All language subtitles for Abandoned.Engineering.S09E04.Tunnel.Of.Terrors.1080p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-squalor_track3_[eng]

Tom ward (narrates):
In the Philippines

an island complex, with a
hidden hoard of treasure.

There's a $4 million
fortune stashed somewhere

near this derelict place.

A relic of old england
transformed in to a magical realm.

Nowadays cloister
walk is world famous.

And in america a notorious
prison where a champion was born.

You went from rock bottom
to a place of incredible fame.

Decaying relics,

shadows of lost worlds.

Ruins haunted by the past,

their secrets waiting...

To be revealed.

In the Philippines a
neglected site in Manila bay

once held the
fortune of a nation.

From above this place
looks a bit like a tadpole,

it has a bulbous head
and a long winding tail.

A series of mismatched
buildings crowd the rocky island.

Big buildings either
machine shops

or sleeping quarters
or office buildings,

all in a state of ruin.

One, it seems to go on forever,

it could have housed
thousands of people.

The scorched interiors offer some
clues about what happened here

and below ground
the puzzle continues.

It could be a railway tunnel
but there are no tracks

and inside is a
labyrinth of rooms.

A small box could be the
key that reveals its secrets.

There's what looks
like an old oven,

it's known as the vault...

But who built it and why?

The answer could solve a mystery

that has shrouded
this island for decades.

Somewhere near this site could
be hundreds of tonnes of silver

worth a reported $4 million.

The strategic and
economic value of Manila

was such that the Americans
fought and won a battle here in 1898.

The Americans built
banks and a stock exchange

so, Manila had a
lot of money in it

and moving through it.

The economy of the
Philippines then was very good,

the treasury vault had
$60 million in gold bullion

and 23 million
pesos in silver coins.

Local expert Armando hildawa

knows just how important corregidor
was for the defence of Manila.

The two square miles
of corregidor island

were pivotal to securing
america's foothold in Asia.

And so it's decided the
key to holding the Philippines

is Manila bay.

How do we hold Manila bay?

The island of corregidor.

The Americans built a
world beating barracks

for their troops.

This is stopside barracks,

built in 1914,

this was then the
longest American barracks

in the world.

To house...

Maximum of 8,000 men

of the 59th coast
artillery regiment.

It had a chapel,
it had a library,

a bowling alley,
indoor swimming pool,

washroom area, mess hall.

To defend Manila
against naval attack

five gun batteries
were built on corregidor.

This are what we call 12
inch disappearing guns.

Now, there are two guns

at the second floor hiding
behind concrete walls or parapets,

when this gun will
fire, the tip of the gun

does not go up, no sir.

The entire gun goes
back and up above the wall

and after firing it will
hide behind the wall again.

Now, from the sea the enemy

could no longer
pinpoint the location.

The Americans essentially
conceive of corregidor island

as like a floating battery.

That will bar the approaches
to Manila bay to any hostile fleet,

and they consider this to be
an almost impregnable obstacle

to any adversary.

During world war ii this
mighty American fortress

was finally put to the test...

Even today, traces of the bitter

pacific war litter
the ground here.

Every now and then we find

some world war two
artefacts like 50 calibre shells,

30 calibre bullets,
fragmentation grenade,

sometimes a helmet
or part of a helmet.

In 1941,

general Douglas mcarthur,
commanded the us forces

defending the Philippines
against Japanese attack.

On December 8, 1941,

the Japanese began their
invasion of the Philippines,

general mcarthur,

actually declared
Manila an open city

and as an open
city it meant that,

it would be surrendered
without a fight.

The us troops
retreated to corregidor

but they were determined to cheat
the Japanese of Manila's wealth.

Mcarthur,

emptied the banks in
Manila of all their money

and especially their
precious metal, gold and silver

to deny it to the
invading Japanese.

On December 27, 1941,

a flotilla of small
ships and tugboats

bought this huge mother load
of gold and silver across the bay

to store it in corregidor.

It was also imperative

that vital wartime
papers were protected.

This is an original vault,
not a treasury vault,

it's more for confidential top
secret documents and maps.

Along with us troops from
all over the Philippines,

mcarthur retreated to
the bastion of corregidor.

But its defences were no
match for the Japanese bombers.

When the first Japanese
air raid was conducted,

all of this buildings
were evacuated,

as you can see this was very
much exposed from aeroplanes.

The onslaught
forced the Americans

to retreat even further.

The malinta tunnel was
an underground storage

facility for supplies, food,
water, medicine and gasoline.

End to end in a straight
line, 2 miles long.

Once we enter on top
of us 300ft of solid rock.

There are no dead
ends, all the laterals

and sub laterals are
connected at the far ends,

this is a feat of engineering.

You can fit 8,000
men inside the tunnel.

General mcarthur
made the decision

to move his hq in to
the malinta tunnels.

This was then the
office of general mcarthur

when he was
inside malinta tunnel,

now eventually the gold
bullion, the silver coins,

from the treasury vault
were transferred here.

Meanwhile above
ground the battle raged on,

and another of corregidor's
military buildings was hit.

This was then the
hospital building.

This would have
been the surgery room,

an operating table here,

scrubbing area for the doctors.

This had a capacity
of 1,000 beds.

To escape the relentless
Japanese bombardment,

the injured were also
crowded into the tunnels.

This is the underground
hospital section of malinta tunnel.

It was only to
accommodate 300 beds

but when the Japanese bombed
the hospital building on top side

all patients transferred here
bringing that figure to 1,000.

One of the nurses
was quoted as saying

the blood almost dried up
here, it was about one inch thick.

In the malinta tunnel,

life descended in to bedlam

for the men that
were sheltering there.

For months as the
Japanese continued to attack,

thousands of us and Filipino
troops were trapped in the tunnels.

The island bastion of corregidor
was the last remaining obstacle

to the Japanese
expansion across the pacific.

With the billions of dollars

worth of gold and
silver up for grabs,

the Japanese had no
intention of giving up

and hope of a us rescue
mission was very remote too.

Given the blow that the
Japanese administered

at Pearl harbour,

no fleet's gonna come
and rescue these guys.

The island's defences
were no match

for the Japanese attacks.

The ammunition that
the anti-aircraft artillery

had was only effective
up to about 24,000ft,

once the Japanese
pilots realised this,

they simply flew above
that level and continued

to drop their deadly
cargo on to corregidor.

A desperate plea for ammunition

capable of reaching the
bombers was sent out.

The us submarine trout

was dispatched to send
3500 anti-aircraft ordanants

to Americans who were
trapped at corregidor.

And it had a very perilous
mission ahead of it.

To reach corregidor

the submarine had to dodge
both the Japanese naval blockade

and the us defensive
mine field below Manila bay.

But it manages to make
it all the way to corregidor

and deliver its cargo.

But now there's a problem.

As it gets back in the
water it's riding too high,

it needs ballast.

So, they actually requested
25 tonnes of sandbags

but corregidor had no sandbags
that they were able to spare.

And so someone
has a bright idea,

why don't we use bars of gold
as ballast and get them out of here

and get them safely
back to the United States.

With enemy bombs
raining down on them,

the us servicemen
had to get the bullion

out of the tunnels.

They had to transfer from
the tunnel to the south dock

20 tonnes of gold and silver

so, you can't just
carry it in one truck,

it has to be several
trips of several trucks.

So, eventually the
gold was bought out

to the south dock...

To board the USS 'trout'.

So, this stuff is literally

used as the equivalent
of scrap metal

to weigh down this submarine
so it can make its escape.

The USS 'trout' left here

February 4, 2:30 in the
morning, early morning

but it stayed submerged

under the water in
Manila bay until evening,

the next day it
had to float out.

But more than 400 tonnes of
silver pesos were left behind.

And as the Japanese

tighten the siege
of corregidor island,

the us forces on the
island decided to try it...

Hide all the bags
of silver coins.

They had taken out
of the banks of Manila

to deny them to the Japanese,

they literally went out to
sea from corregidor island

with 45 tonnes of silver coins

and they sank them in caballo
bay with no great precision.

The us finally surrendered
two months later.

The Japanese sent American
prisoners of war down

to search for the treasure
they themselves had dumped.

But the prisoner divers
sabotaged the retrieval efforts.

When they got to
the wooden crates,

they cracked it open
with the crowbars

and then the Japanese who
were lifting the silver coins,

the crates popped
open and scattered

all of the coins in
the Sandy bottom.

Whilst some coins were
retrieved, most of the silver treasure

lay on the sea bed
until the end of the war

when the us re-took corregidor.

The crater here was in
1945 during the re-taking

a 1,000 pound American
bomb made an almost direct hit,

see boom crater
fragments ricochet

but some veterans told me before

some bombs were
mixed with a chemical,

thermite or white phosphorus.

Hot white molten shrapnel,

were melting their way
deeper in to the steel barrel.

But most of the Japanese
were by now holed up

in the very same tunnel

that had once
sheltered the Americans.

Scorch marks reveal
what happened next.

The Americans poured in gasoline

mixed with napalm,

the Japanese knew what
was going to happen next.

The Japanese knew
there was no escape,

but there was still
an honourable way

to die for the emperor.

They blew themselves
inside the tunnel

using dynamites,
bombs and grenades

which ignited the
gasoline at the same time.

Wham, this entire
tunnel system collapsed,

flames shot out
from all the openings.

More than 2,000 Japanese
troops had committed mass suicide,

when the war was finally over,

shrines were built to commemorate
the thousands of American,

Japanese and Filipino
lives that were lost here.

To this day,

treasure hunters still search
for the missing silver pesos

in the waters around corregidor.

So, this is what
our money look like

during the American period,

you can see on the reverse
here it's a very small s,

coins minted in San Francisco
for use in the Philippines.

More than half the silver
was never recovered

and is still lying somewhere
in the waters around this site

and this is why,

coins still occasionally wash
up on the beach to this day.

In Jefferson city

on the banks of the Missouri
river is a relic of old america.

From the outside it looks
kind of like the gloomiest

castle you've ever seen.

Bars on the windows,
strong high walls

and you know exactly
what you're looking at.

'Time magazine' once
described this prison

as the bloodiest
47 acres in america.

The state of the place
reflects its tumultuous history.

Parts of it are boarded up,

in one section the
entire roof has collapsed.

They burned all the buildings

and the impacts
were still being felt

when I came here in 1968.

The inside is as
grim as the outside.

And the cell blocks are
still bleak and foreboding.

Along with these...

Crumbling walls,
these spooky rooms,

there's even a gas chamber
thrown in for good measure.

You get this sense of
confinement and claustrophobia.

You can only imagine what it
would have been like to be a prisoner

bought in to one
of these cell blocks,

all the other prisoners looking
down to see who the new person is.

Yet one of these men
being looked down upon

would eventually
rise to the top.

He went from rock bottom

to a place of incredible fame.

When you hear
this person's story,

it really is a version
of the American dream.

A champion was
forged within these walls,

but there are also
plenty of darker chapters

in his prison story.

Former deputy
warden Mark schreiber

has firsthand experience
of its bloody history.

I worked two officer
homicides in here

and I worked a lot
of inmate homicides

and everything from
escapes to narcotics

to assaults, you name it.

Mark began working here in 1968,

the same year that James Earl ray
assassinated dr Martin Luther King,

having broken out
of this very prison.

Escape attempts were common

as inmates desperately tried to flee
a place with a fearsome reputation.

This is the Missouri
state penitentiary.

The prison actually
was opened in 1836,

the very week that the alamo
battle was going on in Texas.

Schreiber recalls a recent
discovery that helped shed light

on those early years.

The prison administration
was under a court order

to put in an exercise
yard for men on death row.

So, when the contractor came
in and started the excavation,

the contractor hit
something very solid.

And what it hit
was the buried cells.

So, there are
these very old cells

that date back to
the mid-19th century

and this is a really rare find,

barely any structures
like this survived

going this far back.

These buried cells are relics
from a time when Missouri

was still wild west territory.

Missouri was almost
frontier land at that time,

as the state expanded the
prisoner population expanded,

the building was also expanded

and it housed a lot of famous
prisoners over the years.

If anybody's claustrophobic
or you're scared of the dark

we don't want you
coming in here.

Jb firebug Johnson started

a major riot in the
prison in the 1870s,

where they burnt down
a bunch of factories

and you can see
where firebug Johnson,

was down here in
the dungeon cells

and the story goes
that the whipping post

used to be located in this area.

They would open
up the wooden door,

and they would let the inmates
then see the guy getting whipped.

To keep from going insane
he'd take a button of his uniform

and flip it in the dark

and he'd spend all day
looking for the button

and when he got out he wrote
a book called 'buried alive'.

Eighteen years in the
Missouri penitentiary.

After firebug Johnson
was released in 1900,

the prison expanded.

A gas chamber was
added and by the 1930s,

it included a five
storey hospital,

a morgue and several factories.

And the prison was
the economic base

for the city of Jefferson
for many years,

it was a huge operation

with 2 million sqft
of building space.

Despite its sheer scale it's
still bursting at the seams.

One time they had almost
4,000 some inmates in here,

terribly crowded.

You can only imagine
the frustrations,

the humiliations of
being incarcerated

and that makes every
prison a potential powder keg.

On September 22, 1954,

a spark ignited the powder keg.

A couple of inmates
pretended to be sick,

they got the
attention of a guard,

some other inmates were
able to overpower the guards

and take their keys,

then they ran up and
down the cell block,

unlocking as many
cells as they could.

Within hours thousands of
prisoners were roaming free

and fires were raging in
various parts of the prison.

I remember the '54 prison riot

and I was in the third grade

and we had just moved up
here about a month before.

The first friend I
made in Jefferson city,

his dad was the superintendent
of the Missouri highway patrol

and of course the prison riot
was... was really something.

The impacts were still being
felt when I came here in 1968.

The burnt out buildings
still visible today

are testament to the
intensity of those fires.

When the dust had settled,
50 inmates had been injured

and four were dead.

Into this cauldron of
fire arrived a young man

with a troubled past.

One day in June 1950
a young black man

who was around 20 years
old walked into these walls.

He had been arrested
for armed robbery

and was sentenced
to a term of five years.

His name was Charles liston,
everyone called him Sonny.

The 24th of his abusive
father's 25 children,

Sonny had grown up surrounded
by poverty and violence.

Sonny as a child
is picking cotton

and when he's 16 years old

he's already a
strapping young man,

he's over 6ft tall,
he's over 200 pounds,

his strength is such
that he is used to...

Help break up strikes.

And it didn't take long for
Sonny to pick a fight on the inside.

Reports are that he
mostly kept to himself,

but there's also
reports of him brawling

with other inmates
and that's an activity

that can land you
in a lot of trouble

and maybe solitary confinement.

But in Sonny liston's case it
landed him somewhere else.

The boxing ring.

The prison's boxing club
held monthly exhibitions bouts

and Sonny's natural
talent was soon spotted.

The chaplain was also
the prisons athletic director,

reverend shaplan and he saw,

that liston had what it took.

And so this, chaplain
takes liston under

his wing, mentors
him, coaches him,

and turns liston in
to a really fine boxer.

The boxing ring would have
been down here on the lower yard

and hundreds of inmates would
have come and watched Sonny box.

No-one ever
defeated Sonny liston.

Liston dispatched the
prison heavyweight champion

in front of nearly
3,000 howling inmates.

You can imagine

in a time with very
little entertainment

for the prisoners how
exciting it was to see

some of these boxing matches.

They bought what was supposedly
the best heavyweight boxer

in st Louis Missouri

to fight against him and
he only lasted two rounds.

With his great potential
becoming clearer,

a campaign began
to get Sonny released.

Two different
chaplains in the prison

helped develop his talent,

they advocated for his parole
and they arranged for him

to be supervised and trained
as a boxer after his release.

In 1952,

the big day finally came
and liston was paroled,

he took a job as a
labourer at a steel mill

but this was just a brief
stop on the road to fame.

Once he turns pro in 1953,

he reaches the
heights of his sport

really quickly, has
an amazing record.

The man with the biggest hands
ever recorded in boxing history,

soon established himself
as the knockout king.

In 1962,

ten years after being released,

liston went up against
Floyd Patterson,

for the heavyweight
championship.

Wasn't much of a contest,

he knocked him out
in 2 minutes 6 seconds.

Despite reaching the
pinnacle of his sport,

Sonny couldn't shake
his criminal past.

He assaulted a policeman,
he stole the policeman's gun,

but he also was reputedly
tied in with mob figures

who supported his career.

Two mafia figures
purchased majority shares

in his contract

so he's literally associated
with figures in the underworld.

In April 1963,

Sonny liston passed through
these gates once again

only this was a
triumphant return.

When liston goes
back to the prison,

he received an
incredibly warm greeting,

inmates are cheering,

they're excited, he's going
around shaking hands,

it's a triumphant moment

for someone who had
been incarcerated there.

The champ had come back to
show his gratitude to the staff,

and to visit the prisoners.

He ate with the inmates
in the general dining hall,

and it was by all accounts

just an incredibly powerful
meaningful experience

for the prisoners to see...

This hero who had
been one of them

and then had become
this worldwide superstar.

One normally doesn't
think of prison as a place

that folks get nostalgic about

but liston actually
returned here several times,

he'd become
something of a legend

not just to the inmates
but to the staff as well.

And there's pictures of him
with the warden, with the barber,

in the old boxing ring,

really getting
in amongst it all.

They saw that he
had a lot of potential

and so they helped Sonny
develop that potential

and he never forgot those
people here in the prison.

In 1965,

a career defining moment arrived
for the heavyweight champion,

it's a fight that everyone
knows but it's not liston

that most people remember.

Sonny liston's
achievements as a boxer

are nothing short of miraculous,

but he was never the
darling of the press,

and what he's most famous for...

Is getting knocked out by
Ali, in under two minutes

and essentially
becoming posturised

in that famous photo of Ali,
you know, looming over his,

his defeated foe.

The result was so surprising
that some claimed a fix.

To this day,

Ali's knockout blow is sometimes
referred to as the phantom punch.

Controversy would follow
Sonny even in death.

In 1971 he was found
dead at his Las Vegas home,

some suspected a heroin overdose

but others still believe
he was murdered.

There was a lot of
talk about Sonny liston

later on when his life ended

about how tragic that was

because a lot of the
offenders felt that,

that the some of his managers

and people like that had really
taken advantage of Sonny.

His popularity with the inmates
secured him legendary status here,

and a faded mural on the
prison wall painted by an inmate

is testament to Sonny
liston's enduring legacy.

Even though it was
supposed to be closed down

after the notorious 1954 riots,

the prison continued to
operate in to the 21st century.

It took 50 years from the
time I was in the third grade,

to the time that I was a
deputy warden in 2004,

it took that long for them
to actually get it closed.

In 2019,

the abandoned complex
was struck by a tornado

that ripped the
roof off a block,

liston's former home

and tore down sections
of the prison wall.

Mark now enjoys
looking after the prison's

vast historical archive

and leads tours
providing insight,

into the institutions
long and eventful life.

And of course its
most famous inmate,

Charles l Sonny liston.

Liston's story
is a story of rags

to riches of success
against all the odds,

in some ways it's the story
of the American dream,

but we should make no mistake,

a place like the Missouri
state penitentiary,

is a place where
dreams go to die.

And the chances that
another Sonny liston,

are gonna emerge from
this sprawling privatised

for profit prison system
seem vanishingly small.

Nestled in the picturesque
English countryside

is a grand structure
with a spellbinding past.

This is wiltshire
which is world famous

for its sweeping valleys
and of course stonehenge

which everybody knows
but only 30 miles away

there's this gem
which is very unknown.

It has beautiful gothic
details on all its exterior walls

but it also has very
strong looking gateways.

There are massive stone walls

and foliage climbing
all the way up the side.

As you get closer you can see
that it's really still quite intact,

there are courtyards
and hallways,

it's a very sophisticated
assembly of buildings.

You can see right
across the site

these very traditional
latticed windows,

and one of them in particular
plays a very important role

that's cemented
its place in history.

A photographic image
captured right here,

was a revolutionary
moment for the modern world,

and later this same building
became famous on the silver screen.

Millions of people around
the world actually know it,

they just don't
know they know it.

This place hides
a magical secret,

that's been seen the world over.

Dotted around the features
that all Harry Potter lovers

will instantly recognise.

In the middle of
one of the rooms

you see this giant cauldron

sat on a stone plinth.

Nowadays cloister
walk is world famous

as a crowded school hallway

filled with wizard's
hats and wands.

But everything here

owes its existence to
a formidable woman,

who lived 800 years
before jk rowling's books

were turned in to one of the world's
most successful film franchises.

Emma hitchings is
passionate about the history,

of this remarkable place.

Arriving here you immediately
feel the sense of history,

you can see the scars
what's happened here before,

and what the building
may have looked like.

You don't know
where to look first.

There's so much history
and it's all just so beautiful.

So, this place was
founded by a woman

who was a pioneer of her time.

She went by the
name, ela of Salisbury,

and she lived a remarkable life.

Ela was a noble woman,
she was born in 1187,

and she was the only child
of the 2nd Earl of Salisbury.

And when he died when
she was nine years old,

she very unusually not
only inherited his title

but also all of his money.

Now, an immensely wealthy woman,

ela's ward the crusader
king Richard lionheart,

used her to benefit
his own family.

King Richard married
Ella off to William longsby,

who was Richard's
illegitimate half brother

and so he got through Ella,

his titles 'cause he
had nothing to start with.

Longsby was made
sheriff of wiltshire

by Richard's brother
and successor king John.

This connection gave
ela custody of an item,

of profound importance.

In 1215,

a band of rebellious medieval
barons forced king John of england,

to agree to a laundry
list of concessions,

it later became known as
the great charter or in Latin,

magna Carter.

Magna Carter was one of
the most famous documents

of medieval england,

signed by king John in 1215,
with William longsby at his side.

Magna Carter was
a historical landmark,

an early bill of rights

that would form the basis of
england's entire legal system

and a precursor to
the us constitution.

A copy was sent to every
county in the country,

and the copy that
went to wiltshire,

went to the sheriff of wiltshire
who was William longsby.

Magna Carter had
clauses on individual rights

and women's rights too...

Which ela would later
use to her own advantage

when he husband went missing.

When William longsby
was returning from war,

he was shipwrecked
and thought lost.

With longsby presumed dead,

men of influence began circling

with greedy eyes
on ela's wealth.

One knight even attempted
to force her into marriage.

Only by quoting a section
of magna Carter itself,

was she able to
refuse the offer.

It's like something out of a
medieval courtroom drama.

Ela used her savvy knowledge
of this now ancient legal document

to win her case.

Ela supposedly
quoted the eighth clause

of the 1215 charter,

that stated women were
no longer obliged to remarry,

it reads...

No widow is to be
distrained to marry,

while she wishes to
live without a husband.

But in fact longsby
was very much still alive,

and on his way back to england.

Remarkably longsby
made it back home,

but he died shortly
after his return.

It was alleged that
he was poisoned

although that was never proved.

With longsby's untimely death,

the heartbroken ela inherited
the title of sheriff of wiltshire,

and she chose to remain a
widow for the rest of her days.

The tragedy was the
inspiration for lacock Abbey.

On 16 April, 1232,

ela laid the foundation
stone of her Abbey,

partly as a tribute
to her husband

and partly as a place
to retire to later as a nun.

When ela came to the Abbey,

she bought all her papers with
her including the magna Carter,

and it was kept here in
one of the safe rooms.

She continued to live
here for the rest of her life,

and when she died she was
buried in the Abbey church.

Ela's copy of the magna Carter
remained here for centuries,

before it was finally handed
over to the British museum in 1945.

It is one of only
four known copies

of the original charter
still in existence,

but before this the
document like the Abbey,

found its way to
ela's descendant

William Henry fox Talbot.

William Henry fox Talbot
moved in to the Abbey in 1827,

and he was an
incredibly intelligent man,

he was a classicist,
a scientist,

he was interested in everything.

In the 1830s,

fox Talbot was
working on an invention

at his home lacock Abbey,

when he had a
breakthrough moment.

It was born out of
his love of painting,

or rather his lack
of talent for it.

Fox Talbot's wife and daughters

were great watercolourists
capturing great

landscapes and life drawings,

and in fact some
of their paintings

can still be found at
lacock Abbey today.

William wasn't so good
with a pen and paper,

so, he tried to
find a scientific way

to capture the
scenes before him.

During a time of great innovation
in the field of photograph,

Talbot made a
stunning discovery.

There had been
experiments to capture images

on paper by others before him,

but fox Talbot went on to create

the three primary
elements of photography.

Developing, fixing and printing.

Talbot already knew
about the light sensitivity

of a compound
called silver chloride,

so he tried to use that to
capture the world around him.

He took a piece of
paper and soaked it in...

Sodium chloride or
ordinary table salt.

He brushed one side of
the paper with silver nitrate

and when that reacted with the
salt that produced silver chloride,

which is a light
sensitive paper.

He called it his
photogenic drawing

and using the sensitive
paper that he'd created,

because he was still seeing it in
his mind as a way of keeping up

with the watercolour abilities
of his wife and daughters.

Fixing the paper to the
inside of small boxes,

he waited for the exposure
to light to take full effect.

These became known
as mouse trap cameras,

partly because
they were so small

and partly because, his wife
kept finding them all over the place.

He invented that process here

and the first ever photographic
negative was taken

of the auriol window upstairs
overlooking the south lawn,

which really makes this
Abbey the home of photography.

Talbot of course
died with no idea

of what his invention
would go on to become,

he could have had no
conception of the popularity

cameras, selfies,
television and even of course

the big silver screen.

170 years after that
very first photograph,

far more sophisticated cameras
than talbots came to lacock,

when the entire Hollywood
machinery descended on the Abbey.

In 2000, jk rowling's

overnight hit of the young
very famous wizard Harry Potter,

was adapted for the big screen,

and filming commenced
all across the UK.

However a very special
location was needed

to lend face for the main
setting of the Harry Potter movies,

the Hogwarts school of
witchcraft and wizardry,

and what better location to stand
in for Hogwarts than lacock Abbey.

It's really easy to see why...

Warner Bros would choose to
come and film 'Harry Potter' here,

there's such a
weight of history,

it's the perfect place to
show Hogwarts corridors.

The rooms at the Abbey
took on completely new lives.

Our warming room became
professor quirrels classroom.

Our chapter house was used

as the place where Harry
found the mirror of erisaid.

Professor snapes
classroom was in our sacristy.

The whole cast can be found
coming up and down these corridors,

when they're going
through the school.

By all accounts the film
crew had a great time on set,

but the building is
over 700 years old,

so, they had to be careful.

You didn't want props
or lighting falling down.

Handed over to the
national trust in the 1940s,

the Abbey is now a mecca
for Potter fans the world over.

Walking around there
having the chance

as a true Harry Potter fan,

to be able to get your picture
taken in that famous hallway,

that would be fantastic.

It's also a place where tourists

can learn about the other
extraordinary characters,

that help create this
atmospheric film set.

From ela to Henry
Talbot to Harry Potter,

this place has always been
home to extraordinary heroes.

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