Great British Railway Journeys

Winchfield to Crowthorne (5x12)

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Michael Portillo continues his journey from the Hampshire coast to the West Midlands in a distinctly military vein. At Winchfield, he discovers the vast carriage which carried the Duke of Wellington's coffin to his state funeral at St Paul's Cathedral in 1852 and hears how the Duke's chestnut stallion also received full military honours when he was buried at the Duke's seat, Stratfield Saye. Michael then heads for Farnborough and the army camp at Aldershot, where, after the Crimean War, greater physical fitness among rank and file Victorian soldiers became a priority. Private Portillo joins the regulars to be put through his paces under military instruction. Sanctuary is not far away in Farnborough North at the Benedictine Monastery of St Michael, where Michael visits the tomb of the French Emperor Napoleon III and his family. He ends this second leg of his journey in Crowthorne, where in the year his Bradshaw's was published, there opened a notorious new institution: England's first Asylum for the Criminally Insane, Broadmoor.