed by the wattles.
09:09So it's got something to grip on when it dries.
09:12I learnt about wattle and daub at primary school.
09:16I'm sure it was in one of my lessons.
09:17Yeah.
09:18Indeed.
09:19I've never actually seen it.
09:20And, you know, it's one thing to hear about it in class.
09:23Another thing to see it.
09:25And, er, it's a third thing altogether actually to do it.
09:28This is indicative of what we do at the museum.
09:30We really like people that have a go at things.
09:32I'm absolutely loving it.
09:33I'm as happy as a pig in daub.
09:35The next stop on my tour will be Pullborough Station.
09:50It's connected to Chichester by the West Coastway line,
09:54running eastwards to Brighton,
09:56and then the main line north that connects the south coast
09:59to the capital.
10:00The route passes through the stunning landscape
10:03of the South Downs National Park.
10:07I'm headed to a place with strong ties to an artist
10:11who's not immediately associated with the Weald.
10:16The painter, J.M.W. Turner, was born in London.
10:19And although he was successful as an artist,
10:22in later life he became morose and eccentric and lived in squalor.
10:26So it may seem odd to look for his legacy
10:29in one of Britain's best-known stately homes.
10:32He enjoyed the patronage of aristocrats.
10:36And so one of the finest private collections of his work
10:39remains today in the Weald at Petworth House.
10:48We are now approaching Pullborough.
10:53Pullborough is today the nearest station to the town of Petworth,
10:57a very pretty market town five miles away.
11:04Petworth used to have its own station on a branch line from Pullborough to Midhurst,
11:09and I've managed to track it down just outside the town.
11:13Well, I have been to many railway premises in my time,
11:18but few buildings as beautiful as old Petworth station.
11:24Isn't that gorgeous?
11:26With just the minor disadvantage that no trains depart from here.
11:31Petworth was a single-platform station,
11:35part of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway.
11:38But passenger services ended in 1955.
11:43And now it's a bed and breakfast.
11:47Hello!
11:48Hello, welcome.
11:49Thank you. Welcome to the old railway station, Michael.
11:51You're Jenny, aren't you?
11:52I am, yes. Nice to meet you.
11:54Um, Jenny, this is such a beautiful place.
11:56Thank you very much.
11:57Should we take a walk along the platform?
11:58Absolutely. I'll step outside with you.
12:02Jenny, this building dates back to when?
12:04So this building was built in 1892.
12:07It replaced the original Petworth station that was built in 1859, I believe.
12:13And now, ahead of us, all these, what, Pullman cars, aren't they?
12:18Yes, original Pullman carriages.
12:21I believe it's the largest collection of Pullmans in private ownership,
12:25dating from 1912 is our earliest,
12:29and 1923, Flora and Montana.
12:33All the Pullman carriages have ensuite bathrooms.
12:36Some of them have got their original marquetry.
12:39The restoration work extends from the carriages to the buildings.
12:44How lovely.
12:46It's old waiting room has been put to good use as a dining room.
12:56As I know to my advantage, the railway buff is an insatiable beast.
13:01Never to be satisfied with any number of journeys across countless countries by day and by night.
13:08But then must be accommodated in a Pullman carriage and served an English cream tea in an old waiting room.
13:20Petworth station surely had to be of quality as it was built to serve visitors travelling to one of the grandest stately homes in the country, Petworth House.
13:34In the Middle Ages, it was owned by the Percy family, the earls of Northumberland, and today it's in the stewardship of the National Trust.
13:44I'm meeting the house's curator, Emily Knight.
13:48Emily, hello.
13:49Hello.
13:50Hi. Welcome to Petworth.
13:51It's great to be at Petworth.
13:52And what a stunning house it is, isn't it?
13:54It's an amazing house.
13:55I mean, there's a very long history at Petworth, but this building is really the result of a major rebuilding project in the late 17th century.
14:03At the time, the gardens here were very formal, but it was all swept away by Capability Brown in the mid-18th century, and that's what we see today.
14:10And tell me please about some of the owners.
14:12I'm interested in an Egremont, who apparently was a great collector of art.
14:16Yes, the third Earl of Egremont is perhaps the best known of the owners of Petworth, and he was a very passionate collector and patron of contemporary British art.
14:26And he often invited artists to come to Petworth to spend time looking at the collection, absorbing the landscape.
14:33So we have artists like Thomas Phillips, the sculpture of Francis Leggett Chantry, and perhaps most famously, J.M.W. Turner,
14:41who came here every year from 1827 to 1837, which was the year that the third Earl died.
14:46I'm rather hoping you're going to tell me that those artists left something behind here.
14:50Yes, there's a lot to see inside.
14:55The 17th century remodelling of Petworth created opulent French baroque-style interiors meant to display wealth and taste.
15:04In the 18th century, the third Earl of Egremont used his tenure to collect and exhibit great art.
15:13My word, Emily.
15:15What an extraordinary room.
15:17What a sight this is.
15:19The paintings are stacked three high.
15:21There's hardly a square inch of wall that isn't covered.
15:24Is this Egremont's gallery?
15:25Yes, this is the Norse gallery.
15:27And really it says a lot about the third Earl and his collecting, but also his father.
15:32So his father, the second Earl of Egremont, he was a huge collector of ancient statuary.
15:38I'm stunned.
15:42The third Earl collected and also patronised artists such as Turner, whose most important commissions are hung in what is known as the carved room.
15:53This carving is largely by Grinling Gibbons, and he was really the most important carver in 17th century England.
16:01I think you could probably study these carvings for weeks and months and not come to the end of seeing everything that's on offer.
16:09We're here in particular to see the turners, which at least in size are quite modest.
16:14Mm-hmm.
16:15Here they are. They're pretty recognisable.
16:17Yes, here they are.
16:18So these were commissioned by the third Earl of Egremont in 1827.
16:23And so we see here Petworth Park.
16:25What's beyond our windows, this is it.
16:28This is right up by the lake.
16:29All of the views that we have here are of sunset scenes.
16:33We can see the deer.
16:34We have a huge herd of fallow deer to this day in the park.
16:38And it gives a sense of the sort of calm of the end of the day with that amazing way that Turner was able to capture light from a single source in the centre of the canvas.
16:46Yeah.
16:47It's very familiar.
16:48What I call a weepy sun that Turner was so fond of painting.
16:52Magnificent.
16:54The third Earl also commissioned Turner to paint projects into which he had put financial investments.
17:01Brighton Suspension Chain Pier opened in 1823.
17:05And Chichester Canal in 1822.
17:08And then finally we have this painting of Petworth Park.
17:11We can see a cricket match over here, fallow deer gathered, sheep running down the hill.
17:17Again, all suffused in this very soft sunset light.
17:20And the idea with these paintings was that this was a dining room.
17:24They're unusually wide and hung low.
17:26And the idea was that as you sat down at dinner, this was at your eye level.
17:30So you could look out to the landscape on one side, Capability Brown's landscape, and then turn around and see Turner's interpretation of it.
17:37So it was a very immersive experience being in this room.
17:40The Earl hosted many artists at Petworth House, including Turner, who stayed on the estate and dined with him in the evenings.
17:49And away from the formal rooms, Turner and others were given studio space.
17:59Ooh!
18:01What a surprise!
18:02Emily, I feel you're showing me behind the scenes of Petworth and not a room I expect that many people to see.
18:12This is the old library, but it's got this amazing window bringing in all this easterly light.
18:17So it's a very attractive place for artists to come and work and to paint.
18:20And Turner was one of those artists. He came in here. We've got records of watercolours that he painted here, particularly showing other artists at work.
18:28Now, which other artists that I might have heard of were here?
18:31One of the most famous artists who came to Petworth was John Constable.
18:34And in fact, his work was never acquired by the Third Earl, much to his dismay.
18:39You're giving me an impression that there was a collection of people here, almost like a school of art.
18:44It was a sort of unusually relaxed environment where they could all mingle and talk about this great house and collection.
18:52Turner created over 100 works at Petworth, 20 of which are hung here, making this one of the largest Turner collections outside London.
19:02And you as curator, with your responsibility for all the works of art across many centuries, do you feel some special draw towards this little episode in the 19th century?
19:11Hugely. I mean, it's a fascinating story, that relationship between the Third Earl and Turner.
19:15And when we're standing in spaces like this, literally in the footsteps of those artists, it's forever inspiring.
19:22I'm now heading south of Pullborough, on a section of rail known as the Aran Valley Line, to Ambly Station for my final stop.
19:43And the rich landscape that seems to have changed little in centuries continues.
19:51In most respects, the inhabitants of these islands must have struck the Roman invaders as primitive.
19:57Their government and society were chaotic, compared with the well-ordered structures of the Empire.
20:03Here, here in the Weald, the incomers chose to show off their superior skills in architecture and art.
20:14Ambly sits on the River Aran and boasts a stunning 900-year-old castle.
20:20I'm heading north-west to an even older place.
20:25The vast villa at Bignor was built because the Romans had found such bounty in the Weald.
20:39James Kenny is the archaeologist at Chichester District Council.
20:43Hello, good morning. James, when the Romans invade in 43 AD, arriving probably in Kent, what do they find here?
20:53They find a fairly well-established, well-managed agricultural system.
21:00They had coins, they were exchanging goods and services.
21:04The principal thing that the Romans bring is their market economy.
21:06They build cities, towns within which commerce develops, such as Chichester, which is about 10 miles to the southwest.
21:14The Romans brought bricks and window glass, and they brought locks, and they brought doors, and they brought bathhouses, and they brought aqueducts.
21:23So they brought a sophistication of society that this country had never seen.
21:28What use did the Romans make of the natural resources, the trees and the iron?
21:31Further up into the Weald, there is iron stone, and the Iron Age population, they utilised it on a small scale.
21:38The Romans came along and utilised it on a vast scale.
21:41Let's think about lifestyles. Britons and Romans, what were the lifestyles?
21:45So, very few Romans would have come to Britain.
21:48What they did was they Romanised the population.
21:51They persuaded the local elite to become Romans, so they bathed in bathhouses.
21:55They wanted mosaic floors, they wanted to drink wine, they wanted to eat the finest Roman food.
22:01James, I see here a pattern of maybe foundations. Tell me about this.
22:05So these are tarmac laid out on the surface, but directly on top of where we know from archaeological evidence that there were walls.
22:12So we have here picked out the walls of part of the west wing of the Roman villa that seems to have been built in about 200 AD.
22:18Then, of course, come the early fourth century, they start to establish another wing along the north side, one along the south, and then a corridor between the two.
22:29So you're then forming a complete courtyard.
22:32So what we know now is that this really was quite a spectacular house.
22:36Yes, at its greatest development in the first half of the fourth century AD, it's one of the biggest Roman villas that we have in the country.
22:42It has the finest mosaics that we have in the country. So it's going to be one of the richer people, one of the people who did best out of the Romans.
22:55Over the years, the occupants created a magnificent villa.
23:00The museum's assistant manager is Liz Leggett.
23:03Liz, you have here beautiful Roman mosaics, colourful, large, sophisticated. How were they discovered?
23:12Well, they were discovered in July 1811 by a local farmer by the name of George Tupper.
23:18Very exciting day for him. Not necessarily for what he was about to discover, but he just got himself a brand new plough.
23:25And this new plough just dug a little bit deeper than anything he had before.
23:29And so when trying it out, he actually struck this stone here, which we now know to be a piscina, which is an ornamental water basin.
23:39What room do we imagine we're in here?
23:41We believe this to be their summer dining room.
23:44They were all for their seasonal rooms.
23:46This one, there is no evidence of a hypocaust, which is an underfloor heating system.
23:50The basin there would have been a focal point and, of course, also the highly decorated mosaic floor here itself would have formed part of the entertainment when our family were dining.
24:04Surrounding the water basin here, we have got some fragments of some dancing ladies.
24:08Not any old ladies, though. These are my nads, who were the followers of the god Bacchus.
24:13Of course, Bacchus was the god of wine and, of course, fertility and partying.
24:17To protect these remarkable remains, in the early 19th century, buildings of local flint and thatch were erected above them and still stand today.
24:36Whoa, what a splendid room with noble dimensions. What is it?
24:40This is our winter dining room. The hole in the middle of the floor here is our hypocaust, which is, of course, the underfloor heating system.
24:49There is a pit outside the building here with a tunnel, a tunnel which connects to this chamber here, which would have had a mosaic over the top, therefore invisible to the eye.
25:00In the entrance to that tunnel, there would have been a fire and all the heat and the smoke would have been drawn into this area and, as the heat was rising, it would warm up the floor.
25:10The floor heating. It's quite extraordinary, isn't it?
25:13But it doesn't stop there. The smaller tunnels leading off the main chamber will carry the heat through the rest of the floor and then it will go up through the walls out of little chimney pots above.
25:25And, actually, in the chimneys there would have been some small holes enabling some of the heat to be absorbed into the walls, like an invisible radiator.
25:33Superb technology. Tell us about the beautiful mosaic.
25:36The main image at the top there is the head of the goddess Venus and she is flanked by some rather beautiful birds.
25:45These birds are unusual because, unlike the rest of the mosaics that have been laid using local natural stone, those birds have been laid with glass, which was an incredibly expensive material at the time and really showed how wealthy and powerful our family here would have been.
26:01And what's the frieze across there?
26:03Ah, yes, our gladiators. But they're not any old gladiators. These are our cupid gladiators. So they are performing a gladiatorial battle. But when you look closely at them, you'll see they all have wings.
26:14The mosaics are some of the most complete and intricate in the country. And at its peak, the Villa Abigna had 65 rooms. After three centuries of habitation, it was abandoned, likely coinciding with the Roman withdrawal from Britain in the early 5th century.
26:35What a beautiful and sumptuous bathhouse. Isn't that extraordinary? This would have been enclosed in a building, I suppose.
26:44It would. There would have been a lovely large domed roof over the top. This bath that you see here is the cold plunge or frigidarium. There were two other baths which have been covered over to protect them.
26:54And although this building would have been enclosed at the time, you and I now can enjoy this fantastic view and pay tribute to the Romans. On top of all their other achievements, they were early appreciators of the wield.
27:09This investigation of the wield.
27:38has opened my eyes to a region whose identity precedes the invention of counties. Its people made the most of their natural blessings of wood and iron and introduced pigs and sheep and fruits of the forest to become wealthy.
27:55It remains prosperous today. Its trees are still its outstanding feature, crowding the green slopes and valleys. And its beauty overwhelms the visitor.
28:10Next time, I'm on the locomotive which is going to make contact now with the flat wagons that move spent nuclear fuel around Britain.
28:22What are the native species that are important to you in particular?
28:25It's like after me, who's my favourite child?
28:29Skimming across the tops of those hills, watching the tiny people at the top of the summits who've gone up the hard way. Or maybe I've gone up the hard way, I don't know.
28:41No.
28:42No.
28:43No.
28:44No.
28:46No.
28:47No.
28:48No.
28:49No.
28:50No.
28:51No.
28:52Infl KEY.
28:53OLD