The Flying Scotsman: A Rail Romance
★ 8.5 · 2013 · 60m · Documentary
Built in 1923, the Flying Scotsman was the first steam locomotive to run at 100 miles an hour and to star in its own feature film. This is the untold story of the iconic Flying Scotsman-the very best in the engineering of its time.
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Prince Philip: The Plot to Make a King
2016 · ★ 9
Documentary telling the inside story of the plans by Louis Mountbatten to maneuver his nephew and heir to the Greek throne, Philip, into marrying the future queen Princess Elizabeth and the tensions that that unleashed.
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Cake Bakers & Trouble Makers: Lucy Worsley's 100 Years of the WI
2015
Documentary to mark the WI's centenary. Lucy Worsley goes beyond the stereotypes of jam and Jerusalem to reveal the surprisingly radical side of this Great British institution.
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Edward II of England: The Unhappy King
2019 · ★ 7.7
His opponents accused him of being homosexual. The male favorites he gathered around him during his short life gave those malevolent enemies solid arguments to do so. He would not have failed if he had proved himself to be an energetic king. But Edward II of England (1284-1327) never was a king like Edward I Longshanks, his father, or Edward III, his son, were. And his end is shrouded in myth and mystery.
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CSX at 40
2020
Commemorate the 40th anniversary of one of the largest freight carriers in the nation! Look back at the creation, evolution and current operating status of this storied railroad.
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England's Reformation: Three Books That Changed a Nation
2017 · ★ 8
To mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, Janina Ramirez tells the story of three books that defined this radical religious revolution in England.
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The Cumbrian Coast
1997
One of the least well-known areas of Britain, we travel to the Cumbrian Coast by means of two different trains. Firstly, we board a North West Regional Railways Express (class 156) which traverses the former Furness Railway via Grange-over-Sands and Ulvertston to Barrow-in-Furness. There we change to a class 153 for the most scenic section of the route along the coast from Bootle to Maryport, filmed in what can only be described as 100% perfect weather - not a cloud in the sky! Apparently you only get one day a year like that along the coast and we were there! As signalling expert David Allen says in his script; "this line is a mecca for semaphore signalling enthusiasts". Filmed in 1997.
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Some Interesting Apples
2025 · ★ 8
Some Interesting Apples is a community film about the UK's only orchard solely dedicated to the cultivation of selected wild-grown chance-seedling apples. These are often roadside apple trees, 'planted' unwittingly by someone who drove past and chucked their apple core out of the car window. If the variety is resilient enough, it will grow into a tree, however tough the conditions are.
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Building the Channel Tunnel
2019
The Channel Tunnel linking Britain with France is one of the seven wonders of the modern world but what did it take to build the longest undersea tunnel ever constructed? We hear from the men and women, who built this engineering marvel. Massive tunnel boring machines gnawed their way through rock and chalk, digging not one tunnel but three; two rail tunnels and a service tunnel. This was a project that would be privately financed; not a penny of public money would be spent on the tunnel. Business would have to put up all the money and take all the risks. This was also a project that was blighted by flood, fire, tragic loss of life and financial bust ups. Today, it stands as an engineering triumph and a testament to what can be achieved when two nations, Britain and France put aside their historic differences and work together.
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Tales from the Royal Bedchamber
2013 · ★ 8
Lucy Worsley gets into bed with our past monarchs to uncover the Tales from the Royal Bedchamber. She reveals that our obsession with royal bedrooms, births and succession is nothing new. In fact, the rise and fall of their magnificent beds reflects the changing fortunes of the monarchy itself.
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Faces Places
2017 · ★ 7.6
Director Agnès Varda and photographer/muralist JR journey through rural France and form an unlikely friendship.
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Cracking the Shakespeare Code
2016 · ★ 7.5
Norwegian researcher Petter Amundsen claims to have deciphered a secret code hidden in legendary playwright William Shakespeare's works that reveals a map leading to the location of certain treasures. British Shakespearean scholar Robert Crumpton embarks on a mission to prove he is spectacularly wrong. (A remake of “Shakespeare: The Hidden Truth,” including new discoveries.)
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