The Secrets Of London| The Greatest Cities in the World | TRACKS

by the year 2010 half the population of the planet will live in cities this one is capital of what was once the greatest empire the world has ever seen [Music] it's played many roles through its history but what really lies behind the well-known face [Music] during the course of a typical 24 hours I intend to try and get an overview of this extraordinary place I want to discover how history still courses through its streets I want to get immersed in its living traditions and by meeting her people I want to understand why they love the great and sprawling metropolis [Music] [Music] Westminster an hour before dawn you never know what you're gonna find in a big city the bigger they are the more you turn out the unexpected and London is a monster it's 4:00 in the morning and I'm in the middle of a city of seven and a half million people and at this moment about seven million of them are fast asleep all around me and they stay that way it's one of the miracles of urban life but I've come here to Trafalgar Square because there's something here that's very significant for London there's a statue and I don't mean Nelson it's a statue of Charles the first on a lonely island on the south side of the square and this must be it oh well this statue is the official center of the metropolis it's a 50 mile anything we've evolved to here but is it really the center because in fact there are many different centers to this town and one of the things I want to do is identify them as this 600 square mile living organism is about to wake up every day before 8 a.m. enough bread is delivered across London to fill the festival hall to the roof twice over before the days through about 2,000 tons of meat will have been consumed enough to carpet the Albert Hall more than 12 times most of that meat comes through Smithfield market in the dead of night this labor is just coming to an end but for others the day is about to start Martin Davey is going to take me to work via a particularly ancient center we're now just over a mile from where I started in Trafalgar Square but hidden in the wall of a disused shop on Cannon Street is a strange piece of stone with its own legends attached to be Roman in his service stone of Brutus and as long as the stone of Brutus is safe yeah London will flourish so the myth goes anyway I haven't really displayed it very effectively in Berlin the London stone is reputed to have stood right in the middle of the forum when the Romans were here it survived the great fire and weathered the Blitz now stuck in a cage in Charing Cross it's it's sadly forgotten Martin works here and this is his perch he's going to take me up his crane 200 feet to watch the sunrise okay I'm going to see how much its Roman origin marked by that nearby stone has shaped the city today or do I it's a long way up and even further down straight on yeah where you go it's fantastic credible viewing it got Tower Bridge over there yeah those are the two towers Canary Wharf sheep coming through the lips yeah Londyn looks incredible from up here just incredible fantastic just gently engage that man make sure it's de sonido you're moving there now crane driver 2,000 years of history and this town just can't stop growing in the one square mile surrounding this plane there are currently 88 construction sites where public places can be to the center of the original London essentially the entire structure of London is based upon that Roman settlement because every time they added more roads they went out in a sort of concentric circle and London Grove like the most enormous spider's web and we still follow that complicated pattern started by the Romans it's a recipe for chaos sort of walking out over space what are we now we're about seven she's just starting look they're all just still ready to go to work just about now everybody over there decides they want to be over there everybody over there decides they want to be over there and everybody over there wants to be over there one of the biggest rush hours in the world commences 25 million separate journeys every day in the 15 minutes leading up to 9 o'clock 200,000 people are crammed into London's underground 8 2000 buses ferry people around London's 2,000 miles of streets in fact just to earn a living the average commuter travels the equivalent of two and a half times around the planet I've got to get to my next appointment luckily I know a shortcut that used to be grand with traffic which today is virtually empty it's called the Thames welcome on board your hand at all times please yep the Port of London Authority patrols 24 hours a day they're there to keep the tidal river safe wonderful and to give me a jolly you like the river don't need my lovin I just think it's just a fantastic way and we think this is because of the river that London's here yes at one time the Thames would have been crammed with trading ships from all over the world the fortunes of this town and this country were found in here now it's a deserted Avenue of water to come into London and to see that vision not feel like you know well don't feel like Edmund awesome here I'm making your way up the Thames I feel like I said I said if there's an old sort of thumb and I'll film with Jack Hawkins in now there be a sort of done dum-dum-dum playing just to give us a little bit of a sort of Philip just to lift us up so it's 9:30 and I find myself in another centre of London about a thousand years again someone picked Westminster as the place from which to rule England and ultimately the British Empire it's as familiar as a policeman's helmet and actually just as peculiar to help me in Joe Murphy Joe works here as political editor for The Evening Standard feeding this town's appetite for gossip London still has an evening paper Paris New York can't be bothered anymore this would be much more interesting four hundred years ago who ever seen Oliver Cromwell's head on a pike just above where we're standing now this is spectacular where are we now we're in Westminster Hall and the roof you're looking at is six hundred years old so it looks Victorian on the outside but in fact it's built around something which is genuinely old this has been here for 900 years and the roof when it was built would have been a miracle it did away with pillars people would have come in here and he thought this was the most extraordinary building they'd seen in their lives and it's putting eye popping the Paris was built here because Westminster was originally an island formed whether ever type and joined the Thames the river may have gone underground but a lot of medieval customs still survive my job is a lobby possible and just basically means I'm allowed to talk to MPs as they come past I'm not allowed to run after them I'm not allowed to shout for them to come over to me I have to think ahead and plant myself where they might come across me so you it's all got to be done on a sort of slight sly casual hello 20 Seenu here types of those are the rules which are designed to put journalists in their proper place which is as observers of parliamentarians and not as participants it's now ten twenty six and thirty seconds and a precisely timed ritual is taking place it's common in London for lawyers soldiers aldermen and the staff of the House of Commons to assert their authority by wearing clothes that went out of fashion over a hundred years ago what came past wasn't absolute totally like a cartoon out of punch more than any other city in the world London likes to keep one buckled foot in the past if we pay good money for help you but even the most familiar symbols of London and their hidden workings Joe has access to all areas the chimes of Big Ben are transmitted live to 183 million listeners across the globe it's rather disconcerting to find that the mechanism is not much more technically advanced than a clockwork Mouse it has to be wound by hand without fail three times a week I said when I arrived this was the centre of London so what is the centre that we see from here you think a collection of palaces banqueting houses turned into a seat of power even a house up mr. lives in an ordinary terraced house but he is surrounded by all sorts of other higgledy-piggledy accommodation [Music] in Washington politics are hidden behind fences and manicured gardens in Peking they're stuck behind a wall here government is a spectator sport ministers secretaries and all their underlings scuttle about this town just like the rest of us a few yards up the street I can move seamlessly into yet another Center and this one is royal the kings and queens of Britain have a long history of swooning about their capital city London today still owes a lot to that particularly in its green spaces this whole James's Park was once the private property of the king charles ii used to stroll about with his mistresses here and if it was hot they'd go for a quick dip in the canal I suppose by then they got rid of the crocodiles James the first liked to keep two crocodiles here although we can still see the pelicans which were a gift from the Russian ambassador in 1660 obviously loved the st. pelicans just their descendants not the same royal family either just their descendants this entire area was once reserved for royal deer hunting it's these excrement grounds that now form London's parks nearly 8,000 acres of open land they help earn London's official classification as a forest anyone can still take a horse into Hyde Park even if like me they can actually ride the thing personally I'd feel happier with a hand breaking some indicators but I'm told it's a great form of exercise so you like riding I love riding it's just the most wonderful sport because one's outside and on a horse and they are so intelligent I always think you see the thing about rich people basically I mean not rich people posh people is that they like to do any form of exercise which they can do sitting down you see possibly little you often but it's a civilized exercise yes and riding here on Rotten Row is a perfect example of how the whims of royalty of shaped London here King William the 3rd at the end of the 17th century this is the earliest lit Street in the world yes that's got when William built the road it's the first lamp-lit road in the world and he employed a man to light them at night and put them off again in the morning [Music] morning gentlemen good morning and there's another one on the other side of the park you'll sometimes have half a dozen out here really there are still about 300 horses in London nearly all of which are used for decoration in Edwardian times there were 200,000 and they all worked residents then were concerned that the city would drown in the four hundred and eighty thousand gallons of urine and 2,000 tons of manure they produced daily though by then London was really defied by a horse of a different one I'm looking for number 21 Westminster Road I think that must be it well that's all that remains of what is probably the most bizarre railway station in London because that was a railway station for the dead the Necropolis rail it was opened in 1847 laughter terrible cholera outbreak and it was used simply to [ __ ] coughing yes - sorry by railway and it lasted for nearly a hundred years as a terminal in more senses than one the railway age saw a transformation of Victorian London in 50 years it tripled in size we still make daily use of the marvels of that age especially the hidden ones perhaps the most spectacular achievements of those Victorian engineers are not london's railway stations but something that we don't see every day something beneath our feet this is part of the Victorian sewerage system there are over 42,000 miles of sewers underneath London what I find impressive is why the Victorians designed them in the first place almost as soon as they knew that all the diseases which were killing their city were caused by water by foul water but the excavation of subterranean London didn't stop there [Music] in addition to the sewers there are some 300 miles of tunnel and that's just for the London Transport system this is one of their ventilation shafts I'm coming down through the London clay but some tunnels are secret and coming down now to about about the depth of Hoban tube that's quite a deep underground railway [Music] but that is not the lowest thing under London it's something the government decided they needed about fifty years ago [Music] 150 feet below the surface underneath the central tube line lies a huge tunnel complex it has been hidden for 50 years though they might have told me there was a lift mr. bridges I presume hello correct pleased to meet you I wouldn't exactly my landing might not be men well it's the secret tunnels complex that was built in the 1950s by a secret act of parliament so it's pretty it's pretty secretly it certainly is in total it's just under a mile in length I understand it's for sale is it it is yes I'm acting on behalf of Beatty on the sale of the complex Wow can I move you certainly kept the labyrinth was to be used as a telephone exchange in the event of a nuclear attack it housed a permanent staff of a hundred and fifty workers who entered by a seemingly ordinary glass door on the high street above then the public didn't have a clue oh look out there's a map here this might be quite useful because it's okay so where where are we now Mart we're in this third Avenue and there's four avenues all of this size and scale and then there are two longer avenues which are 450 meters in total but this is only a little bitty bit potentially what I mean wife it's been rumoured then people have heard noise on the other side at the end of the the eastern part of the tunnel so I think that it may lead to a further complex of tunnels of which we know nothing with no use no car logging now on sweets it's a difficult gaffe to sell beyond the obvious storage potential what would you do with it 65,000 square feet on the surface would have a price in the region of 52 million pounds but down here we're entering into unknown estate agent territory maybe I could make an offer knock through and have a very convenient shortcut to work [Music] [Music] it's lunchtime and unlike much of continental Europe nobody intends to shout anything especially the London pop beer has run through the body of London for generations in medieval times fermented brews was seen as a safer alternative to drinking the water they also had supposed medicinal properties I've come to a pub called the old dr. Butler's head the original proprietor old dr. Butler back in 1666 came up with numerous liquid cures all involving alcohol today we're launching a special herbal purging and I have the fiddly job of tapping the first cask and yourself comfortable and you give it one mighty whack well done no wasn't and now and this is rather typically London the new brew must be tested in the same way that it was in the 1300s by the city of London a of Commerce back then the al Connors carried huge prestige when beer was more regulated than water they earn the equivalent of six-figure salaries [Music] have been summoned here today to test your ale for the purpose of judging where it is of acceptable quality of pouring once at events and you're not the way leather britches it's been a setup on that wheel and if they stick it means that as unfermented sugar in the beer so the beer is not fully fermented it's a dog stick it means to be there's truly fermented unfit to seal I'm good are you anticipating problem I'm not anticipating your beer is gonna tear the are evolving it does not stick it does not stick we hereby declare by the powers invested in us that this sale is fit and proper so we don't we now we can now get flogging miss there we go yeah [Music] god save the queen' the beer may not ever dared to nail Connors bottom but London does like to stick to its own traditions it's now 2 o'clock and I'm on my way to yet another centre of London since James's and now I'm gonna show you something I've come here to meet with Tommy time hi I'm very good I wanted to ask you Cynthia one question I wonder if you could tell me what is the Japanese for what your win this one yeah called severe Oh a sybian yes if I if I was in Japan the department store yes and asked to see what we call the suit yeah I will be shown that's fine that the lady's going to guide you through the civil division so she the area yes okay that's what I wanted to know much better and the reason that 127 million Japanese speakers talk about this several is because in 1871 their ambassador came here to SAP the role to buy himself what he thought was obviously a pretty neat outfit this is the place where a man can still get kitted out as a gentleman in handmade suits and handmade shirts in a style not too far removed from that Japanese ambassador's 137 years ago if Paris is where you want to be a rich woman London is definitely the place to be a rich man here at the Royal Automobile Club a gentleman can swim and a beautiful underground pool and though you don't get home-start included the club's connections with the breakdown service broke down this is an area of padded comfort and luxury goods the name is bond Bond Street or at least just around the corner I'm joining one of the oldest and smallest private police forces in the country at the Burlington Arcade in the heart of st. James's okay well we're doing about an apple sorry let's arrange for the shoes to have a bit of a Polish where their shoe shine led but apart from that fine I'll pass your pass your class your be okay good there were sore the rule specifically or the Burlington Arcade no whistling no filming no wish whistling was because the pickpockets used to whistle signals to one another coming in the singing yeah because you weren't supposed to show merriment in the archive because I'm going to love when this was built yet gin and Oyster House is in London yes yeah and obviously you drink too much gin you're behaving a certain way I forgot rola you're a bit remember you're in control I'm in control yeah of course on the figure of authority it was now Tisch behavior in the taverns that led Lord Cavendish to build this arcade for his wife she had complained she had nowhere she could shop with her friends in peace and quiet and the world's very first shopping mall was opened a hundred and eighty-nine years ago [Music] no quite shorts like playing a role so I had a play I don't know what to do I think people are aware that I'm a fraud I honestly think one of the real problems is that everybody in the Burlington Arcade is fantastically well behaved so far I've seen somebody picking their nose Biderman well I was supposed to do something about that still eventually I found my level two blocks two blocks who turn right but if the West End was traditionally the London centre where a man spent his money it was a couple of miles east that a man traditionally made his money in the City of London [Music] this is where I started the day up a crane and where the Romans found in this city but it's also the place where most of our modern banking and financial systems were invented and developed one of the reasons for the gigantic success of the city of London is this combination of the very very old with the brand-new quite literally here because this are the magnificent 18th century jewel box of a room he's actually hidden away in one of the most exciting buildings in the entire city it's noise of London more than a magnificent show piece of architecture it's a money-making machine [Music] it may be undergoing a crisis of confidence at the moment but the square mile is still the nandan center that eclipses others like it or not the rest of London sits in its shade broker Dave Peters from the firm talent preborn is going to talk me in do you think the city is a sort of separate place from London separate culture separate world what is it part oh it's almost it's almost like the heart I think it's the heart of London almost so he's London still the top absolutely yeah fortunately we're stuck in the middle of the time zone when we come here early in the mornings we're catching markets from the Asian side and likewise London stays open later when New York is sorta like busyness things going on London is the financial hub of the markets where the vibe is absolutely yeah we're the vibe it's and you'll feel that when you go into the office it's almost a dog-eat-dog world it really is it's sort of like ER and a very intimidating place right you know you can't there's no shrinking violets in the money market just come here then we'll have a look story place Michel 37 three big boys I have to take up a temporary seat on the trading floor they're actually doing is moving money around all across the office space in London around about Twinkies 9 - training give on [Applause] in a time of financial uncertainty London's trading floors are more stressful than ever it's a bit of a young man's game right now I'm in need of somewhere karma and I find it just around the corner through this beautifully restored gate where lies the Cathedral of London simp Paul's this was where city merchants invested their money in the 17th century in God I'm meeting Becky who knows everything about it massive though it is Christopher Wren's marvel of a building was not as big as the cathedral was built to replace after the Great Fire of London in 1666 the Gothic cathedral it was bigger both longer and wider after the fire Christopher Wren had to blow the old one odd sorry I'm just stopping there from everything he did he blew it up he blew it up yeah did it with gunpowder gunpowder yeah yeah and once he cleared it away he created a building far more mysterious than its outer simplicity implies as Becky can show me amazing very good this geometric staircase is one of only five on this scale in the world the public don't usually see it and they don't usually see this either up at the top in the Attic only clergymen and visiting historians ever used this library sang-hwa repository of wisdom it's a little casket hidden away from the roaring marketplace outside and there are other treasures beyond the famous simples tucked away in the surrounding streets because Wren built a further 51 churches [Music] today amongst the modern office blocks and the symbols of financial muscle 24 still remain exquisite examples of how city merchants once expressed their faith in God and art [Music] I'm here to help summon the evensong faithful to one of them you didn't let go now you have to let go to the semi otherwise stick your hands up to the ceiling it did yeah for my back quite a trap beaver eyes yes well I dropped a player but I didn't think anyone noticed as the bells ring out 350,000 workers have already rushed home with just 7,000 permanent dwellers in the City of London it has one of the lowest nighttime urban densities in the world most of the city churches are actually closed on the Sunday I have to head west to find out how the city spends its money today [Music] every night over 35,000 people pay a lot of money to see a London show but I'm going somewhere where the punters are far more extravagant than that at 7:30 there's an auction at Sotheby's it's 7:15 the backstage technicians are still moving the stars of the show into place and I'm gonna help while we're talking we're not working no I think that's probably caused by using a model to press her tits and stomach against a board correct it's a very good question I'm glad you said that you phosphatase because we do sell all sorts of mediums and you never underestimate artwork this isn't an exhibit but well it's a good job I'm not here to bid but Henry Windham Sala bees chairman is unlikely to worry about that there are plenty who will it's your spot here to the star lot tonight with a several for there's a wonderful picture by Fontana which is the picture over the or less and the Potala practice holes as you say so nicely with the holes in it yet contemporary art has sort of gone through the roof 2006 we sold 650 million Cuse me for being vulgar with figures okay I've come because we want the nitty-gritty 650 million dollars worth of Contemporary Art in 2006 and this last year in 2007 we sold 1.35 billion in other words I think you'll to be perfectly accurate we went up hundred and seven percent in terms and that really says it all that says that there is a huge demand for can we are to the moment it's 7:30 in London's West End and a feast of Contemporary Art is about to go under the hammer do any of these people arriving here want to buy a golden egg with a reserve price of 3 million pounds fun trying to spot who might be you know with that sort of taste and that sort of money pair of slightly crazy glasses here while the spensive pair of shoes there I'm not convinced by further but I'm quite convinced by them by black people come in immediately breathtaking paintings are being sold for my watering sons I realize I'm wearing all black myself but luckily the auctioneer ignores me the Fontana comes up for sale this is the star logic for million five six seven eight nine nine million pounds in seconds for an egg with holes in it [Music] yet another record the night's total sales were 95 million pounds rather more than expected and not bad for two and a half hours work in the midst of a credit crunch in fact London is still wide awake although it's nearly 10:00 p.m. some places are only just about to open for business I've come here now to the magnificently restored Palace Theatre because I'm told at about this time Elijah a small miracle occurs the fees are being where it is chucking out time gentlemen tended to use the corner of the theater over there and so this was installed instead apparently aids comes up at ten o'clock and goes back in again o'clock in the morning I can't like to use it myself actually but I've I've ended up in the wrong position over in East London theatres of a different kind is under way two hundred and fifty years ago this would have been a bare-knuckle fight until after killing one of his opponents Jack Broughton developed the London cries ring wars in this city they introduced the very British notion of fair play into what seems to me a violent and utterly mad way of relaxing if you hadn't noticed that's Dave in the red my guide to the money mind well they call it white collar fighting Dave is down as Swiss disc talent pre bomb there's somebody from JPMorgan we've got David the armed and dangerous Mongoose sapore who's a systems analyst from ashes and like the trading floor where nothing is entirely predictable Dave's nut hits a downturn [Applause] it's the London spirit that combined with a sense of humor knows no defeat [Music] remember your investments can go down as well as up and so can bankers Dave is a brave man it's now midnight and I find myself in a part of London with which the world is very familiar dark alleys the fog shrouded streets these been the settings for the stories of Charles Dickens for Sherlock Holmes for dr. Jekyll and mr. Hyde and of course the legend of jangula River as far as the rest of the world is concerned London is the absolute capital of crime but never mind mad axe murderers today it's the cops who have the chopper the Metropolitan Police air support unit is on standby 24 hours a day which is why my courtesy flight suddenly turned into a hot pursuit we've had information that a vehicle has been stolen it was robbery it is doing policing it is still policing just in a different way troubles they all seem so sort of small and neat and tidy yeah it makes me feel pretty good I think you're a god brute don't know I think I do below us most of the seven and a half million inhabitants of this city are asleep again London sets itself up for another 24 hours [Music] the capital may be clinging to its traditions but from on high it looks organized purposeful and somehow supremely confident about its future [Music] sometimes when you're down there during the day Lachlan can seem so dirty and noisy and chaotic but up here off tower 42 looking down on it at night it just seems perfection the most exciting place in the world [Music] you [Music]

Channel: TRACKS - Travel Documentaries

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Id: 5FbNPDknL-g

Length: 45min 0sec (2700 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 10 2019