How Britain Worked

Episode Synopsis

Guy visits Llandudno to help get this Queen of Victorian resorts up to scratch in time for the summer season. The great British seaside holiday was a largely Victorian invention. Once it had caught on, tiny fishing villages up and down the country were transformed into giant pleasure parks complete with all the latest attractions. Over the course of the winter, Guy gets stuck into essential and dangerous restoration work on the town's magnificent pier, rebuilds a towering original helter-skelter ride and gets up to his elbows in grease servicing the town's funicular tramway. He learns how our appetite for sea-bathing began when word began to spread that it was good for the glands. He finds out how the engineering developments taking place in the great factories also led to a revolution in musical instruments. And he joins a brass band to play his part in a special promenade concert - with mixed results...