“You only need to look at Manchester Town Hall and the civic pride that created it.”

The words of Julia Bradbury, who in the second leg of her 12,000-mile journey criss-crossing the country, admires the industrial heritage that made Britain great.

She visits Manchester Town Hall, a building that impresses from the outside and makes even more of a statement inside. The hall celebrates both the well-known names in industry, as well as the 110,000 people employed in Lancashire’s cotton mills.

In New Lanark Julia discovers a cotton mill with a difference. Founded in 1786, the rural location offered a breath of fresh air to its workers and its pioneering manager, Robert Owen, had the idea of turning the factory town into a model community. He transformed the working conditions of the workers and opened the world’s first free nursery school.

Julia rides the lift to the top of Blackpool tower, which was modelled on the Eiffel Tower and opened in 1894. The tower took three years to build and used nearly 2500 tons of steel. When it opened it contained a ballroom, an aquarium, roof gardens and circus full of animals. She helps to chip off the layers of paint, in an effort to control the continual rust that affects the tower.

Without coal, the revolution would never have taken place. And Julia visits the Caphouse Colliery in Yorkshire, which operated continuously for two centuries before closing in 1985. She meets fourth generation miner Gerry Starkey who spent nearly 40 years working underground and shows her the conditions he used to work in. Until 1842, mining was a family affair and children as young as six worked in the mines with their parents. Gerry takes Julia 460 feet underground to show how early miners worked in spaces less than two feet high and how families would pull together.

Julia then visits the Pontcysyllte Aquaduct, the longest of Britain’s 370 aqueducts which joined a canal network with 3000 bridges, 1500 locks and more than 50 tunnels. Pontcysyllte Aqueduct is 1000 foot of cast iron and stone, which holds over a million and a half litres of water 126 feet above the River Dee. Julia boards a narrowboat to cross the aqueduct for an incredible view of the river below. It was the tallest and longest cast iron aqueduct in the world when it opened and allowed horse drawn carts to travel from England into North Wales with ease, transforming this part of Britain forever.

In Hampshire, Julia visits the Watercress Line, as she explores the history of Britain’s stream railways. Opened in 1865, the line connected rural Hampshire to the heart of London and got its name from the locally grown watercress, which it carried into the city. British railways were built on a grand scale, leaving the landscape with a legacy of stunning architecture and design.

Julia then looks at the work of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the British engineer who revolutionised Britain. She explores one of his greatest achievements, the ss Great Britain, which was the largest ship on the planet in its day.

Julia says: “It is quite scary up here, and we are in a dock, not moving, it must be absolutely petrifying to be working on a rig like this out there in the open seas. And imagine all those centuries ago, no safety, no harnesses, just dangling off all of this.”

The genius of the SS Great Britain lay under the waterline. It was the first iron-hulled ship which was driven by a propeller, rather than traditional paddles. Brunel revolutionised sea travel and the SS Great Britain became the model for nearly all modern-day ships.

Julia says: “Victorian engineers like Brunel were obsessed with not only building bigger but also more beautiful. Art, science and innovation all went hand in hand to create these objects of national pride. Look at the name of this ship, SS Great Britain. What an advert! And this sense

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In New Lanark Julia discovers a cotton mill with a difference. Founded in 1786, the rural location offered a breath of fresh air to its workers and its pioneering manager, Robert Owen, had the idea of turning the factory town into a model community. He transformed the working conditions of the workers and opened the world’s first free nursery school.

Julia rides the lift to the top of Blackpool tower, which was modelled on the Eiffel Tower and opened in 1894. The tower took three years to build and used nearly 2500 tons of steel. When it opened it contained a ballroom, an aquarium, roof gardens and circus full of animals. She helps to chip off the layers of paint, in an effort to control the continual rust that affe

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