Original subtitles

NARRATOR: The United Kingdom.

From a unique aerial view,

we will show four countries that come together as one nation.

Thousand-year-old traditions.

One of a kind engineering marvels.

The UK is a population of innovators

who forged the modern world.

In this series, we'll take an aerial tour across Europe,

seeing its sights from a brand new perspective.

Filmed from above and over the course of a single year,

as the landscape transforms through the changing seasons,

we will uncover the culture, history, and engineering

that built the great European nations we see today.

The Untied Kingdom

is an island nation in Northwestern Europe.

Separated from the mainland by the English Channel,

the UK has forged its own path from the rest of the continent.

It's made up of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

Each country has its own unique landscape, culture and sense of identity.

It's April, and across the nation the weather is warming up.

Trees shrug off their snowy blankets and fill their branches with blossom...

as spring comes to the UK.

In England's capital, London, it's as busy as ever.

A bird's-eye view reveals how this 2,000-year-old city

is densely packed with unique architecture and engineering wonders

seen nowhere else on Earth.

The Houses of Parliament, the nation's seat of government.

St. Paul's Cathedral,

renowned for its iconic 30-meter wide dome.

Tower Bridge, the city's world-famous suspension draw bridge.

From high above the clouds, London appears huge.

A sprawling metropolis stretching around 50 kilometers across.

It's home to around nine million people.

Zooming in on the city's heart

reveals a cluster of high tech buildings

that soar above London's traditional landmarks.

These are the towering skyscrapers of London's famous financial district.

Each stunning new mega structure has a uniquely engineered form.

Perhaps the most striking

is the giant glass clad Leadenhall Building,

famous for its unusual wedge-shaped design.

This breathtaking structure is 225 meters tall.

Its steel core weighs almost 18,000 tons.

And 4,220 glass panels cover its angled facade.

Pawel Urban is more familiar than most

with the Leadenhall Building's shining glass panels

because it rests on his shoulders to clean them.

I prefer to doing this job when it's sunshine like this.

Nice weather.

NARRATOR: Today, Pawel and his crew are cleaning the Leadenhall Building.

To do this, the team uses a specially designed mechanical arm

which carries a metal cradle down the side of the building.

But the team can only go over the edge

when the wind speed is less than 40 kilometers per hour.

This is to make sure the cradle doesn't swing precariously

in the strong breeze and damage the glass

or come detached from the crane altogether.

The wind has been howling at over 50 kilometers per hour all morning

but the crew notice a lull in the weather.

URBAN: Not windy.

Only three miles.

NARRATOR: The team get the go-ahead to begin their extraordinary descent

down the face of the glass skyscraper,

but they need to work quickly

to make the most of this lucky break in the weather.

URBAN: The first time when I was in the cradle,

I was very scared but now I'm all right.

NARRATOR: Aerial cameras reveal this extraordinary process up close.

Unchecked, the further the cradle drops on its cables,

the more it risks swinging in the wind.

So architects built this skyscraper with seven channels

running down the south face of the building.

The cradle has specially designed rails that lock into these channels.

The rails help stop the cradle blowing in the wind.

But as the hours tick by,

spring's unpredictable weather starts to turn.

URBAN: Sometimes it's very windy

and we have to go up quick 'cause it's very dangerous for us.

NARRATOR: With the wind picking up further,

Pawel and his team finish their last window.

They've managed to complete two sections of the building

in the short time they've been cleaning.

But with the Leadenhall Building's 4,220 panes of glass,

it's a full-time job to keep the city's skyline glistening.

URBAN: Well, see the windows.

We are on ground floor.

Nice and shiny.

Nice and clean.

So I'm very proud and happy.

We're doing a good job.

NARRATOR: As London's daredevil window cleaners climb down from their rig,

across the Irish Sea

it's time for another mega-sized spring clean.

Northern Ireland is the United Kingdom's smallest country.

Belfast, the country's capital, is a port city steeped in history.

Home to the world-famous launch site of the Titanic.

Northern Ireland is a land of epic landscapes

from rugged countryside to mythical coastlines.

On its northeast coast, in County Antrim,

sits a natural wonder.

This jet-black shoreline is called the Causeway Coast.

It's a 60-million-year-old geological marvel.

A bird's-eye view reveals a world-famous part of this coastline

called the Giant's Causeway.

It's a bizarre lattice of around 40,000

60-million-year-old interlocking hexagonal pillars.

The Giant's Causeway is Northern Ireland's most visited tourist attraction.

But because it's near the busy shipping lanes

of the Atlantic and Irish Sea,

the coastline encounters a lot of marine debris.

This means that every year,

the Causeway Coast is in need of a spring clean.

ETHERSON: Today we're gonna see what we can do

at removing a lot of the plastic

that's in the bays here at the Giant's Causeway.

NARRATOR: Barry Etherson is a local water sports instructor.

He's part of a dedicated group of volunteers

who clear up unsightly marine rubbish from the Causeway Coastline.

Today, Barry and the team aim to clear four kilometers of coastline

around the Giant's Causeway.

Picking up everything from nylon fishing nets and car tires

to plastic oil drums and even flip flops.

But the seaweed and hidden rocks

make it too dangerous for boats to get close enough.

So the team turn to jet skis.

The final few meters are too shallow even for the jet skis.

So the volunteers must swim the last stretch.

Careful to avoid the biggest waves smashing against the rocky outcrop.

According to local legend, a giant called Finn McCool

built these pillars as a bridge to Scotland.

In truth, the Giant's Causeway is the result of a volcanic eruption

sixty million years ago.

As lava bubbled out of the ground here,

it hit the sea where it cooled quickly,

cracking to form the perfect hexagonal-shaped basalt pillars

we see today.

It takes Barry's team around six hours to collect more than 500 kilos of litter.

(Barry grunts)

(yells)

Now, they need to get their haul back to the boat.

Barry and the volunteers edge their litter sacks to the shoreline.

The team need to scramble back to the jet skis

fully laden with their bags of waste.

A lot of the big sacks, they-- they catch and everything.

They get caught in the barnacles and limpets.

Yeah, it's just brute force really.

Egging each other on.

NARRATOR: Clearing the area of litter

is about more than just safeguarding this region's extraordinary aesthetics,

it's about keeping the ecosystem healthy, too.

ETHERSON: Plastics break down into micro plastics.

That gets into the fish. It gets into, inadvertently, people.

NARRATOR: The volunteers load the trailer with their final haul.

They've managed to collect an impressive 545 kilos of rubbish.

Today's effort has helped preserve this iconic coastline

in time for the influx of summer tourists.

ETHERSON: There's a lot of people here who care.

We appreciate it for its beauty.

We work here.

You kinda hope it stays beautiful.

This is a very busy part of the world.

A lot of people come here.

For everybody to enjoy.

NARRATOR: It's the beginning of June

and the temperature across the nation starts to rise.

Once empty beaches fill with tourists,

as holiday makers flock to the seaside.

Summer has arrived in the UK.

In this warm, glowing weather,

England's south coast fills with tourists

seeking a traditional family break.

From the white chalk cliffs of Dover,

to Dorset's Jurassic Coast,

these picture-perfect bays

echo to the sound of an engineering masterpiece

that changed the world.

In the 19th century, British engineers invented and perfected the steam railway.

They laid more than 32,000 kilometers of track across the British Isles,

revolutionizing transport.

On the South Devon Coast

lies perhaps the most beautiful railway line

Britain's industrial innovators ever conceived.

This is the Dartmouth Heritage Railway.

It's 11 kilometers of line stretching from Paignton in the north

to Kingswear in the south.

The railway offers nostalgic tourists a brief taste of a bygone age.

It's up to Ian Wellington

to keep the railway's collection of vintage steam trains

in perfect running order.

Each of these machines has its own unique character and nuances.

WELLINGTON: Some people say they've got a personality.

They are living and breathing

because of how they work and the way they sound.

NARRATOR: These vintage machines run on hot steam

held at incredibly high pressures.

The six engines in Ian's care have a collective age of over 500 years.

So it takes all of Ian's 35 years of experience

to keep the locomotives from breaking down.

You're responsible for the train that the people are in

so you've got to understand what you're doing,

what can go wrong.

NARRATOR: It's time to board the passengers

and stoke the furnace which sits inside the train's boiler.

The hot furnace turns the water surrounding it into high pressure steam.

A pipe at the top of the boiler then diverts the steam to twin pistons

which sit either side of the front wheels.

As the pistons fill with steam, they drive the wheels forward.

This line includes a half-kilometer long tunnel

and the magnificent Hooks Hill viaduct,

designed by world renowned British industrial engineer,

Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

Finally, Kingswear.

A picturesque fishing village crammed with boats.

The steam train has completed a full run with no problems

and all its vintage parts have made it in one piece.

For Ian, that's a triumph.

Hopefully, I've done a good job and I can go and have a cup of tea.

(laughs)

NARRATOR: It's testament to Ian and his team's care and attention

that this little part of British heritage is being kept alive

for future generations to enjoy.

As well as carving a railway network into the nation's countryside,

Britain's pioneering industrial engineers built another transport legacy

that lives on today.

In July, the midsummer heat spreads across the UK.

From the south coast of England

to the United Kingdom's most northern country, Scotland.

Here, hikers take to the highlands

to explore some of the UK's tallest mountains

as the summer thaw melts away the snowy peaks.

In Scotland's south, the vibrant cities of Glasgow

and the country's capital, Edinburgh,

throng with tourists there to soak up the art and culture on offer.

Those that want to escape the hustle and bustle

take to the canals for a tranquil weekend on the water.

The whole of the United Kingdom is crisscrossed

with more than 3,000 kilometers of man-made waterways.

Engineers built these canals in the 18th and 19th century

to power the industrial revolution.

Today, they're used for pleasure.

Scotland has two major canals that run between Glasgow and Edinburgh.

They meet in the middle, at a town called Falkirk.

From above, the two canals appear to join as one.

But a closer look reveals a problem.

The undulating Scottish landscape means that there is a 35-meter vertical drop

between the two canals.

So how do you travel between two waterways

on completely different levels?

Inventive engineers devise an ingenious solution.

The world's only rotating boat lift,

the Falkirk Wheel.

Before this machine was opened in 2002,

it would take weary boaters a day's heavy work

to travel between the two canals,

opening and closing 44 lock gates along the way.

Today, the Falkirk Wheel can transport barges up and down between the canals

in just four and a half minutes.

Peter Robinson is the head engineer for Scottish Canals.

It's Peter's job to ensure the smooth running

of this £17.5 million engineering marvel.

For me to be responsible

for trying to look after it is just superb.

I think some days, I've got the best job in the world.

NARRATOR: Today, Peter and his colleagues have seven hours

to coordinate the movement of 25 boats

up and down between the two canals.

At each end of the waterway,

the first boats of the day start to arrive.

The skippers steer their barges into water tight gondolas

at each end of the wheel.

Peter's colleagues in the operation room

close the hydraulic gates

and set the wheel turning.

Ten hydraulic motors work together to power an enormous gear

that turns the central axle.

This raises one of the 300-ton gondolas into the air

while lowering the other.

As the wheel rotates, each of the gondolas remains upright

thanks to a simple series of giant cogs.

ROBINSON: It's just phenomenal the number of people that are coming along

and reliably we just bring them through.

It's just engineering at its best.

NARRATOR: In each turn, the engine only uses the same amount of energy

as eight boiling kettles.

For the wheel to run this efficiently

the weight of the two gondolas needs to be exactly the same at all times.

But luckily that's not as hard as it sounds,

thanks to a handy quirk of physics.

When a boat enters either gondola,

it displaces its own weight in water exactly.

This means the two ends of the lift remain in perfect balance

whether they're empty or full of boats.

ROBINSON: It's complex yet simple.

Whatever goes in displaces water

and therefore the two gondolas on the wheel remain balanced.

It's absolutely brilliant to think about the engineering ingenuity.

NARRATOR: The Falkirk Wheel's designers

created a one of a kind engineering masterpiece

to solve a unique problem with originality and style.

As narrow boats make their way through the Scottish countryside,

in the nearby fields malt barley farmers prepare their crops for harvest.

This barley will go on to form one of Scotland's proudest creations.

In Scotland's northeast,

aerial cameras reveal countless little factories.

What are they?

A clue lies along one of the nation's longest waterways.

The mighty River Spey.

This river has more of these factories hidden in its bends

than anywhere else in Scotland.

These are Speyside's famous whiskey distilleries.

They use the region's pure spring waters to make scotch.

All this industry has given rise to a extraordinary aerial spectacle.

A yard that stands like a Mayan temple in the heart of whiskey country.

This is the Speyside Cooperage.

It's home to around 150,000 empty whiskey barrels.

Stacked into pyramids almost ten meters high.

When the distilleries need more casks

it's up to cooper, John Richard, to build and repair them.

There's nothing quite like the pyramids that we have here at Speyside Cooperage.

A lot of people say they resemble the ancient Egyptian pyramids.

NARRATOR: Scotch begins life as a colorless liquid.

Oak barrels give it its famous golden hue.

And once those barrels are empty,

the distilleries send them here to be stored and eventually refurbished.

Today, one of the local distilleries

has placed an order for 300 newly refurbished barrels.

All the casks are repaired to order

so they can be ready for shipment to the distillery that very same day.

It's time for John to get to work on a 2,000-year-old tradition.

Inside the Cooperage, John sets to work on the order with lightning speed.

He checks the oak staves for imperfections

and throws any rotten wood away, replacing it with a fresh strip.

RICHARD: We'll check for any defects such as broken staves,

rusty hoops, buckled ends.

Experience tells us what to look for.

NARRATOR: Once the barrels have been fixed and both ends have been removed,

the coopers do something that at first glance seems crazy.

They set each cask alight with a flame thrower.

The coopers place the casks over a hole in the floor

which fires out a 430 degree flame,

blasting the inside of the barrel for up to four minutes.

This is called charring,

and it holds the secret to the malt whiskey's delicate flavor.

RICHARD: The charring caramelizes the natural sugars

that exist within the wood

and this allows the alcohol to pick up flavors of honey and caramel.

NARRATOR: In a single day,

John and the team complete 300 barrels

ready to be shipped out to the distillery.

Each barrel will spend the next decade

slowly turning a colorless spirit into an exclusive Scottish product.

RICHARD: Speyside is the malt whiskey capital of the world.

At the end of the day, when I roll my last cask out on to the lorry,

it's great to know that I have contributed something

that is so vital to the area.

NARRATOR: As summer draws to a close,

the temperature across the United Kingdom starts to cool.

It's November and the days are getting shorter.

The morning sun paints the sky a soft pink

and a thick mist settles over the landscape.

It's autumn,

and in the north of England a chill in the air

signals the start of one of the most dramatic feats in farming

that heralds the coming of new life.

In England's northwest,

in the heart of Cumbria, sits the lake district.

A vast craggy national park

sculpted by glaciers over the last two million years.

Looking closer, it's a patchwork of seemingly barren mountains.

An aerial view reveals that this rugged landscape is farmland.

Farmer, David Harrison, looks after 1,100 mountain dwelling sheep.

It's a farming practice in this area

thought to stretch back to Viking times.

HARRISON: In the people round here it's bred in them. It's in the blood.

Me family's been farming here for well over 100 years.

I'm about the fourth, fifth generation.

NARRATOR: David needs to bring his sheep

back to the homestead for breeding.

His problem is finding them.

The sheep live semi-wild.

Spread out across 3,000 mountainous acres.

David's solution is to start at the top of the mountain

with his team of dogs

and work his way down.

HARRISON: I've done it that many times.

You know the fell like the back of your hand.

I know where my sheep are.

NARRATOR: The further David and his dogs move down the mountain,

the larger the flock becomes,

as he picks up more and more sheep along the way.

HARRISON: It's gonna take us about four to five hours

to get all the sheep back in off that fell.

Lose a bit of sweat on the way and sore feet, but we'll get it done.

NARRATOR: By the time they reach the lowlands,

the giant flock is complete.

From above, it's an incredible sight.

A thousand sheep squeeze through the narrow gate,

herded by David's dogs

like sand through an hour glass.

HARRISON: Dogs are marvelous.

I can put a dog up to a mile away from where I'm stood

to bring sheep back to me or send them in the right direction where I want to go.

They're invaluable.

You couldn't do it without them.

NARRATOR: A shepherd taking around 100 sheep

from one field to the next only needs a single sheepdog.

When you're collecting 1,000 sheep from a mountain,

the flock is so spread out, you need more than ten.

HARRISON: When one splits off, you have a good eye dog that'll fetch it,

guide it back into the flock

and you just stand still and let the dog do its work.

NARRATOR: It takes them till early afternoon

for David and his team to finally herd all the sheep

into the pen for breeding.

HARRISON: The gather that we've just done was absolutely fantastic.

It was their best gather we've had on that fell this year.

It was just brilliant.

NARRATOR: In just a few months,

David's flock will give birth to the next generation.

HARRISON: I love being on the fell.

Gathering the fell's me favorite job.

You can't beat it being out on your own with your dogs.

I don't think I'm, eh, cut out to do any other job.

Um, I'm unemployable I think. (laughs)

I'll have to stay doing this.

NARRATOR: As autumn's damp wet weather takes hold across the UK,

people dream of jetting off to warmer climes.

A cutting edge engineering workshop in the middle of England

makes those dreams a reality.

The Midlands are historically the industrial heartland of England.

Birmingham, Coventry, and Derby were key cities

in the industrial revolution.

Even today, the area around Derby still houses

some of the most advanced transport manufacturing workshops in existence.

This colossal concrete structure is the Rolls-Royce test facility.

It's here that every jet engine produced in the neighboring assemble line

is certified fit for service.

Chris Pattinson is the man in charge.

It's his job to make sure our planes can fly safely.

PATTINSON: If we didn't have the ability to test engines, quite simply,

you and I couldn't go on holiday.

This is a facility that runs 24 hours a day.

It runs almost seven days a week and it runs almost 365 days a year.

NARRATOR: Each multi-million-pound jet engine

consists of 30,000 components,

but as our airborne journey reveals,

the building itself is a modern engineering wonder.

One room in particular is vital for keeping the four billion passengers

who travel by air each year, safe.

This is the Rolls-Royce test bed.

PATTINSON: I remember my first time here and what got me was the scale.

What we do here is absolutely exceptional.

NARRATOR: Here, Chris and his team

fire up the 50,000 horsepower jet engines to full throttle.

They do this for every engine the company builds in the UK.

The only way to truly understand how remarkable this room is,

is to see it from the sky above the building.

A colossal fan in the tower on the right of the building

sucks in 1.3 tons of air per second.

The air passes through the engine at almost 1,600 kilometers per hour

before being expelled from the building through an enormous chimney on the left.

This super-sized vent system means that Rolls-Royce

can rigorously test every jet engine it builds

under the extreme conditions the jet could face

at 10,000 meters altitude,

without ever needing to leave the factory.

The team start the engine.

They want to replicate the effect of flying through an enormous rainstorm

to see if the engine can withstand over ten liters of water

spraying through every second.

The forces involved are huge.

Each engine produces more thrust than 68 Formula One cars.

The test is over.

The team carefully inspects the engine

to see how it coped with the extreme forces

and it's passed with flying colors.

PATTINSON: The technology that we deal with is exceptional.

The facilities are exceptional.

I absolutely love it and I wouldn't do anything else.

NARRATOR: As autumn in the Midlands fades,

a cold chill descends upon the UK

and a dusting of frost covers all corners of the nation.

It's December and winter has arrived in the British Isles.

Icy coastal winds bring freezing temperatures.

But in the heart of the Cornish countryside,

groundbreaking British designers have found a way

to defeat the winter blues

by engineering a tropical climate all year round.

On England's southern-most tip,

nestled in amongst the rugged Cornish coastline,

is the last place on Earth you would expect to find a tropical paradise,

but zoom in closer,

an aerial view reveals a building straight out of science fiction.

This is the Eden Project.

The world's biggest indoor rainforest.

This incredible engineering masterpiece

is a series of eight interlocking transparent domes

etched into the Cornish countryside.

It's 7:00 a.m. and for daredevil gardener, David Paul, it's time to get to work.

This is the biggest captivity rainforest in the world.

It's such an exciting opportunity to be able to work

with these different trees that you'd never be able to work with.

NARRATOR: Designers created the Eden Project

to house and celebrate plant species from rainforests across the globe.

It's home to nearly two million different plants

that span three of the world's climate zones.

A specially designed irrigation system captures rainfall

which is recycled to water the plants,

feed the ten-meter waterfall

and add to the dome's humidity.

But there's a problem.

The tropical conditions are so good

the plants inside the domes

grow just as fast as they would in the wild.

If left unchecked, this could cause a serious issue.

The trees could penetrate the dome itself

and then once that is open to the elements,

all the other trees would potentially die.

NARRATOR: The Eden Project's canopy is growing so quickly

it's close to bursting through the greenhouse roof.

If that were to happen,

all the species that this habitat protects

would be at risk.

Today, David and the team have just three hours

to trim the branches before the morning rush of visitors.

The rope crew haul their way to the top of the structure.

It's the dome's geodesic design that holds the secret

to the Eden Project's phenomenal success.

More than 800 different plastic sheets make up the structure.

An ultra light steel frame holds them together

to create the perfectly rounded domes.

This giant bubble wrapped shell lets in as much light as possible,

while insulating the rainforest

to between 18 and 38 degrees Celsius all year round.

Working in these temperatures takes some skill.

Especially when maneuvering a chainsaw.

PAUL: It is challenging working in here in the heat.

The metal work can get so hot in here that you can cook an egg on it.

-(man yells indistinctly) -Okay.

Okay. Below!

NARRATOR: The rope team trim the branches

and glide back down to ground level.

It's a job well done.

Over a million people visit the Eden Project each year

to marvel at its botanical wonders

as well as the incredible structure that houses them.

At the opposite end of the United Kingdom,

the January weather paints Scotland white with snow.

In the east of the country,

Scottish engineers have used the natural landscape

to create a surprising home

for some of the biggest machines on Earth.

Scotland's east coast is a land of narrow sea inlets called firths.

Glaciers carved these deep bays during the last ice age.

Just 30 kilometers north of Inverness,

sits Cromarty Firth.

It appears to be dotted with strange industrial structures.

What are they?

A closer look reveals the surprising truth.

This is an enormous repair yard for oil rigs.

The North Sea is filled with over 600 of these giants

but when the rigs need repairs,

they're towed here to the shelter of the firth.

Calum Slater is in charge of the port.

It's his job to make sure

these rigs are hauled through Cromarty Firth's waterways

to the waiting engineering companies

without running aground on the rocks.

Every job that we do,

we carry the responsibility for this stretch of water.

We always want to be sure things are going to plan.

NARRATOR: Calum's task today

is to move an enormous oil rig from the mouth of the firth into dock.

The monster machine is worth around £40 million.

To tow the massive oil rig into harbor,

Calum doesn't just use one giant tug, he uses two.

Rigs float thanks to giant buoyancy aids called pontoons

which lie just below the water's surface.

But when they're being moved,

these same pontoons drag in the water, making the rigs less stable.

So while one ship pulls the rig forwards,

the other tugs in the opposite direction to help keep the rig upright.

Each towing vessel has a 28,000 horsepower engine

and is almost as long as the Statue of Liberty.

SLATER: Rig moves can take anywhere between eight

to 17, 18, 19 hours in--in duration.

NARRATOR: Progress is painfully slow.

The rig barely seems to move.

But over the next hour,

the rig creeps forward nine kilometers

to reach its final goal,

the docking site at the port in Invergordon.

The rig is 90 meters long

and 76 meters wide.

But it needs to squeeze into this space

less than 150 meters across.

The space is too narrow for the colossal towing vessels

that brought the rig into the firth.

So smaller more maneuverable harbor tug boats take over.

Meter by meter, the tug boats carefully tow the rig

into the docking site

and align it with the side of the jetty so the rig is parallel.

It's dusk

and the team have successfully landed the rig in the dock.

The crew on board have made it home in time for a well-earned break.

SLATER: At the end of the day, we're glad that it's done safely.

NARRATOR: The port's engineering companies

will spend the next few months giving the rig a full service.

When they're finished,

this colossal machine will head back out to the North Sea

in search of black gold once more.

The UK is an island nation

with a thirst for engineering innovation

that has left a permanent mark on the world's stage.

It has a rich cultural history that spans many different regions.

They all retain their own unique stamp of individuality

but come together as one united kingdom.