The Flying Archaeologist episode 4 - The Thames
The Flying Archaeologist episode 4 - The Thames
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00:00Nothing in our landscape is here by accident.
00:05It's all part of the incredible story of how people have shaped our country over thousands of years.
00:11Every ridge, every bump has a meaning.
00:15I'm Ben Robinson, and as an archaeologist, it's my job to unpick the great story we've inherited.
00:23From my perspective, the best way to do that is up here in the air.
00:31Aerial photography is challenging our views of some of our most iconic landscapes.
00:38I'm flying along the River Thames to discover a part of our military history that's been lost in just a few generations.
00:45Is it possible that experimental research carried out here helped to change the course of the First World War?
01:00The history of the Thames and the history of the defence of Britain are intertwined,
01:13yet there's one important part of that story that's been largely overlooked.
01:18It all took place in an area many people have never even heard of.
01:23We're just flying over the Dartford Crossing. We've got Essex on my left, we've got Kent on my right,
01:28but we're heading to somewhere that I'm really interested in, the Hoo Peninsula, down this way.
01:34The Hoo sits on the Kent coast, flanked by the Thames to its north and the River Medway to its south.
01:40Over the past 150 years, this place has played a major role in British military history.
01:46It seems incredible, yet many of the stories of the breakthroughs that happened here have been forgotten.
01:52Until now, we've been missing a key chapter in the history of the First World War.
01:58For while decisions of state were being made miles upstream at Westminster,
02:03it was here, in what Dickens described as the wild, flat marshes,
02:07that the dirty, gritty industrial nature of modern warfare was being forged.
02:14Much of the work done here was top secret. Very few records were kept.
02:19Archaeologists at English Heritage have been carrying out the first ever survey of the Hoo Peninsula,
02:24recording every lump of concrete, every mound, from the air.
02:29So now we can begin to piece together the untold story of exactly what went on here on the Hoo.
02:37And I want to uncover those secrets, find out how people lived, worked, sometimes died here, right here on the home front.
02:46It doesn't take long to see this area has a rich military past.
02:50The lower reaches of the Thames are punctuated by a defensive ring of coastal forts going back centuries.
02:56They were built to repel any attacker heading upriver to the capital.
03:00Some were still in use during the First World War.
03:04Today, many are abandoned and decaying, so it's a race against time to research and record them.
03:10The best way to see them in context is from the air.
03:15From here, you can see how the whole network of forts fits together.
03:19They're really quite close from the air.
03:21It's difficult to imagine how a ship could get between them without being hit.
03:27From the aerial survey, it was immediately clear that Cliff Fort, on the Thames shoreline of the Hoo, is at particular risk.
03:34It also has some unusual features.
03:37Archaeologists are now investigating it fully for the first time.
03:42Peter Kendal from English Heritage is one of those carrying out the work.
03:46It was built in the middle of the 19th century as a result of a royal commission that was called by Lord Palmerston.
03:52And it was built because there was a genuine belief that the French would possibly come and invade us.
03:58How genuine was that, though? I mean, the French? We ruled the waves.
04:02Well, we did, but the French Navy had new iron warships, steam-powered, with better guns.
04:08And there was a genuine belief that the British Navy might be beaten.
04:11So this is about a massive deterrent. It's shock and awe stuff.
04:15It is. It's built to resist defence, but it's also built to deter an invader.
04:19Come and have a go if you're hard enough.
04:23Cliff was equivalent to our nuclear deterrent today, but deterrents can become obsolete incredibly quickly.
04:29Once state-of-the-art, Cliff Fort is now being attacked.
04:33But the invader is not a foreign power. It's the sea, which is slowly engulfing it.
04:38Where are we going now, Peter? We're going inside through the one and only entrance to the fort.
04:42Right. And why do we need these? You'll find out in a minute. Just mind your head as we go through.
04:50Good grief! I didn't expect a fortified swamp.
04:56I mean, it is like exploring some sort of jungle temple, isn't it?
05:00Very much so.
05:03Only by wading across the flooded parade ground can we get a good look at the abandoned gun emplacements,
05:09which were once so vital to the nation's defence.
05:13So what sort of gun would we have had in here?
05:16It would be an enormous gun, filling this entire space.
05:19It's known as a rifle muzzle loader, which means that everything that it fired had to be loaded down the muzzle end, not the breech end.
05:27It sounds quite antiquated. I mean, middle of the 19th century, everything's getting a bit more industrialised.
05:32We're right on the eve, though, of major changes in artillery.
05:35By the time this fort is completely built and armed with its guns, it's in fact obsolete.
05:40And so by the time you get to the First World War, which isn't that many decades away from when this fort was first built,
05:47all its guns have actually been moved up to the top of the rampart, and these floors would have been empty.
05:54Photos clearly show where the circular gun emplacements would have been,
05:58but they also reveal what looks like a snip in the shoreline.
06:02The research has shown that this is in fact the unique remains of a military experiment,
06:07a world first that helped cement the Who's reputation for innovation.
06:12So it looks like some sort of slipway.
06:14Well, that's indeed what it is, but it's more complicated and exciting than that.
06:18This is a Brennan torpedo launch rail.
06:21As you can see, there's this like iron railway tracks running down from the fort and down and into the river.
06:28And down this was launched a wire-guided torpedo.
06:31Wire-guided?
06:32And this is cutting-edge technology.
06:34This is the world's first operational wire-guided torpedo.
06:38A guided weapon system right here on the Thames.
06:42Yep.
06:43So the idea is you're attacking shipping out here. There's some sort of sighting mechanism?
06:49That's right. An observation post inside the fort.
06:52When it observed that the enemy was in the river, they would launch the torpedo down this rail,
06:57slides down the rail under its own weight, hits the water, and then its propulsion mechanism kicks in.
07:03Well, there's certainly large enough targets going by.
07:06Presumably it was never used in anger.
07:08Never in anger, but it has got the record of having, this station, of having sunk a ship.
07:13Just as you can see, there's a large commercial ship coming up the Thames now.
07:17In 1901, a small coastal catch was doing the same,
07:20and this torpedo station was carrying out trials and launched its torpedo,
07:26and horror of horrors struck and sank the ship, a British ship.
07:31Oh, the form-filling. Was anyone hurt?
07:34No. Thankfully the captain and his family were able to abandon ship,
07:37and they were rescued, and indeed the boat was later refloated.
07:42And at least it proved the principle work.
07:44These things, if they'd had to be used in anger, would have been effective.
07:47It was a hell of a way to do so, but yes, it showed that this was a workable system.
07:52Developed in the 1890s, the Brennan torpedo is a great example of the Hoo Peninsula's groundbreaking past.
07:59But like many of the historic remains here, it's vulnerable.
08:03The structure is already being washed away by the sea, so recording it is a priority.
08:09But the sea isn't the only threat to the Hoo.
08:12There are also proposals for a new London airport and major housing developments,
08:17one of them on this site, where the Chattenden Barracks once stood.
08:22And in the fields nearby, something very interesting has been discovered.
08:27It might just look like a piece of green hillside today,
08:30but this is a piece of landscape that's actually posing all sorts of questions for the archaeology.
08:35Under the right conditions, there's a whole load of different shapes, twists and turns.
08:40Something has been excavated in that field.
08:43Until the survey, no-one knew there was anything in these fields.
08:47Now there's a theory they were used for experimenting with trench warfare during the First World War.
08:53I'm going to try and confirm that.
08:59This hillside is a classic example of why aerial photography is so important in finding traces of the past.
09:06There are a few vague hints of something going on here,
09:10but you can't make any sense of it at all on the ground.
09:13The photographs, though, tell a completely different story.
09:17What these have shown is an extensive network of trenches covering more than 200 acres.
09:24But what's surprising is the sheer variety of trench patterns.
09:28There's a chance that this area was being used not just to practice trench digging,
09:33but to explore different types of trench design.
09:38World War I got bogged down in trench warfare because of technological advances, such as the machine gun.
09:45Traditional tactics like cavalry charges were now suicidal.
09:49Neither side could advance, so they dug in.
09:52It was a new type of warfare.
09:55The general view today is that troops were thrown into battle with very little preparation and training.
10:01But if we can prove the army was using these trenches to experiment with trench design and train soldiers,
10:08we will have to rethink that.
10:12These reconstructed First World War trenches in Suffolk
10:16give an idea of what Chatternden might have looked like during the war.
10:20Just two of us getting out of the way. You wouldn't want to step up there because your head's exposed, all that sort of thing.
10:25Martin Brown has studied trenches on the battlefront,
10:29but it's the first time he's seen photos of Chatternden.
10:33I also want him to look at a map of the area from 1915.
10:37The date turns out to be very significant.
10:40It says here, New Field Works Ground, coloured pink.
10:45Well, that's this area here.
10:47And that's precisely the area where these vague crop marks are showing up.
10:52Now, New Field Works, that suggests to me field works, entrenchments, excavations.
10:57The manual of field works, that's what it's called.
11:00It's interesting, the date, you know, September 15, just a year after the war started.
11:07And it's the New Field Works Ground.
11:10What have they had to do? They've had to expand training, so there's a lot more people coming in, they need more space.
11:14But the other thing that's really important there is,
11:17it's gone from a war where they knew they were going to be doing bits of trenching,
11:20just for, you know, temporary position and cover and that sort of thing,
11:23to by that period, by September 1915, you are into full-on trench warfare
11:29with that front that stretches all the way from Belgium down to Switzerland
11:33and is defended every inch of the way.
11:37We know that the army soon discovered that long straight trenches were vulnerable to attack
11:42and could be quickly overcome.
11:44By developing different designs, such as a Greek key-like pattern of fire bays and traverses,
11:50the trenches were much easier to hold.
11:52Any enemy had to work its way through the zigzag.
11:55Every twist and turn could be defended.
11:59Is this more than just practice? Is this about experimentation, working out what works best?
12:04Yes. If you're going to see evidence of that anywhere, it will be here, on the engineers' training ground.
12:10Because they're the ones who are developing best practice.
12:14They're taking intelligence reports and letters coming back from the front,
12:19particularly in that sort of first few months,
12:22and distilling it down into things that work, things that don't work,
12:25where you do and don't want to put your trenches, that sort of thing.
12:29And from aerial photos, Martin can link trenches he's seen on the Western Front
12:34with our trenches at Chatternden.
12:36So we've now got proof this really was a place where trench design was being drawn up.
12:42Yeah, and that's exactly what we saw at Plug Street in Belgium, where we've been working.
12:46And there, there's a sunken lane, and Christmas 14 British troops are in there.
12:51But then what they do is they push forward into the field with some saps,
12:55and then they join them up with a traversed firing line, exactly as you can see being practised here.
13:00This is really interesting, because we didn't know about this area of Chatternden before.
13:05We didn't know about the trenches that they were building.
13:08It was just that area shaded pink on the map. Very little documentary evidence for it.
13:12But now we have this direct link to the Western Front.
13:16There is a strand of history about the First World War that tells you that, you know,
13:21men were thrown away, and they were thrown into action untrained, and all of this stuff.
13:24Actually, you've got the solid archaeological evidence here, on the ground in Britain,
13:30and on the battlefields, that, nope, actually we took it really seriously, and training was paramount.
13:38What's fascinating is that the aerial photographs have illuminated part of our history which was almost forgotten.
13:45They weren't just practising trench building at Chatternden, they were experimenting.
13:50They were trying to create new ways to keep the soldiers as safe as possible, as effective as possible.
13:57It was a whole new way of doing warfare, and it was invented there, on those fields at Chatternden.
14:04But being in these trenches, this is really sobering, because you realise that this isn't about crop marks,
14:10it's not about marks in the field. These represent people's lives, their work, and their deaths.
14:21And it wasn't only on the Western Front people were dying.
14:25Throughout the First World War, people also sacrificed their lives here on the peninsula,
14:30as the industrial nature of modern warfare made its impact.
14:34That's one of the most extraordinary pieces of landscape I've ever seen.
14:38It looks like something out of a film set. There are fragments of buildings, regular lines, earthworks.
14:44There's a very definite plan to it all. It's an intriguing sight.
14:50Because much of the work undertaken on the Hoo during the First World War was top secret,
14:55very few photographs were ever taken.
14:57So it's the aerial survey which is showing us how these buildings relate to each other.
15:05There's rows of roofless buildings, and then there's earthwork revetments in regular pattern.
15:11But the earthworks have a very, very regular appearance.
15:14There's a big plan, a grand design behind all of this.
15:18What an amazing place. We've got the shells of ruined buildings all around.
15:22There are great earthwork mounds, and these enigmatic lumps of concrete sprazzing out of the ground.
15:27This place was obviously so important once, but now it's entirely abandoned.
15:33This whole area is in fact the remains of a massive explosives factory.
15:38Research by English heritage firm, the Royal Society of England,
15:43What an extraordinary landscape this is.
15:45You really feel as though you're coming somewhere secretive and out of the way.
15:49Yeah, and there's a reason why this is such a remote location.
15:52It's because this site was used for the manufacture and storage
15:56of incredibly dangerous and incredibly explosive materials.
15:59So you needed somewhere that was far away from where people lived.
16:03So this site was used for the manufacture and storage of incredibly dangerous and incredibly explosive materials.
16:08So you needed somewhere that was far away from where people lived.
16:12But also, as well, it's close to the river so that they could take things in and out.
16:18The Cliff Explosives Works began life back in the 1890s when it was used for storing gunpowder.
16:25With the coming of the First World War, the site underwent a huge expansion.
16:30What we're looking at here are layers of different buildings built at different times.
16:36There were explosions, parts of the site were destroyed, so they rebuilt them.
16:40So we're looking at a very, very complex layout of material here.
16:44Whereas further over, in the First World War, there's a very, very different layout.
16:49You see how it's very regular.
16:52And we can see that that was laid out all in virtually one phase as part of that First World War expansion.
17:00All these mounds are, again, protecting the rest of the site from the possible blasts that could have happened,
17:09from the very dangerous processes that were going on within them.
17:16And it's such a vast complex, it's really difficult to get a handle on it down here on the ground.
17:21The aerial view gave you that overview of the whole site.
17:24It does, and certainly on the aerial view, you can really see the difference in the layout.
17:28And also, of course, we've got historic aerial photographs, so we can see what was happening along this site.
17:33Because this piece of land was used for demolitions disposals, for example.
17:38That's so important, so it's not just the aerial view today,
17:41it's those historic aerial views that are helping to reveal the layers of development in this site.
17:46Exactly.
17:47I can't imagine arriving on this site on the ground.
17:49How would you begin to survey it if you didn't have the overview?
17:55It's early days, but we're beginning to get an idea of how the site developed
17:59from simple storage into an extensive armaments factory during the First World War.
18:05This represents the massive expansion and the production of cordite,
18:08which was used as a propellant in firearms.
18:11So everything from rifles right the way up to the big guns that they had on the battleships during the First World War.
18:17So all those shells that are being fired off in the great naval battles like Jutland, they're being made here?
18:22Well, it's the cordite, it's the propellant that makes the shells go that's manufactured here.
18:30The research at the site is also revealing stories about the people who worked here.
18:35Among them was Amanda Thomas's grandmother, Minnie Rogers.
18:41What did she do here?
18:42Well, it's unclear exactly.
18:44She didn't talk about it that much and sadly she died before I was born.
18:48But I think it was probably something to do with, well, with the cordite
18:52and possibly from reports that I've read of what other young women were doing at the time,
18:56perhaps packing the cordite.
18:58So a job, perhaps for the first time, earning money, a bit of independence,
19:03but at what a price. I mean, they must have known it was dangerous work.
19:07Absolutely, absolutely.
19:09In fact, the work was so dangerous that 21 people died at Cliff,
19:15including a workman known to Amanda's grandmother.
19:18It really was quite awful what happened to him.
19:20How did he die?
19:21Well, he was scraping the corrugated iron wall of one of the workshops
19:26and he was scraping with a metal chisel
19:28and the metal chisel caught on the corrugated iron caused a spark
19:32and caused an explosion with the nitroglycerine that was nearby to where he was scraping
19:39and he was blown out of the building and ended up flayed in a tree.
19:45That's how powerful and how dangerous the explosives were
19:49that they were dealing with here on a day-to-day basis.
19:55Actually, the Hoo Peninsula really demonstrates the power of aerial archaeology.
20:00It's difficult to make sense of these odd lumps of concrete from the ground,
20:03but from the air patterns start to emerge, like the explosives factory.
20:07All of this is telling a story.
20:09It's a story of great scientific endeavour, but also of great tragedy.
20:15We've seen how innovation on the Hoo began with the forts
20:18and progressed rapidly from developing trench warfare
20:21to creating explosives for our warships.
20:24And we're still making new discoveries.
20:28The Hoo coastline is fascinating.
20:30It's littered with wrecks and old jetties
20:33and down there, it looks like there's an old submarine.
20:38But there's one particular site that's causing a lot of excitement
20:41and that's where I'm off to now.
20:50This is Kings North Power Station.
20:52Back in World War I, this landscape looked totally different.
20:56It's only the historic aerial photographs
20:59that have captured what was going on here in those days.
21:03This photograph was taken years before the power stations were built.
21:08On it is the unmistakable shape of two colossal hangars,
21:12because this is where, in World War I,
21:15the Royal Navy designed, tested and built their airships.
21:19Zeppelins were already demonstrating
21:22how effectively airships could be used for bombing.
21:25We know that here on the peninsula,
21:27they were being developed for bombing.
21:29We know that here on the peninsula,
21:31they were being developed for anti-submarine warfare and reconnaissance.
21:35It was at Kings North they were put through their paces.
21:39But the airship hangars were dismantled decades ago.
21:42What we don't know is if any of the other buildings
21:45from the airship days survive.
21:47I'm going to see if the early photos can help me find any.
21:51This is astounding. I've just come onto the industrial estate
21:55and I'm looking for fragments of the Royal Naval Air Service station.
22:02There are these gigantic buildings.
22:05They do look like the buildings.
22:07They are definitely the buildings on these photographs.
22:10These are early photographs.
22:12One of the hangars is still in place here.
22:15That would be just over in that direction,
22:19where the power station is now.
22:21Massive hangars.
22:23This is extraordinary.
22:25They are the types of buildings that I would expect to be constructed
22:29in sort of 1915, 1916, 17.
22:32I think they're here to service the airships.
22:35They're not the hangars,
22:37but engineering activities that went alongside them.
22:40And this is fascinating.
22:42They don't survive in many places, these buildings.
22:45They're usually swept away.
22:47The trouble I've got is that the only photos I have
22:51were taken in the 1920s and 30s,
22:54so I can't prove these are First World War buildings,
22:57even though my hunch is that they are.
22:59They do look like airship buildings.
23:03They're magnificent buildings, actually, and what a surprise.
23:06Unbelievable.
23:08But one surviving building has definite links
23:11to what was once a top-secret base.
23:14Just a few miles from King's North,
23:16a strangely shaped barn can be seen from the air.
23:19It turns out a local farmer salvaged the timber frame roof
23:22from one of the hangars.
23:24We know it's originally from King's North
23:27because distinctive Admiralty marks survive on the wooden trusses.
23:31It's so rare that the 215-foot-long building is now protected.
23:38This is not your normal farm barn, is it?
23:41No!
23:43It's just splendid, those sort of cartwheel-like roof trusses there.
23:48Tina Bilbey has a particular interest in the barn.
23:51Her grandfather used to work at the airship station.
23:55This building, this would have been familiar to your grandfather.
23:59Yes. This would have been where he was working,
24:02one of the buildings he was working in,
24:04because he was producing hydrogen and filling the airships.
24:09And that was a dangerous thing to do?
24:11Very, very.
24:14His wages actually reflect that.
24:16When he was put in as a hydrogen worker,
24:20his wages were much more than just an ordinary air mechanic.
24:27So he got danger money?
24:29Danger money, yes, indeed.
24:31Well, it's flammable, it's explosive, and there were fatalities.
24:35People were obviously dying in their thousands at the front,
24:38but I think we sometimes forget the human cost of work here
24:41on the home front, people working with dangerous materials,
24:44munitions, experimental materials, dangerous gases, things like that.
24:48They were exposed to quite a lot of danger too.
24:51Well, yes, my grandfather died in his mid-40s from lung troubles,
24:57and presumably it was the hydrogen gas that he'd got a lungful of,
25:01or probably more than one lungful of.
25:03Over a long period of time?
25:05Over the two years that he was working here.
25:09Tina has a photo of her grandfather and the King's North workers,
25:13which was taken at the end of the war.
25:15This might give me the proof I've been looking for
25:18that those buildings I saw earlier are indeed from World War I.
25:22So they're all standing here.
25:25The photograph was taken at that point.
25:27I can see the end of the hangar.
25:29So they're definitely between the two,
25:31but it's definitely that one I'm interested in.
25:33That's the roof of it, right there.
25:35Yeah, the gable end,
25:37and I can just see the roof line of the building behind it.
25:39And there's the water tower behind.
25:41Well, that's incredible.
25:43So it's definitely a building of that era.
25:46What's clear from all the locations I've flown over on the Hoo Peninsula
25:51is how dramatic the pace of change has been.
25:54Just a few short decades,
25:56and the experimental and revolutionary becomes old hat.
26:00And nowhere demonstrates how military technology advanced
26:03more than my final destination.
26:08We began the story at Cliff Fort,
26:10and when it was built at the end of the 19th century,
26:13it was state-of-the-art.
26:15Brennan torpedo, big guns.
26:17It was designed to protect us from attack from the sea.
26:20Just a few decades later, Cliff was redundant.
26:24The threat now came from the air, and this was the answer.
26:28Because it lies in the middle of an army training ground,
26:31this small collection of buildings had lain in obscurity
26:34until the aerial survey.
26:36This is a very well laid-out site.
26:39Over here we've got the barracks,
26:41and this is the munitions store and officers' quarters,
26:44and over there is the war shelter.
26:46They would have got in there if they were under attack.
26:49It was thought it could be a Second World War anti-aircraft battery,
26:53but further investigation has revealed it's far earlier than that
26:57and dates from the First World War.
26:59It's role, to defend against German bombers and zeppelins,
27:03and it has a unique place in military history.
27:06This is Britain's first purpose-built anti-aircraft gun emplacement.
27:11There's a thick concrete wall around the outside,
27:14and the holdfast where the gun was sited is right here.
27:18We've got the Thames estuary, we've got Cliff over there,
27:21the munitions factory, King's North, the power station,
27:24the airship station was just over there.
27:26We've got a big naval ordnance depot just over the hill.
27:30All these places had to be protected,
27:32and this was the spot to do it from.
27:36Discoveries being made on the Hoo
27:38are changing our perceptions of the First World War.
27:41We're realising that research and innovation at home
27:45was every bit as vital to the success of the war
27:48as the battles on the Western Front.
27:52There was a time when people thought of the Hoo Peninsula
27:55as a forgotten backwater,
27:57but we've discovered that this place
27:59was at the centre of military technology.
28:02Experiments in trench design, airship construction,
28:05innovation in explosives all took place here,
28:09and they had a profound effect on the course of World War I.
28:14Now, this is a place that's embraced change
28:17and is facing change again,
28:19but let's hope that this change
28:21doesn't erase the traces of its heritage.
28:24The Hoo really is a very, very special place.
28:32Try something new in 2022.
28:35Listen to This Classical Life at 12.30,
28:39the music of video gaming and mixtapes
28:41with Jess Gillam and guests on BBC Sounds in half an hour.
28:55This Classical Life at 12.30,
28:57the music of video gaming and mixtapes
28:59with Jess Gillam and guests on BBC Sounds in half an hour.