Narrator: Southern England.
Heartland of an empire forged from empires...
Where 3,000 years of history
Rub shoulders with a little eccentricity.
Meet defiant rebels from the 1960s
Who refuse to act their age...
And where a leap of faith can fulfill your dreams.
Soar above a land where heroes are born
And classic fiction becomes real.
From the soaring cliffs where a mythical king emerged
To a shining city
Where a king's ransom is a pittance...
Where all the world's a stage.
And every wall a blank canvas...
To a place where a genius for invention
Spans centuries...
And trains depart from dry land,
Then disappear beneath the sea.
This is southern England as you've never seen it before.
♪
The idyllic rolling fields
Of the cotswolds in southern England,
Where the peace of early morning is interrupted
By the passage of an unusual convoy.
You may recall the film "the italian job."
You may know the modern equivalent of these cars
Are produced by a german manufacturer.
But for steve priest,
His mum sue,
And best mate neil alcock,
There's nothing more english than a classic austin mini.
In the 1969 heist movie starring michael caine,
A band of gold thieves
Make their escape in three mini coopers,
Each one representing a color of the union jack--
Red, white, and blue.
The movie would confer the little racers
With legendary status.
The brainchild of automotive engineer sir alec issigonis,
The mini would revolutionize how small cars were made.
Voted the most influential car of the twentieth century,
Nearly five million rolled off the assembly lines
Between 1959 and 2000,
Many of which are still on the road today.
Steve's enduring love of all things mini
Led to a sideline business hiring out wedding cars--
An unlikely contrast to his day job
At the ministry of defense.
There's something quintessentially english
About that.
Then again, this is southern England,
Which, some say,
Is about as quintessential as englishness gets.
♪
For 2,000 years,
The town of dover on the south coast
Has been the gateway to britain.
Today it's one of the world's busiest passenger ports.
Back in 43 a.D.,
When the roman emperor claudius
Sent his galleys to invade britain,
This was their first sight of land--
The white cliffs of dover.
Here the romans faced
A seemingly impregnable natural defense--
A great sea wall rising 350 feet,
Dominating the southern coast of kent.
Rather than storm it, they avoided it,
Establishing a beachhead 14 miles to the north.
And so began 400 years of colonization.
By the end of the second century,
Roman britain was divided into two provinces,
North and south.
In the south, on a crossing point of the river thames,
They built their largest and most important city,
Londinium...
Known since the middle ages as london.
London has been the centerpiece of empire,
And for 100 years until 1925,
The world's largest city.
Spread out over 600 square miles,
The city is home to 8.7 million people
Speaking 300 languages.
♪
After 2,000 years,
It remains one of the wealthiest
And most culturally diverse capitals on the planet.
The river thames has been central to london's economy
Since the time of the romans.
In the 19th century,
These tidal waters framed the busiest port in the world.
Lovingly if harshly dubbed "dirty old river"
By ray davies of the kinks,
The thames has been the muse of dickens and conrad,
Immortalized in the paintings of turner, whistler, and monet.
♪
The days of the great river port may be over,
But the thames is still a busy thoroughfare...
And a place where london's famed entrepreneurial spirit lives on.
In 2014, phillip otto, originally from south africa,
Set up thames limos--
A luxury charter boat service for clients
With a thousand dollars an hour to spend
And no time to waste.
Out here on the river,
Phillip provides many celebrity clients
With a welcome break
From the prying lenses of the paparazzi.
With its distinctive union jack livery,
Phillip's boat is similar in design
To that of the famous hand-crafted water taxis
Of venice.
With celebrity clients including taylor swift and justin bieber,
Phillip remains the limo driver of choice
To the rich and famous.
Some celebrities consider tower bridge
To be the capital's most iconic landmark...
But londoners have their own favorite.
♪
At times of national celebration,
This is where londoners come together.
Trafalgar square--
Overshadowed by a 170-foot memorial
To one of England's greatest naval heroes,
Admiral horatio nelson.
Named after the great sea battle of 1805
Where nelson defeated napoleon's navy,
Trafalgar square could have lost its centerpiece
If history had taken a different course.
Documents uncovered in germany after world war ii
Show that, if hitler had triumphed over britain,
He planned to take the statue as a trophy,
Relocating it to berlin.
It's 11 a.M.,
And crowds have gathered outside buckingham palace
For the famous changing of the guard,
A handover of security duties
That has taken place almost every day since 1660.
The queen's household division
Includes soldiers from seven elite infantry regiments.
Their primary duty is to protect the royal family.
Since 1838,
There have been only 12 unauthorized entries
To the palace.
The most famous, in 1982,
Saw londoner michael fagan
Access the bedroom where the queen was sleeping
Before he was arrested for trespass.
The law has since been changed,
Making such intrusions a criminal offense.
♪
Perhaps the most notorious unwanted intrusion
In english history
Took place more than 400 years ago
At the palace of westminster, the seat of british government.
Here, in 1605,
A band of catholic rebels hatched an elaborate plan
To assassinate the protestant king james I.
In passageways running beneath the building,
They hid 36 barrels of gunpowder--
Enough to level the palace and kill everyone inside.
The plan was eventually discovered,
And the king escaped.
But the rebel leader, guy fawkes,
And his fellow conspirators
Met a grisly fate--
Every one of them hung, drawn, and quartered.
Every year on guy fawkes night, November 5th,
England commemorates the foiling of the gunpowder plot.
Naturally, celebrations include the setting off of fireworks.
♪
Anyone familiar with westminster
Will notice that something's amiss.
The 315-foot elizabeth tower
Housing the great iron bell known as big ben...
One of london's most iconic landmarks
Currently wrapped in scaffolding.
Weighing almost 14 tons,
The peals of big ben have marked the hour for 150 years.
Perhaps the most identifiable sound in london.
Today, with the tower in the midst
Of a maintenance program due for completion in 2021,
Big ben's victorian mechanism
Has been disconnected from the clock face.
Though londoners can still see the time,
The familiar chimes are, for now, silenced.
♪
Behind the houses of parliament
Stand the imposing gothic towers of westminster abbey.
Since the middle ages,
It has seen the coronation of nearly every british monarch,
Including william the conqueror.
Arriving from France in 1066,
William's forces marched on london.
Here at westminster abbey on christmas day,
He was crowned king of England.
The new king would stamp his authority on the capital
With a great symbol of his power,
The tower of london.
Constructed on the original roman site of londinium,
The tower's fearsome reputation would endure for centuries.
In its time, it has been a fortress,
A place of execution,
A royal mint,
And a high-security jail.
Since the 13th century,
It's also been the country's most prestigious vault,
Guarding the crown jewels,
Estimated to be worth at least $4 billion.
♪
One of london's greatest treasures
Is the creativity that continues to emerge from its streets.
But in a city of eight million people,
Those streets can get a little crowded.
Skate parks like this one in the east of the city
Offer freedom and the space to express it.
Shajee shazad has been a skateboarder
Since he was nine years old.
He loves the lifestyle, the technical challenge,
And the connection it offers.
When he's not skating,
He produces video content for social media,
Filming his fellow skaters all over london.
In a sport that's all about
Individuality and self-expression,
Anything goes.
No formality,
No dress code,
No rules to follow.
Elsewhere, there's an entirely different kind of energy
Driving this city forward.
♪
London is the world's leading financial center,
Surpassing both new york and hong kong.
It generates $600 billion every year,
Roughly 30% of the entire british economy.
And most of that business
Takes place in this famous quarter.
Known as "the city" or "the square mile,"
It contains london's historic center
And primary business district.
The square mile trades more u.S. Dollars every year
Than new york.
The foreign exchange market alone
Has a daily global turnover of nearly $3 trillion.
♪
Some of its most distinctive features
Are the skyscrapers that rise from its historic streets,
Most of which have been nicknamed by londoners.
The leadenhall building,
Aka "the cheese grater"...
20 fenchurch street,
Otherwise known as "the walkie talkie"...
And 30 st mary axe...
"the gherkin."
Designed by the renowned british architect lord norman foster,
The gherkin was constructed using 22 miles of steel
And 260,000 square feet of external glass.
♪
Even at a mere 591 feet,
The tower attracted controversy during its construction,
With local businesses concerned at the shadow it would cast.
Completed in 2003,
It was london's second tallest building.
Today it's the tenth tallest.
But in the hearts of many londoners,
It will always be number one.
Southwest of central london,
The all England lawn tennis and croquet club,
Also known as wimbledon,
Venue of the oldest and most prestigious tennis tournament
In the world.
Every summer it holds one of the four grand slam tournaments
And the only one still played entirely on grass.
With the main event just a week away,
All access, especially to the famous center court,
Is forbidden,
Except for the groundskeepers who maintain it.
Watering the courts is a precise art,
Maintaining a fine balance
Between the greenness of the ryegrass court
And the firmness of the soil beneath.
[crowd cheering]
Every day during the tournament,
Ground staff measure the consistency
Of the playing surface
To minimize wear
And ensure a consistent ball speed.
Some say tennis is the most quintessentially english
Of all sports.
Others disagree.
Cricket, as the late comedian robin williams once said,
"is basically baseball on valium."
But for fast bowler sam harris,
It's a serious business.
He is cricket's equivalent to a baseball pitcher.
Opening the attack for exeter university,
He launches a six-ounce stitched leather ball
At over 90 miles per hour
Towards the opposing batsman,
Straining every sinew to bowl him out.
[cheering]
This game has a genuine connection
To one of america's favorite sports.
The devon town of exeter was the birthplace
Of sportswriter henry chadwick of brooklyn--
A 19th-century immigrant to america,
Once known as the father of baseball.
As well as working tirelessly
To promote the sport in its early days,
Chadwick would create baseball's
All-important statistical summary--
The box score--
Adapting it from the cricket scorecard.
Extending like a two-pronged fork
Into the celtic sea,
The peninsula of cornwall is as far west as England goes...
Which is why land's end at cornwall's western tip
Is known as the first and last of England.
Like the welsh and scottish,
The cornish people are a distinct celtic nation
With their own language
And an enviable home
In one of britain's most evocative coastal landscapes.
Cornwall is a place where many great stories begin,
Including that of England's most legendary king.
♪
Here, perched on a dramatic headland in north cornwall,
Is the ancient ruin of tintagel castle.
This, according to the medieval historian geoffrey of monmouth,
Was where uther pendragon and lady igraine
Conceived their son, arthur--
A boy who would one day become britain's greatest king.
Mythical hero or historical figure,
His story resonates to this day.
The legends of king arthur,
Camelot,
The chivalrous knights of the round table,
The magical sword of excalibur,
And the quest for the holy grail
Are still written into the english landscape.
Perhaps the most famous of those legends resides here.
St. Michael's tower is all that remains of a 14th-century church
Built at the summit of glastonbury tor in somerset.
Known as the isle of avalon,
This was the mythical realm where king arthur slept,
Ready to return to his people in their hour of need.
♪
The great cone-shaped hill
Is one of England's most ancient spiritual sites--
First pagan, then later a place of christian worship.
It was even said to contain the holy grail--
The cup used by jesus at the last supper.
A sacred relic as central to arthurian legend
As the king himself.
♪
Somerset has another claim to fame.
This county is the home of apple cider,
And the english drink more of it than anyone else in the world.
West bradley orchards is a family-run business--
70 acres of apple trees
Nestled in the countryside beneath glastonbury tor.
September is harvest time.
Playwright neil bebber and his partner emma prentice
Come here every year to pick their own fruit.
England's love of cider
Dates back to the time of william the conqueror.
The normans planted thousands of orchards all over England.
Indirectly,
The fruit of those trees played an unexpected role
At a pivotal time in american history.
In 1620, when the mayflower sailed to the new world,
A beam of the ship was badly damaged during a storm.
The crew considered turning back,
But the story goes
That an iron screw from a cider press
Was used as a brace,
And the ship continued on.
On arriving in the new world,
The pilgrims planted the precious apple seeds
They had brought with them.
They would grow into the first apple trees
In the colonies of new England.
♪
Stratford-upon-avon--
The birthplace of England's greatest playwright,
William shakespeare.
Shakespeare's plays are so well known
And his genius so universally accepted
That inevitably conspiracy theories abound.
One school of thought even disputes the fact
That shakespeare was the author of great plays
Like "king lear" and "hamlet."
It questions
How such a humble man with no formal education
Could have written the great masterpieces
That bear his name.
♪
Shakespeare was born and raised in this house on henley street
In the center of stratford.
In 1585, he left to find his fortune in london.
According to detractors,
His plays were far too sophisticated
To have been conceived by someone
From a small provincial town.
They also point to the fact
That there are few accounts of shakespeare's life in london
Or his funeral in 1616.
Unusual for such a famous and talented man.
Shakespeare is buried here
In the chancel of stratford's holy trinity church,
Where he had been baptized 52 years before.
Despite the conspiracy theories,
Few serious historians doubt shakespeare's claim to fame.
In the back garden of the house on henley street
Is a small outdoor theatre
Where students regularly perform the bard's greatest works.
Right now, young actors jonathan youl and lorenna white
Are rehearsing a production of "the taming of the shrew."
♪
Since the first play he saw here in stratford as a child,
Jonathan has always wanted to be an actor.
Lorenna,
Who asked for the complete works of shakespeare
On her seventh birthday,
Is also living a dream,
Performing in the very garden
Where the great writer once played as a child.
Who knows?
One day, both could even end up on stage
At stratford-upon-avon's
World-famous royal shakespeare theatre,
Proving ground
Of some of the world's greatest actors and directors.
♪
Shakespeare's plays are so eminently quotable,
They have even transcended the stage.
Politicians, in particular,
Have always been keen to sprinkle their oratory
With the words of the bard.
One esteemed english statesman,
Sir winston churchill,
Could recite whole tracts of shakespearean dialogue
From memory.
Once home to the daughter of america's richest businessman...
This was also the accidental birthplace
Of England's most celebrated prime minister.
♪
Blenheim palace in oxfordshire
Is the principal residence of the dukes of marlborough.
It is one of England's largest homes--
A masterpiece of the early 18th-century baroque style.
In 1895, as its owners struggled with vast maintenance costs,
Blenheim was saved from ruin
When the 9th duke married the american railroad heiress
Consuelo vanderbilt.
A huge dowry given by the bride's parents,
Alva and william vanderbilt--
The modern equivalent of $62 million--
Would save blenheim from ruin.
20 years earlier,
The palace had witnessed another equally welcome
But unexpected arrival.
Accompanying her husband on a visit to his ancestral home,
The heavily pregnant lady randolph churchill
Suddenly went into labor.
Their son,
The future prime minister winston churchill,
Was accidentally born here on the 30th of November 1874.
♪
Great estates like blenheim were once open plan.
Without fences,
Fields literally stretched for miles,
Until a 19th century act of parliament
Made the building of boundary walls compulsory.
Now the horses of wealthy fox hunting landowners
Had obstacles to overcome.
And in time, a national sport was born.
Showjumping.
And it's alice keen's passion.
♪
Alice developed a love of riding from the age of five,
Attending small pony events near her home in southwest England.
In time, success brought confidence
And ponies became horses.
Weighing in at almost half a ton,
9-year-old apollo needs a rider
With a sure hand and steady nerves.
At formal events,
He and alice face obstacles of up to six feet high.
But not today.
Alice's parents run this equestrian center near bristol
As a full-time business.
For the last few years, it's been alice's playground
And a welcome break from her full-time job
As a small animal vet.
Whether in sport, leisure, or even art,
The horse looms large in England's history.
♪
Carved into these upper slopes of the berkshire downs
Over 3,000 years ago
Is one of the most intriguing pieces of land art in England.
The uffington white horse.
The significance
Of the 360-foot-long prehistoric figure
Is unclear.
But its alignment with the midwinter sun
Suggests a prehistoric spiritual connection.
It may even represent an ancient celtic deity.
Over the centuries,
It would inspire the creation of similar land art
All around britain.
There are many white horses,
But there is only one rude man.
It's dawn on the first day of summer.
On a hill near the village of cerne abbas in dorset,
A group of dancers welcome the rising sun.
The centuries-old ritual
May well have something to do with this...
The cerne abbas giant,
England's most controversial land art.
The origins of the huge chalk figure
Are lost in time.
For one obvious reason,
Many believe it depicts an ancient fertility god.
At one time, postcards of the giant
Were the only indecent images that could be legally sent
Through the english post office.
Morris dancing dates back over 600 years.
Once banned by english puritans,
It was revived by 17th-century farm laborers
Who would dress up and perform for money
When work was scarce.
♪
Troupes like the wessex morris men
Are happy to perform for free.
♪
Retired teacher jeremy wilton has been dancing for 40 years.
Keen on keeping the ancient tradition alive,
He travels all over the south of England,
Performing at festivals and gatherings.
The dance itself has traveled even further.
English emigrants brought it across the atlantic,
And today, there are at least 150 morris dance groups
Active in the united states.
Stretching for 95 miles along the coast of devon and dorset
Is England's first designated natural world heritage site.
An extraordinary story written in stone...
Where 185 million years of geological time
Can be read like the pages of a book.
Here at east cliff beach,
The wind and waves have exposed layers of sedimentary rock
And opened a window to the ancient past.
Contained within the cliff face
Is an almost complete record
Of the triassic, jurassic, and cretaceous periods.
The layers show this area's progression
From desert to shallow tropical sea and marshland,
Complete with the fossilized remains
Of creatures that once lived here.
♪
This is the magnificent natural limestone arch of durdle door,
Formed by coastal erosion about 140 million years ago.
The name derives from the old english word "thirl,"
Meaning "to pierce."
For many years, the arch has featured in art and literature
From the poetry of thomas hardy
To the backdrop of films from "nanny mcphee"
To "far from the madding crowd."
♪
10 miles west of durdle door,
Chesil beach on the dorset coast
Is a spectacular 18-mile pebble strand
Linking the mainland to the isle of portland.
Rising 50 feet high,
The beach has seen many shipwrecks.
During the age of sail,
Vessels were regularly driven ashore
By the fierce currents of the english channel.
The pebbles of the strand increase gradually
From pea-sized at the northwest
To orange-sized at the isle of portland.
It is said
That smugglers landing here in the dead of night
Could judge exactly where they were
By the size of the stones underfoot.
During world war ii,
The sparse population of the surrounding coast
Allowed the beach to be used as a bomb testing range
By the royal air force.
♪
In the years between the two world wars,
A whole generation of british youngsters
Were enthralled by the daring exploits
Of fictional flying ace biggles.
The creation of english writer w.E. Johns,
Pilot james bigglesworth of the royal flying corps
Was a dashing gentleman hero
Whose adventures regularly featured planes
Just like this one.
Hugely popular in England to this day,
The books have inspired many would-be young aviators
To train as pilots.
Annabelle burroughes has had a passion for planes
Since she was a young girl.
Today, she pilots this de havilland tiger moth--
A classic biplane from the 1930s.
As a lifelong fan of the biggles books,
Flying was the only thing she ever wanted to do.
After gaining her pilot's wings,
She went on to become one of the few women
To gain a coveted d.A. Aerobatic license.
But today, she's flying just for the fun of it.
♪
At henstridge airfield in somerset,
Annabelle trains future pilots
At what was once a world war ii aviation school.
In 2017, her skills came to the fore
When she saved the lives of three passengers,
Skillfully landing her plane after it caught fire mid-flight.
A feat worthy of james bigglesworth himself.
♪
Many servicemen wounded during the first world war
Ended up here, at the seaside town of brighton.
This is the royal pavilion,
A former seaside residence of king george iv,
Converted in 1914 to a military hospital
Specializing in the treatment and rehabilitation of amputees.
The pavilion 's elaborate domes and minarets
Reflected the extravagant tastes of the king
And his fascination with the culture of india.
But the architecture had another unintended positive influence.
Many soldiers from the indian army
Wounded on the western front
Would find comfort in the strange familiarity
Of their surroundings.
♪
Since the middle ages,
England has been known as a wellspring
Of literature, science, and scholarship--
A reputation forged in part
By two of the world's most prestigious seats of learning.
Known as "the city of dreaming spires,"
Oxford is home to one of them--
The oldest university in the english-speaking world.
Less than a hundred miles away on the river cam,
Cambridge is the second.
Between them,
The two universities have produced
42 of britain's 56 prime ministers
And a combined 148 nobel prize winners.
Needless to say, competition between the two is intense,
And it's not just academic.
♪
It's 6 a.M.,
And as the first weary commuters make their way into the city,
The cambridge university women's boat club
Are already halfway through their morning workout.
Sarah carlotti sits in the stern of the boat,
Acting as stroke.
During races,
It's her job to set the pace and timing of the oar blades.
In 2018,
Cambridge won the women's boat race title
For the second year in a row,
Beating fierce rivals oxford by seven lengths.
Preparing for next year's varsity race
On the thames in london
Will involve six grueling months of daily practice
For sarah and the crew.
Combining all this
With the equally rigorous demands of academic life
Is no easy challenge.
Then again,
Another win over oxford will make it all worthwhile.
♪
Some place names offer no clue about the places they describe.
But not here.
This is bath in somerset,
100 miles west of london,
A popular spa town for centuries.
This ornate structure is a bath house.
Fed by natural thermal springs,
It was built by the romans in the first century a.D.--
One of only two surviving roman baths
That still have hot water running through them.
♪
Nearby is the royal crescent,
A terrace of luxurious homes built by wealthy londoners
1,500 years after the time of the romans.
Keen to sample the curative properties
Of bath's natural hot springs,
They came, they saw,
And they brought their georgian architecture with them.
The town's distinctive honey-hued palladian buildings
Contribute to bath's unique air of timelessness
And make it a favorite filming location
For period dramas.
[gull squawking]
♪
Thanks to the popularity of shows like "downton abbey,"
The world has developed a taste
For the trappings of a simpler, more leisurely age.
Here on the country lanes of somerset,
Pamela pridham and her daughter kate
Are indulging a passion for a time in english history
When horses, not cars, ruled the road.
Driver beverley unsworth has been traveling these roads
In her classic carriage for ten years now,
And gray mare star has been with her from day one.
Beverley's carriage may be limited to one horse power,
But who needs speed?
16-year-old star provides this time-honored form of transport
With something better--
Personality.
And a chance for pamela and kate to live a dream, lost in time.
All that's missing is a fairytale castle.
A great labyrinth formed by 2,400 yew trees.
From above, a circle,
Set in a square representing a queenly crown.
This is the great maze of leeds castle in kent.
Once a fabulous playground for the rich and famous,
The 800-year-old castle
Was built on a series of islands on a lake
Formed by the river len.
In the 1930s,
This was the home of anglo-american socialite
Lady olive baillie,
Who hosted lavish house parties
Attended by movie stars, politicians, and royalty.
At that time,
Joseph kennedy senior was the u.S. Ambassador to britain.
In 1938, his sons--
21-year-old jfk and his older brother joseph--
Were guests at leeds castle.
Both would later serve in world war ii,
But tragically, joseph was killed in 1944
On active duty in England.
He, like thousands of other americans
Who never made it home,
Is commemorated on english soil to this day.
♪
Three million american men and women
Served in britain during world war ii.
Here, on a 30-acre site donated by cambridge university,
The american war cemetery is the final resting place
Of 3,812 servicemen and women
Who lost their lives in the north atlantic convoys
And the skies over europe.
The wall of the missing commemorates a further 5,127
Whose bodies were never recovered.
Flanking the wall,
Three reflecting pools
Echo the design of a similar monument
At washington's national mall.
Every may, a memorial day ceremony is held here
To honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice.
♪
The guards polo club in windsor
Is home to the world's oldest equestrian sport.
On the manicured turf of its ten pitches,
Teams of four compete much as the ancient persians did
2,000 years ago.
Polo was brought to England by army officers
Who had seen the game played in india.
That strong military connection survives to this day.
The son of a soldier,
Jamie greyson fell in love with the sport aged ten,
Watching his father play.
His number 4 shirt marks him out
As the team's key defensive player.
Played on a pitch
About nine times the size of an american football field,
The game is divided into four periods
Called "chukkas."
Competition is intense,
And because the ponies tire quickly,
Strict rules dictate that players change mounts
During breaks in play.
With annual fees of $28,000
And ponies costing upwards of $150,000,
It's no surprise
That polo is known as the sport of kings.
Both prince charles
And his father, the duke of edinburgh,
Are members of the guards club,
Which places jamie in rather privileged company,
Not to mention the adrenaline rush
Of the world's most exclusive sport.
♪
The city of bristol
On the river avon in southwest England
Has a long maritime history.
From here in 1497,
The explorer john cabot sailed for the new world,
Becoming the first european since the vikings
To land on mainland north america.
During the 18th century, however,
That same port had a sinister reputation.
From 1700 to 1807,
The infamous bristol slave trade
Carried around half a million human captives
From africa to the americas.
This bridge spanning bristol harbor
Commemorates all of them,
But it is named after one--
Pero jones, an enslaved african who served the household
Of 18th-century slaver john pinney.
In the bristol of pero's lifetime,
The voice of dissent was rarely heard.
Thankfully, that is no longer the case.
In this city,
Street art has long since become a voice to be reckoned with.
Bristol's urban landscape was the first canvas
Used by the most famous street artist of all--
Banksy.
His hometown features dozens of his earliest works,
Including "girl with a pierced eardrum,"
A pastiche of the famous vermeer painting,
With an alarm box taking the place
Of the original earring.
♪
That same spark of non-conformity
Defines a certain type of englishness,
An attitude that was once at the heart
Of the mod movement.
♪
Ok, they're not exactly the wild bunch,
And their multicolored scooters
Will never be mistaken for harleys.
But these men and women
Were once at the cutting edge of english youth culture.
Jim burnham has been a mod since the 1960s.
Back then, he fell in love with the clothes and the music,
And he's remained loyal ever since.
♪
The bristol mod scooter club was set up over ten years ago.
Many of these riders have been mods
Since their teenage years.
And retirement hasn't dimmed their lust for life.
♪
Mods are very particular,
Especially when it comes to their scooters.
These customized lambrettas are a classic italian make--
Each one a reflection of the rider's personal style.
And that, in short, is what it means to be a mod.
Believe it or not, back in the '60s,
Jim and his mates were seen
As a symptom of England's moral decay.
Of course, times have changed.
Today the mod movement
Is regarded as classic english culture.
Here in bristol, the mods have withstood the test of time.
And they're not alone in that.
Rising 250 feet over the river below,
The world-famous clifton suspension bridge
Has spanned the avon gorge near bristol since 1864.
Built at the height of the industrial revolution,
It's a masterpiece of victorian engineering.
Its designer,
The legendary british engineer isambard kingdom brunel,
Is regarded as the greatest engineer of his age.
Much of his work remains unsurpassed,
Even by modern technology.
Weighing 1,500 tons
And originally designed for light horse-drawn traffic,
This bridge can still withstand
The four million vehicles that cross it every year.
Modern computer analysis reveals the design to be
An almost perfect calculation of the minimal weight required
To maintain maximum strength.
Hugely over budget, the bridge took 11 years to build.
Describing it as "my first love, my darling,"
Brunel sadly never lived to see his creation completed.
A testament to brunel's vision and skill,
The bridge is a monument to a golden age.
But just as engineering can tame the natural world,
It can also embrace it.
♪
On the site of a disused china clay quarry
On the south coast of cornwall,
The eden project has been called the eighth wonder of the world.
Completed in the year 2000,
Two huge domed enclosures surrounded by botanical gardens
Are filled with thousands of rare plant species--
Each structure simulating a different exotic climate.
Its aim is to encourage a better understanding
Of mankind's relationship with the natural environment--
Uniting rather than dividing the two.
Covered with steel-framed hexagonal thermoplastic panels,
The two domes enclose 5.5 acres of rare plant species.
007 fans may also recognize the domes
As the diamond mine of villain gustav graves
In the bond movie "die another day."
♪
Those interested
In a more robust relationship with the soil
Could do worse than try their hand at buggy racing.
♪
Since he left school,
William hopkins has had a few careers,
Including work as a banker.
But somehow, even the thrill of high finance
Failed to provide the adrenaline rush
He was looking for.
And so he turned to buggy racing
And a job at this custom-built track
Designed to test the nerve as well as driving skills.
Though fully enhanced with safety features,
These state-of-the-art buggies are primarily built for speed.
♪
William is a skillful driver,
And he knows every bump and corner of this track.
But he never stops trying to beat his personal best time.
And that's what this sport is all about.
♪
Speed has driven innovation in the most unlikely of places.
♪
Here at the eurotunnel terminal in folkestone,
Passengers drive aboard a train destined for coquelles,
Near calais in France.
Their 31-mile journey takes them beneath the english channel
At speeds of up to 99 miles per hour
And depths of up to 250 feet below the seabed.
♪
The channel tunnel
Is regarded as britain's greatest engineering project
And one of the seven wonders of the modern world.
At the time of its completion
By a british and french consortium in 1994,
It was the most expensive construction project
Ever conceived.
A train carrying road traffic at high speed
Through an underground tunnel beneath the sea.
So bold and unexpected, it beggars the imagination.
So brilliant, it takes the breath away.
Now, that's quintessentially english.
♪