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00:02Some of Britain's best loved grade one landmarks began as one mad person's idea.
00:10A private passion. A side project. Something that went too far.
00:17Not that they were all intended to be landmarks, it's just that these were projects that refused to be sensible.
00:49Throughout this series, I visited some of the most spectacular grade one buildings in Britain.
00:59I've looked at structures that had to be fought for and at heritage modernist marvels.
01:05Always asking why they're protected and how they were conceived, whether by those with power, money or astonishing vision.
01:13This building says we like quite a lot of gold leaf and a high level of intimidation.
01:22I've also visited structures that aren't grade one listed, but maybe should be.
01:29Otherworldly, isn't it? Visiting the remnants of another civilization.
01:34But this time I'm looking at grade one listed structures that were born out of our relentless pursuit of knowledge.
01:41Our first is something truly out of this world.
01:50In 1945, a young physicist called Bernard Lovell drove a trailer full of second-hand radar equipment into a field
02:00south of Manchester.
02:01He was looking for cosmic rays. He didn't find any. He did find some meteors.
02:07He also found an obsessive idea that he could build a remarkable structure in that field.
02:16It was such an obsession, in fact, that it took him 12 years to do so, in which time he
02:21nearly bankrupted the university that he worked for.
02:25The structure, however, is still here. And it's still working.
02:39And it's very cool.
02:42Completed in 1957, the Lovell Telescope is a controllable radio telescope that picks up signals from space.
02:52When stars explode and die, they send out radio waves that travel across the universe for billions of years.
03:00Radio telescopes like this collect them and help us map the universe, understand how old it is and large it
03:08is.
03:14Tim O'Brien is the director here.
03:17Hey, Tim. Hello.
03:18Good to see you.
03:19Yeah, great to meet you.
03:20It's very brilliantly sighted because it's in the middle of the Cheshire Plain.
03:24So from the train and the motorways and you could, it's such a big flat area.
03:28And even the surrounding hills, you see this enormous thing.
03:31Yeah, yeah.
03:32Rising out of the landscape.
03:36When was it listed?
03:37So it was grade one listed in the 1980s.
03:40After being recommended for grade one listing by the government's heritage advisors, it soon received official approval.
03:48Quite some foresight though, because at that point it was only 30 years old.
03:51It was built, it was the world's largest telescope.
03:58It is the work of Sir Bernard Lovell, a physicist who worked on radar in the Second World War.
04:05As a child, he loved machines, diesel generators, crystal radio sets.
04:11It's anything he could tinker with.
04:14I took his model railway and his crystal set and thought, let's make a giant version.
04:20A giant crystal radio set that turns round on railway tracks.
04:22Yeah, I know.
04:23When you say it like that, it's very obvious.
04:25How exciting for him.
04:26Yeah, exactly.
04:27So that sort of schoolboy sort of interest, writ large here.
04:31Yeah.
04:33He came to this field because Manchester's electric trams were interfering with his experiments.
04:40Manchester University's botany department owned some land out here in the quiet Cheshire countryside.
04:47He was actually given permission to stay for two weeks by the head of the botany department and here we
04:51are.
04:5380 years later, a completely ridiculous project really.
04:57You know, the ambition to build such a structure that nobody had ever built anything like it in the world
05:03before.
05:03At the time when the world effectively was coming out of the, you know, the rigors of the war and
05:08there was still rationing.
05:10The actual idea that you might walk into an empty Cheshire field and, you know, rivet together the first two
05:16bits of steel with the intention of building something like this is ridiculous.
05:20A lot of it was recycled steel, salvaged out of the war effort.
05:23The astronomers who came here went around the country in a truck gathering as much electronic equipment as they could
05:29and piling it in the back of the truck because stuff was being thrown away, chucked in the sea, chucked
05:34down mineshafts just to get rid of it.
05:36The US fleet apparently bulldozed aircraft off their aircraft carriers in Sydney Harbour at the end of the war.
05:44That recycling ethos is here right from the beginning.
05:50Engineers told him a giant steerable telescope was impossible.
05:54So Bernard found a bridge engineer from Sheffield called Charles' Husband.
05:59Together they designed a 250 foot dish that could point at any part of the sky.
06:05By 1957 the project was massively over budget and close to collapse.
06:12Then someone provocatively launched a rocket.
06:18Right at the time this telescope was being completed, the Soviets launched Sputnik 1 and Lovell wasn't going to do
06:24anything about it.
06:25But in fact the military asked him would he be able to detect not the satellite itself but the rocket
06:31that carried the satellite into space.
06:33Because the Americans were getting antsy about not being able to track anything.
06:36Indeed, and that was actually an intercontinental ballistic missile.
06:40So the next thing it was going to carry might have indeed been a nuclear warhead.
06:46So the first thing this telescope did was to track that rocket as it swept across the lake, over the
06:51Lake District at sort of 15,000 miles an hour.
06:54That was the sort of starting gun in the space race if you like.
06:57And Jodrell was right at the heart of that.
07:02Nearby is the control building, purpose built for the telescope.
07:06Same era, same no-nonsense approach.
07:10Into the, the heart of the beast.
07:13It is, yep. This is the, this is the control room.
07:16So this is where all our telescopes are, are controlled from.
07:21Which means they've got the original 1950s console and it's still in use.
07:28They're still with the same, what should we call this, mid-century modern.
07:31The outside sort of structure of this is the, is the original control desk from the 1950s.
07:37All the insides we've changed over the years.
07:40You'd hope so.
07:40You can take a seat if you like.
07:42Whatever you do, don't press the emergency stop.
07:45That's the big red button in front of me.
07:49There's something incredibly comforting about analog meters and switches.
07:55Yeah.
07:56And dials.
07:56Yeah.
07:56Because there's no ambiguity.
08:01That, it says elevation one, elevation two.
08:04Actually azimuth.
08:06Up thrust motor current.
08:07Don't know what that means.
08:08It just sounds really exciting.
08:10You kind of feel stimulated and comforted by the language, the lights, the meters.
08:19You feel as though what's out there is a, it's a physical manifestation of an idea.
08:24Hmm.
08:24Somebody made that real.
08:25It's Bernard Lovell.
08:26Made it real.
08:27Hmm.
08:28They made this real.
08:29And as a human, I'm sitting here thinking, even though I know nothing about any of these switches
08:34or dials, what they mean, at least I feel connected to it.
08:38Hmm.
08:38These things at the top that you just wafted your hand at and went straight past,
08:42because they're not very impressive looking, really ought to have been much bigger, more exciting knobs.
08:47They used those knobs to turn the telescope in azimuth.
08:51Right.
08:513,200 tonne structure around.
08:54So really they should have been a bit more obvious.
08:56It does.
08:56Because they're the fundamental mechanism for moving the telescope.
09:01It does justify some bigger knobs.
09:03It does, that's why.
09:06Do any one of these phones connect straight to number 10 Downing Street?
09:11Historically, we used to have dedicated landlines to GCHQ.
09:16That's exciting.
09:17Yeah.
09:17And the GCHQ team stationed a member of staff here secretly in 1957.
09:23And we worked with GCHQ secretly until at least the 1990s.
09:27And we've been allowed to talk about it only recently in the last few years, actually,
09:30that that's become public knowledge.
09:31So there were specific dedicated lines from upstairs here, probably one in the control room as well,
09:38that went straight to Cheltenham.
09:38So it had a covert defence role.
09:42It had a covert defence role.
09:44So some of the knowledge, some of what was happening in the space race was public knowledge, but a lot
09:48of it wasn't.
09:51That's all Tim's allowed to say about international space espionage.
09:55Anyway, I want to push the buttons.
09:57Two very exciting buttons in front of me.
09:59One says emergency stop, don't touch that one.
10:02The other one says siren.
10:06It's used by the telescope controller when they're about to move the telescope from a parked position.
10:11The siren is a warning for anybody that we're about to move it.
10:16You don't want to get your finger trapped in a 3,200 tonne structure.
10:19You've also got a massive tannoy over there.
10:21We can't use this because there are now 23 children, five-year-olds, walking in front of the telescope.
10:29I'd love to press the button.
10:29That would really worry them, I suspect.
10:32The teachers would have a fit.
10:35It would be on their incident reports, yeah.
10:36It would be, and it would be on my incident report as well.
10:43But when the children have left and the control room is empty...
11:03It's one thing looking at it from outside the fence.
11:07Up close, it's something else.
11:20Into the enclosure where the beast lives.
11:31This thing was built out of bits of battleship.
11:35Plate steel.
11:37Rescued bits of submarine.
11:39Stuff that the nation's military, after the Second World War, was burying.
11:46Tipping into the sea.
11:48Chucking down coal mines to get rid of it.
11:51And meanwhile, these scientists were just grabbing as much as they could.
11:56It is a piece of history.
11:59It's a thriving piece of recycled Second World War scrap.
12:08Which I am going to explore.
12:11First, via a narrow lift.
12:17And then, out into the middle of the telescope.
12:22Where even the bravest maintenance workers fear to tread.
12:33It's quite exposed here.
12:34So I'm 150 feet above the ground.
12:37On this little narrow walkway.
12:39And I'm very grateful for the handrails.
12:41Like any large structure.
12:43Like any large building.
12:46It feels a little superhuman.
12:47A little bit forbidding.
12:48A little bit unpredictable.
12:52It's brilliant.
12:53So brilliant.
13:08It's not every day that you get to climb the grade one listed Lovell telescope at Jodrell Bank.
13:14Although from 100 feet up, it does occur to you that astronomy is much safer from the ground.
13:24It looks like a giant ferris wheel.
13:30The sense of potential movement here is huge.
13:40It's a relief to get to the other end of the walkway.
13:44Being up here inside the structure is extraordinary.
13:48You can see every beam, every strut, every connection.
13:53And the man responsible for looking after all of this is Phil Clark.
13:58Hi, Kevin.
13:59How are you?
13:59Very well. Welcome onto the Lovell telescope.
14:03Is the structure decaying faster than you can keep up with?
14:08It's a very fine balance.
14:09We have to sort of cherry pick where we're going to paint as a firefighting exercise more.
14:16Yeah.
14:16So we don't stick to what's really due.
14:18We do an inspection and we paint what's the most severe at the time.
14:23So it is more responsive than it is preventive.
14:27Yeah.
14:27The listing means that the overall appearance has to remain the same.
14:31Yeah.
14:31It's not like you can rip out big sections and just replace it with modern welded tube or anything like
14:36that.
14:36No.
14:37And neither can you really afford to let any of it go, I'm guessing.
14:42No, that's it.
14:43And anything that does come off, we tend to have to sort of keep as a heritage item as well.
14:53Proof that nothing is thrown away is writ large as you step up into the telescope proper.
14:59Beneath the new dish is the original one.
15:02The steel is only a few millimeters thick with nothing below me.
15:07There's nothing like a chained off access to say, step this way.
15:20I'm stepping into the void off the rail onto the steel parabola of the very first reflector that was ever
15:33built here.
15:36Above me is the newer reflector, which is a much shallower dish.
15:41Below me, I mean two millimeters below my feet, is just fresh air, is 200 feet of void.
15:50Above me, the heavens, but this roof of steel between me and it.
15:57And this is a liminal space.
15:59I mean, this is probably one of the most hidden, most unusual, most unencountered liminal spaces in the world.
16:08The half way, the never space, the nowhere place.
16:16And above, that's an altogether other planet.
16:26There's a whole set of experiences here, Phil, which are kind of like otherworldly, aren't they?
16:31We're into the brightness again now.
16:32Oh, yeah.
16:37Today, the Lovell telescope is connected to seven other radio telescopes, which help map the universe and search for extraterrestrial
16:46life.
16:46And this is the business end of this incredible 69-year-old structure.
16:52So the radio waves from space bounce into here, bounce off the metal, and they're all focused into one tiny
17:01little point.
17:01Yeah, all at exactly the same point, so no matter where it hits the surface...
17:07Leads to the...
17:08What is the point?
17:09Is it that thing underneath, or is it on top?
17:11It's the concentric rings you can see underneath.
17:14Oh, those!
17:14That's it!
17:15That's the actual receiver.
17:19Although, I can see potential for this structure beyond simple astronomy.
17:24Have you not ridden a bike on this?
17:27To make the most fantastic velodrome.
17:31I'm just going to think that you have.
17:34Maybe.
17:35You're still in full service.
17:37Obviously, I couldn't possibly probe any further.
17:47The Lovell telescope does what all great structures do.
17:50It sparks the imagination.
17:55One minute, you're admiring it.
17:57The next, you're wondering what it would be like to ride a bike round it like the world's most extraordinary
18:02velodrome.
18:04But structures like this do not survive by accident.
18:09They survive because people keep repairing, protecting, and fighting for them.
18:16You know, if you construct something in Minecraft, it's like there forever.
18:21It's perfect.
18:22Unless you forget to pay your subscription, in which case it's just gone.
18:25Whereas in the real world, stuff like this had to be built and mined and salvaged and put together and
18:32bolted and riveted into energy and time and money and people and effort and love and care.
18:39And the thing is, of course, the moment something is finished, it starts to decay, which is where you really
18:46need the care to maintain and look after and to continue to preserve something like this.
18:54It's to keep it going into the future.
19:03Of course, there are plenty of buildings which we look after and care for, which we've brought along with us
19:09from the past where we're never quite sure about what its future value might be.
19:14But it seems at the same time quite comforting to have to remind us of where our culture comes from
19:19and where we might indeed be going.
19:21If we're really lucky, those buildings still have value, still have meaning.
19:26They tell us about us and our relationship with this planet, with our built world.
19:34If we're super lucky, we keep structures like this one that tell us all about our relationship with the universe.
19:53Can't they».
20:05Chaudron's bank telescope scans the distant heavens.
20:09Our next building, Roslyn Chapel, points to a more intimate heaven.
20:18it is carved with huge amounts of intricate detail its category a listed
20:24Scotland's equivalent of grade one and draws us into the imagination of one man
20:34it was built by Sir William Sinclair he was very closely allied to the Scottish
20:39king and the Scottish king asked him to escort his daughter Margaret to France to marry the
20:46Dauphin he got back and obviously had seen some wonderful French architecture came back
20:52to Scotland determined to do the same thing over here he was the Lord Chancellor of Scotland and
21:02he spent 30 years of his life carving a church he never finished
21:11his vision was actually for something much bigger than just this place the founder had
21:17this great ambition to build a huge cathedral-like structure which was going to be cruciform in shape
21:22and this is just the tiny choir at the end of the cross
21:33he died before he'd finished his great building and his son just roofed this part of the building
21:40and blocked up the transect walls and decided to make it a small chapel of this size it was just
21:47kind of boarded up but I think because it was built in stone and there was no wood so nobody
21:53could set
21:54fire to it it resisted actually the Scottish climate quite well it fell empty for hundreds of years until
22:03Queen Victoria visited and ordered it to be preserved then in the 1980s Lady Roslyn fell in love with it
22:14when we first came here it was being used as a working church but it was so damp the windows
22:21leaked the ceiling was completely covered in green moss and the congregation poor things used to bring
22:29hot water bottles to the services because it was so cold with a determination Sir William
22:35Sinclair might have recognized she set about trying to save it in 1997 we put a great canopy over the
22:45whole building to keep it safe from the rain and to enable the stonework to dry out because it was
22:50just saturated and bits were beginning to fall off but then we'd run out of money
22:57what Roslyn needed was a Hail Mary and it came from the unlikeliest of places
23:07Dan Brown's book came out and everything changed spoiler alert the Da Vinci Code was a conspiracy
23:14thriller that made Roslyn Chapel the hiding place of the Holy Grail and sent millions of readers to find
23:20it it's been really wonderful it has transformed our fortunes honestly I think we've got up to about
23:2630,000 visitors a year before the Da Vinci Code and after the Da Vinci Code it suddenly soared to
23:32170,000
23:37they're paying to enjoy the site but actually they're paying to contribute to the conservation of
23:43the building so that future generations can enjoy it we couldn't do it without visitors the impact of
23:51the Da Vinci Code has has been profound and it's really helped us to look after the place people come
24:00here now for the fantasy but their money protects the real thing not a code not a conspiracy but a
24:07place
24:08shaped by medieval hands sustained by modern ones and one that still astonishes people almost 600 years later
24:25the listing system is there to protect the fabric of the past the bricks tiles and timbers that survive from
24:33another age
24:40the Regency cafe in London first opened in 1946 and though it feels mid-century much of the place is
24:48newer materials were quietly replaced as life eroded it so it's not been listed which makes you wonder if
24:57the system is missing something so how strongly do the full English lovers feel about protecting it
25:04if you change it to something just generic I think you would lose some of its soul we cycle 50
25:10miles
25:10of coping food we left home at four in the morning we just love the atmosphere they're not trying to
25:15do
25:15anything new here and fancy and modern the tables are the old formica I love it how they shout your
25:21numbers out
25:27if you wanted to explain Britain to somebody you can do worse than bring them here it's all in the
25:34details
25:34the formica tops the lino floor the brown sauce bottles the lady who shouts your order even before
25:41you paid for it and everybody knows many who you are whether you're a builder or a bishop or a
25:45barrister
25:46everybody here gets treated the same with the same total lack of deference
25:58the Regency cafe here in Westminster is an institution it is romantic nostalgic these cream tiles and little
26:11black details and little art deco touches the the black exterior it gives it a real identity it is as
26:18though time loved it so much it just put the kettle on left the 20th century Society are a heritage
26:30organization who actively campaign to save outstanding buildings but though they looked closely at it they
26:37decided not to recommend the cafe for listing because of those wretched replacement materials
26:43although it looks original much of the interior has been replaced over the decades
26:50the whole listing process for buildings is about the physical fabric preserving original materials the
26:58trouble with a lot of shops and cafes is that they're constantly being refreshed and here there's a
27:04whole aesthetic of kind of immediate post-war kind of slightly worn formica very worn by more
27:11formica but actually i think this is you know post-1990s i think oh the curtains here it's not a
27:19stain on
27:19them they look pretty fresh to me i mean in a way it's a kind of theater of a post
27:25-war cafe that we've got
27:26here yeah thank goodness and it's lovely if the 20th century society won't fight to save it it's up to
27:36others in this case westminster council who owns the freehold and sold it with conditions to josh oh i love
27:45cafes i've been doing it for years i've been after this place for a long time when they came to
27:50sell to
27:50you we went to auction the council they said they want to keep it the same they looked into my
27:56background and they thought i was the right fit for it this is the pinnacle it's like the the jewel
28:00in
28:01the crown the missing jewel this one this is the top of the greasy screen you had the right credentials
28:07they knew what you were going to do which was nothing that you weren't going to change it presumably
28:12that's what the customers want the customers love it but ultimately what is it about this place that
28:18makes you want to keep it as in it as i said it's a brand itself the name the history
28:25it's been it's
28:2680 years now this year the future of this place is now in his hands the thing about heritage law
28:36is
28:37that it's really really good at protecting objects things bricks buildings cornices what it's not so
28:45good at is identifying and and protecting habits and routines and the daily patterns of human
28:52behavior which is of course what makes this place really interesting now you take away those habits
28:58and those routines and of course the whole idea sort of falls apart but the way you protect it is
29:03that
29:03you allow those those habits to continue day after day this is a place that renews its vows
29:12one breakfast is inside
29:20the regency isn't listed because feeling old is not the same as being old in the way that heritage law
29:29likes the royal pavilion is different some of its fabric dates back to the 1770s
29:41here prince later king george the fourth took a modest farmhouse in brighton
29:47and over 40 years with heroic disregard for restraint transformed it into a fantasy palace
29:58george was forever running up dead
30:01and he got a lot of pressure from not just his father king george the third but also parliament
30:07to rein it in a bit
30:12needless to say he didn't
30:15this is a party palace
30:17brighton lent itself to that it was close enough to london to come for a weekend
30:22really a playground away from london
30:29at one end is the banqueting room where a dragon grips nine meters of chandelier in its claws and
30:38every wall shimmers with gold leaf
30:43at the other end of the pavilion is the music room george's favorite
30:48with a ceiling that looks like a dome but is actually shaped like a tent
30:54fluting chandeliers
30:56and a floor built for waltzing that new scandalous dance from the continent
31:03he would invite people to great banquets or concerts or balls but he wouldn't necessarily invite
31:10people to stay very much a building where you would entertain for a night and you get kicked out
31:21the spectacle he provided for his guests was like no other
31:27a medley of indian decoration mughal extravaganza and chinese exotica
31:39these paintings they're charming but they're complete fantasies george gave almost completely
31:46free hand to this mysterious figure robert jones we know he probably didn't go to china
31:53nothing he is actually from china but it all emulates what people associated with china at the time
32:04at the same time prince george was building his fantasies of the east
32:09so john soan was assembling a classical world of his own at his home in london
32:20john soan was born the son of a bricklayer in 1753 in goring on thames and he seemed destined for
32:29a life on building sites
32:31but when he was 15 his talent for drawing was spotted he was whisked away to train as an architect
32:38at the royal academy of arts in london ended up winning a gold medal for architecture and being
32:45given a scholarship to go on a grand tour to italy that tour led him to later start collecting all
32:55manner of ancient relics which he brought back with him to london
33:01it's almost like rome in miniature piled high with fragments and lit from above through skylights
33:11once he started collecting he couldn't stop he continued to collect throughout his entire life
33:19had run out of space he came up with a brilliant solution created these planes in which he could
33:26have layers of paintings
33:28a bit creaky
33:44he collected anything and everything ancient the bigger the better
33:52below beneath the dome in the basement sepulchral chamber he installed his greatest treasure in 1824
34:00the egyptian sarcophagus of the pharaoh seti the first dating from about 1279 bc
34:12to bring the sarcophagus into his house son even had to take down part of the back wall
34:20d and stall all the works of art and swing this fragile coffin out over this void and lower it
34:27down into the basement from which it has never left once he got it in position he held three separate
34:36evening parties to celebrate its arrival inviting over a thousand people
34:42by the end of his life it was already a museum
34:50he was so proud of his collection he did something unprecedented
34:56he secured a private act of parliament requiring the house to remain unaltered after his death
35:08you could walk into this house and feel that you'd stepped into john soane's mind
35:30the listing system doesn't just protect the grand and the beautiful
35:36it protects the work of wonderful eccentrics those with single-minded focus and imagination
35:44where would we be without those fantastic visionaries who once they went over the top kept going
35:52in the mid-19th century there was one man called benjamin waterhouse hawkins who was obsessed with
36:00dinosaurs he would write about them and talk about them and dig them up
36:04uh he was sort of i suppose a well a self-publicist uh an influencer in his own time who
36:12would be given the equivalent of ted talks i suppose
36:15anyway he had this great opportunity to do something on a much larger scale here
36:22in crystal palace park where he built 30 giant ancient monsters for people to come and see permanent
36:33exhibits overnight he he literally transformed people's perception of these ancient creatures
36:41and of concrete as well
36:48hawkins created 30 sculptures in total
36:53none of them look anything like what we now think they did
36:57but that's the point they're a snapshot of what the victorians believed based on the science of the day
37:05they were listed in 1973 and the sculptures are now being repaired and conserved under the expert eye of rachel
37:17rachel hi hello kevin nice to meet you there's a lot of dentistry going on today
37:24what's amazing is that you're seeing not just the sculptures yeah but like somebody lavishing hours of
37:30their time on just you know finishing a gum line caressing yes lots of love going into them yeah i
37:36mean
37:36they are very loved as well so everyone sort of feels quite attuned with them they've been restored and
37:42conserved quite a few times and the particular collection has been on the heritage at risk register
37:47twice which is unheard of because of the fact that they've you know they're just quite difficult to
37:52look after and maintain i imagine when they were sort of created they never expected them to be still
37:58here 150 years later what about this his gob what needs to happen to them well we've got a little
38:06tooth
38:06that's on the go you can always try your hand at if you want you're joking what started to go
38:11off and
38:11it's firmed up i'm already regretting kneeling down hopefully we'll get this bit done really
38:18quickly thank you it doesn't matter i'm done
38:25i really don't screw this up you know you know there's some things i don't mind doing badly
38:30because but not the tooth it is it is on the side that no one will see
38:35thank you okay that makes me feel so bad
38:41oh no oh my god
38:47i've just failed my dental exam there's a crown come off i'm so sorry i'm not very good no maybe
38:55we won't allow you back to do any more teeth no i could paint i can paint okay maybe when
39:02we start
39:02painting yeah yeah i'd really just like to come back for the opening
39:11i don't think i'm a sculptor but to be fair these repair materials aren't exactly common either
39:19this isn't modern cement it's an unusual 19th century recipe that's hard to recreate
39:26what were they made from originally they're made from roman and early portland cement a roman cement
39:33that's made with lime it's lime based predominantly yeah developed in the late 18th century and early
39:3719th century with the roman cement element part of that was a material called septaria which we can't get
39:45they thought was effectively a remodeled version of cement from roman buildings buildings yeah each
39:52century adding its own interpretation yeah with new materials yeah i guess and and figuring and
39:57experimenting and trialing stuff yeah which is what you're having to do all over again yeah that's
40:01exactly what we've had to do we're using materials that would have been part of the mix maybe not the
40:05same ratios but we're still using sort of a hydraulic lime we're using sands and aggregates we're using portland
40:11stone dust the dinosaurs have been damaged over time partly because different parts of each
40:19dinosaur sit on different plinths when the ground shifts these plinths move independently and the body
40:27cracks between them then winter does the rest water finds every fracture freezes expands forces it wider
40:36season after season
40:40if you're making a repair yeah to something like this you've got to be careful not to make it in
40:45a material
40:45which is going to be more robust yeah harder and more brittle than the original so that it could end
40:51up cracking and damaging the original what we try to do is to get have something that is sacrificial and
40:56then they can that can be replaced in you know 30 years time you are speaking in exactly the same
41:01way
41:01as somebody would talk about a medieval stone window yeah well we're kind of the same yeah
41:07i do work on many little stone buildings as well as these
41:14in 1853 before the dinosaurs were even finished hawkins hosted a dinner party inside the unfinished iguanodon
41:2421 scientists and vips sat in the belly of a concrete beast what a victorian publicity stunt
41:34down down and down again and then up into the belly of the beast oh yeah oh oh she's magnificent
41:50lots of condensation on the iron bars and lots of iron bars set into the brickwork it's a huge amount
42:00of engineering which is fun it feels a little bit weird and uh slightly um inappropriate
42:11she is a great big old bird i know i know dinosaur means terrible lizard but she is a great
42:19big old bird
42:20magnificent
42:26the crystal palace company who were responsible for the park went bankrupt multiple times
42:34but in 2023 bromley council handed custodianship to a new organization the crystal palace park trust
42:44i have an idea for them you're responsible for commercial stuff yes as a charity we need to
42:50make money and we'll have a shop that's coming on board here's my idea right yeah garden gnomes
42:57are made in concrete these are made in concrete but it's a 19th century recipe it's a very beautiful
43:03material here and i thought what about like selling scale models which are the thing now in architecture
43:10selling scale models of the dinosaurs right you go to the shop having been here you can buy a dinosaur
43:17like a perfectly reproduced one in miniature it's made in concrete so you can take it and put it in
43:24your garden you can live in the shrubs there's a whole new merchandising range it's a very good idea
43:30and we're always well the trust is always looking for ways to bring in income but also what's perfect
43:36about it is that historic england did a load of 3d mapping of the dinosaurs so we have 3d maps
43:44of the dinosaur models which would enable us to do that so first of all you rapid prototype each one
43:50you get a perfect miniature version it's historically and you know dimensionally totally correct make a
43:56mold quick rubber mold bang them out in concrete even painted whatever and then people could collect the
44:02set and recreate dino world in crystal palace park in their own garden you'll see that range here in
44:10summer kevin as endorsed i know about it beforehand because you'll be sending me a check a little bit
44:16of a royalty well we can have that conversation
44:26this idea of turning the sculptures into souvenirs feels very modern but these creatures were actually
44:33never just about science they were part of a much bigger victorian appetite for display education and
44:40spectacle which is why they're more than curiosities they are clues to the world that made them
44:49the thing about these extraordinary creatures here made in this extraordinary material is that
44:55they're not as we understand it representation of what life was like 400 million years ago
45:00what they do however tell us about is life here in london in the 1850s and 1860s
45:12these sculptures are as important as a 19th century cathedral or saint pancras station or a steam engine
45:20in helping us understand what the technology the building materials the views of the world were then
45:26they're extraordinary documents that represent a commercial view of the world
45:34from the great exhibition that happened at the same time in hyde park in the center of london they are
45:41absolute time traveling ambassadors for the victorian age that makes them hugely valuable
45:58so
46:06so
46:08so
46:09so