Original subtitles

(Dramatic music)

Tom ward (narrates): An imposing building in england

with an extraordinary medical past.

Inside it's like stepping into another world,

above you have what's clearly a medical facility

but down things change.

This clearly it was somewhere that incredibly important.

A mighty rusting complex in the usa

that found itself at the heart of the civil rights movement.

It's like you've been shrunk down

and put into the inside of a car

'cause you're just surrounded by towering pipes and chimneys

and chambers.

(Dramatic music)

The Caribbean paradise with a long-forgotten dark past.

This industry is going to change the social

and economic fabric of the west.

(Dramatic music)

And the mediterranean island with crumbling buildings

and a labyrinth of underground tunnels.

This is a full-on ghost town

or probably more accurately a ghost island.

(Dramatic music)

Decaying relics and ruins of lost worlds.

They were shaped by the passing years

and are now haunted by the past.

Their secrets are waiting to be revealed.

(Dramatic music)

(Theme music)

On the shore of the English channel

to the south of the United Kingdom stands a grand old structure.

Looking at the style of the architecture

it's clearly several hundred years old

and from the scale a vast amount of money went into this.

It appears to be grand and palatial at first

but it seems to be disguising something from its past.

When you enter contrasting scenes appear.

Upstairs you have what's clearly a medical facility

but then when you go down to the basement of the building

things change, it's dark down here, the rooms are small,

there are bars on the windows.

The contrast between the upstairs

and the downstairs is really incongruous.

When you find out what was going on here,

you realise that this place changed dramatically over time.

But the moment it really shone was during the world war ii

when it was suddenly called into action

and given an incredible responsibility.

So, what was this place and how did it come into its own

during the 20th century?

Beyond the wall

in the south west corner of the grounds

is an empty area of grassland.

On the surface it reveals little.

But it actually holds a clue to the real nature of the place.

Eric birbeck a local historian

has spent years researching the story here.

Beneath my feet there lies thousands of bodies.

It is said that there's over 20,000 bodies here.

An archaeological dig in 2005 revealed details

of the burial practices here centuries ago.

We can see that some of them lost limbs,

some of them were twisted by disease,

by syphilis, and some of these people died

in ways we can only imagine.

The factor is that they're not just one level

they're buried on top of each other,

we actually found a series of coffins

where there were five bodies virtually collapsed

on top of each other.

(Dramatic music)

The human remains hold the key to understanding

what these buildings once were.

Buried here were all sorts, women and children,

even a number of Russian bodies

and that tells you something but the real clue

is that the vast majority of this mass of bodies

were British servicemen.

This is the royal hospital haslar,

a naval facility which was completed in 1762.

When it was built it was absolutely enormous,

the largest brick building anywhere in Europe.

And that scale gives you an idea of the desperate need

for something like this at the time.

Almost everything

in the royal Navy was powered by humans.

If people were needed to power the fleet

then there had to be a place to fix people

when they were broken or when they were sick.

But all around the place are features that suggest it

wasn't an ordinary hospital for ordinary patients.

It's the kind of place that

feels like it's a very good defensive position

but actually that also makes it incredibly useful

for keeping people in.

There's water on three sides which stops people from leaving it,

there are also watchtowers all round it.

The royal Navy was filled with people

who were conscripted and it wasn't a draft

that bought them into the royal Navy,

it was five guys and some sticks

who would go out, hit them over the head

and drag them on to his majesty's ships.

It was known as press ganging

for those desperate to escape life at sea,

the best opportunity was to be found back onshore.

Escape attempts were common, they'd crawl through the sewers,

climb the fences, try and smuggle their way out,

every possible exit would have been tested out

by those desperate to escape this place.

And escape from the Navy.

But for most new arrivals escape was a forlorn hope.

Survival was the priority.

There's even a very famous phrase

that is supposed to have come from this place.

The way people were bought in is they were rowed

up a creek into the building and if they didn't have a paddle

and they were the ones being bought here

they were clearly in a bad way

they were up the creek without a paddle.

Just a few decades after the hospital opened,

the bloody battles of the napoleonic wars

which included trafalgar and Waterloo

came to stretch the royal Navy to its limits.

Injured sailors were no longer arriving here

slowly along the creek

but in their droves directly from the docks.

When passengers arrived in great numbers,

they would be bought into here and they would just literally occupy

the space on the stone flags,

they would be propped up against the wall,

some lying, and obviously some in great pain and groaning,

in fact, we have written evidence of the fact

that on one day alone there was some 88 bodies

wanting burial as well as the casualties who were here.

It must have been absolute bedlam.

People are wounded by cannonball that can take off a leg.

They were wounded by huge razor-sharp

chunks of wood blown off the side of ships.

There was blood, there was sick, there were guts

and it was all a harsh difficult place to be.

At the time there was no triage system in place,

no matter how severe your injury

treatment was on a first-come first-served basis.

And here we have the receiving room

whereas a casualty you would be lifted off

the flagstones and bought in assessed by the surgeon,

hospital mate, treatment here in those days

was quite brutal actually, amputation,

treating major wounds, fractures and such like,

no anaesthetic and not even a tot of rum.

For those poor souls who were taken to haslar

survival was far from guaranteed.

Over the next century,

the sick and injured continued to come here,

yet haslar was to go through an extraordinary transformation

which would see it play a part in one of the most ambitious

top-secret campaigns in history.

During the world war ii

staff at the royal hospital haslar received a strange directive

from the authorities.

It said that every patient had to leave.

All of a sudden the wards became empty

and it had a strange atmosphere,

many of the staff report about being sort of almost eerie,

that there was no patients on the wards

and yet all the staff were beginning to gather

for they did not know what.

To add to the unnerving atmosphere,

in nearby Portsmouth harbour

huge numbers of ships and troops were gathering.

An event like no other was about to take place.

This was part of the build-up for the normandy landings,

d day, operation overlord the most important

military mission of the world war ii.

On June 6, 1944, more than 150,000 men

landed on the shores of northern France.

Allied planners for d day expected 50%

of the people who hit the beach to be killed or wounded.

The ones who were wounded would have to be pulled right back

across the channel to be looked after and patched up.

For those fortunate enough to survive that day,

many of them wound up passing through the doors of haslar.

Thankfully, by that stage the medical standards were

infinitely better than when this place first opened.

This is the cellar area that was designated for use

as operating theatres and there were three tables here,

one here, one there, and one there

so that they could undertake

three operations all at the same time.

And therefore, clear more casualties.

A second operating theatre was established nearby

and the staff worked around the clock

in eight-hour shifts often in stifling conditions.

They were very fortunate in having haslar

because of its design and build

with secure cellars like this that are very thick-walled,

they were safe and the factor

is that they could undertake the work

and the casualties were operated on, treated, cared for,

and as soon as they showed signs of recovery

they were moved on by ambulance train.

(Dramatic music)

Letters of thanks poured in.

Militaries need to look after their people

and this place was appreciated, people wrote about it in letters,

people were impressed at the quality of the treatment

that they received at a time when it really mattered to them.

The hospital continued serving the Navy

right through the 20th century

including taking in casualties from the falklands war.

Then in the '90s, it opened its doors to the injured

of the rest of the military as well.

But most of what remains here comes from hasler's final days

when it was in the care of the UK's national health service.

In 2007, haslar hospital was taken over by the nhs.

Ending 254 years

of continuous military service,

just two years later it closed its doors for good.

(Dramatic music)

Today, the old hospital site is being redeveloped

into a residential area

and those historic buildings are at the centre of the project.

(Dramatic music)

I worked and served here for over 55 years,

I have a great love for this building

like many of my friends and colleagues who worked here.

Haslar is still here, it is haslar, always will be haslar,

it may be in a new guise in the fact a new community.

I have every belief that haslar will still be here in 100,

150 years' time.

(Dramatic music)

In the southern state of Alabama in the modern city of Birmingham,

there's a collection of rusting ruins.

One thing that just strikes you immediately,

the thing that hits the eye are these huge towers

that just sort of come up out of the landscape.

As you move into the site you start to be covered

by all of the metalwork, it's like a giant set

that you're climbing into and walking through.

It's a huge spiders web of rusting metal,

you've got chimneys jutting up,

you've got pipes and flywheels, your cogs, your hoists,

all kinds of beautiful machinery and then you've got tunnels

and you've got water towers, you've got trains,

you've got your locomotives,

this place was seriously on the industrial scale.

Unlikely as it may seem this extraordinary place

was at the heart of both an industrial

and a social revolution.

When you sort of look down from above you see this junction

for railways even today you can imagine this is a real key

as to what made this place successful.

This is an emblem of a pivotal moment in history

and the birthplace of a revolution.

Finding of this space lies a groundwork

for the sort of political mobilisation

that came out of churches and schools.

This is impressive place was basically reborn

out of the ashes of a brutal conflict

and it comes to represent the rebirth of a nation.

It all dates to a time when america was clawing

itself back from the horrors of the civil war.

William t sherman a prominent union general

was a ruthless commander who pursued a scorched earth policy.

That left a trail of destruction in its wake.

(Dramatic music)

General sherman marches through the south

destroying everything agricultural, buildings,

but also the rudiments of industrial buildings

that are starting to appear in the south.

With its fledgling industry totally crippled

the southern states had to rebuild.

From the ashes of the American civil war,

a new movement was born.

One that would rejuvenate decimated states like Alabama.

Historian Tyler malugani has spent many years investigating the story.

So, basically nothing was here before the civil war

or even during the civil war.

Birmingham didn't begin until 1871

and that's when we see the growth of the new south movement,

bringing industry to the south so the south never again

would have to rely on northern goods coming down.

We can make our own stuff right here in Birmingham.

(Dramatic music)

The area around Birmingham offered something unique

and it was perfect for making iron.

The location of this place was just absolutely perfect

because of just how cheaply they could make the iron.

Within a 30 mile radius,

you could get the three components that you need to make iron.

So, you've got your iron ore, your limestone, and your coal

and it's one of the only places in the world

where you can find all three so close together.

Natural resources were one thing but what was also needed

was a method of transportation.

Now, of course, we can make

all the iron in the world

but if we couldn't transport that iron it was useless

and that's why we're right next

to this rail road that's behind me, without rail roads Birmingham

never would have been possible.

It's the first industrial city built in the United States

not next to a body of water.

Just because of the rail roads.

(Dramatic music)

Colonel James wither sloss was an important figure

in bringing the rail roads to the area and that was not all.

In 1882, the sloss furnaces were born.

What we're on right now is called a blast furnace

this was really what we used to make the iron,

the sloss furnace company quickly became

one of the largest pig iron-producing companies

in the world.

The process of making pig iron is both complex and dangerous.

So, the cool thing about this spot

is we can see a lot that goes into actually making the iron,

it's a lot more than just a blast furnace.

Huge towers created hot air that was blasted into the furnace

to bring the temperature up to 2000 degrees celsius.

Now, the water tower's also really important without water

we couldn't cool the furnace to help keep it from melting down

and make the steam to help power the site.

(Dramatic music)

When in operation this place would have dominated the skyline,

you've got this iron running off

and it is glowing it's so hot,

this entire network would be glowing and it doesn't stop,

it is going 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

To keep this powerhouse running required many, many workers.

And one of the buildings provides a clue

about the make up of the workforce.

This building is the old black bathhouse

so this is where the black workers

would have to shower after their shifts

because of course this was in the middle of Birmingham

right in the middle of segregation and sloss was no different.

Sloss could entice workers, black workers

to work for very little pay by providing housing.

By providing things that supported communities, churches,

and other buildings, other community centres,

education and so it could do things

that sort of pulled people into work for them for little pay

again in a landscape where there aren't many options.

A lot of them were either ex-slaves or children of ex-slaves

at the very beginning so being able to provide

an education for their children was a very,

very big part of why they came to live here

and why they came to work at a site like this.

Over 70% of the workforce was black

and mainly housed in small cottages in a community

that became known as the sloss quarters.

But like much of america at that time segregation

was heavily enforced.

The company operated a strict hierarchy at the top

was an all-white group of managers, chemists,

accountants, and engineers.

At the bottom an all-black labour gang.

The segregation that's happening at sloss is part of a larger fabric

in which so many things are segregated

and you don't necessarily need signs,

they're segregated by custom.

At sloss whites and blacks bathed in separate bathhouses,

punched in separate time clocks,

and attended separate company picnics.

It wasn't just the workplace that was segregated but the entire city

and it was all coming to a head.

They had this police commissioner Eugene bull Connor

who was very, very repressive and was brutal

in a city that had a particularly rigid regime of segregation.

That had a history of violence

so much so it was known as bombingham.

The city became notorious for its discrimination.

Yet ironically the policies of companies like sloss

had an unintentional effect.

The funny thing is because of the schools

and the churches that were found all over

in these industrial housing communities

these companies not only trying to perpetuate

segregation but subconsciously they were accidentally

giving people an outlet to rise up and have a better opportunity

at life through schooling and churches.

By providing schools, churches, houses

that are proximate to the facility that are spaces

where African American people can commune

that's something that is absolutely vital

for sort of building up grass roots networks

and lays the groundwork

for the sort of political mobilisation

that came out of churches and schools.

In 1963 tensions finally reached boiling point

and Birmingham became the focus of international attention.

Martin Luther King went to Birmingham in part

because segregation was so rigid there

and the cities regime was particularly vigilant

against blacks so king goes there to draw attention

to also to desegregate the city and it leads

to this children's crusade against segregation

and racism in the city that brings in thousands of children

who march and who are then seized upon by dogs and water hoses

in a way that is incredibly brutal that brings domestic

and international attention.

The seismic events in Birmingham Alabama

helped bring about desegregation in america

which in theory at least deeply affected companies like sloss.

Once the workforce becomes de-segregative

everyone has at least on paper equal opportunity,

African Americans now can apply for higher positions

where before they weren't allowed to so

desegregation was a big part

of the history of sloss in that sense.

In practice, however,

while mid-level positions did open up,

black workers were largely restricted to helper roles

and by the time major changes in employment law

came in the 1970s it was all too late.

The era of massive plant shut downs had begun

and it was already costing many jobs.

New environmental challenges and a turn towards plastics

meant that in 1971 the end finally came.

(Serene music)

Today, the furnaces lie abandoned

outdated and too dangerous to be reused.

But overlooking Birmingham the towers still stand

as lasting reminders of the people who helped build sloss.

I think the preservation of sloss

is important not only as a record

to the way in which the south rebuilt itself after the civil war

but also it's a really important part of a fabric

of not only civil rights history

but the history of black workers in the south.

(Dramatic music)

Of the coast of Albania, there's a mysterious tiny island

with a fascinating history.

(Serene music)

As you approach this is your typical mediterranean

adriatic island, it's covered here and there with pines

and olive groves

and has nice little beaches visible from a distance.

As you get closer you start noticing

that the whole island is studded by little concrete structures

and it's not just one or two it's hundreds maybe thousands.

But in amongst these little pockets of concrete

more serious and substantial constructions emerge.

It's only once you're on the island

that the extent of it all becomes clear.

Old beds, discarded kitchen utensils,

abandoned schools.

All in a real state of ruin and decay and it makes you wonder

was it just a passage of time that did for these buildings

or were they destroyed in some kind of a military conflict.

This all suggests a significant population once lived here

and they weren't just passing through either.

This is a full-on ghost town.

Or probably more accurately a ghost island.

There are also mysterious underground tunnels.

Lying on the ground you come across these gas masks

so it appears they might have been preparing

for some kind of nuclear or chemical attack

and some of these gas masks are tiny

like they were designed for children.

So, what is this place?

And who or what were the islanders so afraid of?

(Dramatic music)

When you look at a map you see why this island

was so strategically important,

at the southern end of the adriatic sea

it narrows down to a narrow strait that's kind of a choke point

from which you can control the shipping

going in and out of that area.

So, whoever controlled this island effectively controlled the adriatic.

Albania has a really interesting history,

it was only created in 1913

and it was created by diplomatic agreement

because the great powers

couldn't decide did Serbia get Albania?

Does Austria, Hungary get Albania?

Do the Turks keep Albania?

Nobody could agree

so they said we're going to create this new country Albania.

The problem was that neighbouring countries

never really accepted Albania as an independent state.

So, the Italians begin encroaching on this new state of Albania

already in 1914 in the outbreak of world war I

and they expand their presence in Albania during the war

and then after the war in the inter war period

they take over Albania altogether.

Some of the original buildings still display an Italian influence

but the occupation by the Italian fascists

was just the beginning.

From the peace that came after world war ii

a new political force emerged to take over this place.

Sazan island.

From a distance, it's a mediterranean paradise.

Yet naim muho recalls a time

when living here was a serious business.

(Speaks foreign language)

Translation: "At the time they called the island

"the guardian of war and protector of the country.

"They said that the island

"was not only responsible for protecting itself

"with its inhabitants...

"But to report to Albania the arrival of the enemy."

But who were the enemy?

After world war ii

Albania was controlled by a communist dictatorship

that was very friendly to the Soviet union.

The Soviets poured enormous military resources into this island,

they built a port for servicing submarines,

they built this extensive array of tunnels,

thousands of bunkers,

and an airfield that you can almost say

they converted it into something like a stationary aircraft carrier.

At the heart of the regime was enver hoxha

the Albanian dictator and though he was an ally

of the communist superpowers, he knew they could turn on him

and take over Albania at any time.

Over time Albania asserted more control over the island,

the Russians left but the Albanian dictatorship

was extremely paranoid.

Enver hoxha fears American aggression,

fears Soviet aggression,

fears Chinese aggression as well.

And that paranoia is rendered real and palpable

by all of these pillboxes everywhere.

I mean, they are all over this island,

hoxha saw enemies around every corner.

So, they saw this island as their first line of defence

from any future invasion.

Despite all this, the island was home

and commander muho has fond memories of living here

with his wife and daughters at least for a time.

(Speaks foreign language)

Translation: "This was an amazing villa,

"it's a pity to see it ruined now.

"Here I also hosted important and powerful people

"whom I respected and who respected me.

"I keep very beautiful memories of my home.

More than 3,000 soldiers

and their families lived on the island

and a whole community was born.

(Speaks foreign language)

"The building that is in front of us

"was the home of the former soldiers.

"Where very beautiful cultural and artistic activities

"were also carried out.

"At the top, there is a cinema

"that screened about three films a week.

But the threat of attack was ever-present

and the protection of the people was Paramount.

(Speaks foreign language)

"A marvellous work of fortification

"of this strategic structure was done.

"All weapons equipment and material resources

"had to be hidden underground

"so that in wartime everything was tunnelled.

"I'm talking about kindergartens, schools and the elderly

"who took care of children during the war.

"This area you see now was divided into rooms,

"there were the dormitories, the kitchen,

"the canteen, the warehouse, the classrooms,

"there was everything."

Some believe that the tunnels had a darker purpose

that was born of dangers much closer to home.

There are also allegations that it was used as a location

to build chemical weapons.

Chemical weapons being the weapon of choice

for a regime that's facing extinction

it might use these weapons to hold off that

final enemy offensive.

While the islanders feared attack or invasion

there were also terrible dangers closer to home.

Hoxha as so many dictators before him had done

gradually became obsessed strictly with preserving his own power

and knew that if he loosened his grip

at all the public would rise up against him

and he would probably be killed.

This paranoia came to a head in the 1970s.

Hoxha fearing a coup from within his own government

went on a killing spree of leading officials.

Rob: You can still see the villa of the communist defence minister

but he was executed as a traitor by the ever more

paranoid dictator enver hoxha in 1974.

As a close ally of the defence minister

commander muho suddenly found himself in great danger.

After the defence minister was purged you can imagine

anyone close to him including the commander of sazan

would be very understandably paranoid that they might be next.

In 1985, commander muho was arrested

and imprisoned accused of being an enemy of the fatherland.

It was not until 1989 that he tasted freedom once more.

He was freed just in time to see the collapse

of the last communist state in Europe.

(Upbeat music)

Much of the damage here is from recent training exercises

involving British marines and the Albanian Navy.

But the island is no longer the soul preserve of the military.

Sazan is a really fascinating place for tourists to visit

so they have opened up the island to tourists,

to people who want to see

all of this military history up close.

(Dramatic music)

Beautiful st John in the us Virgin Islands.

On the north coast of this lovely Caribbean haven

is a collection of strange-looking remains.

(Serene music)

The beach is pristine, it's a tropical paradise.

But then you go further inland

and you get to this overgrown jungle.

Almost hidden amongst the palm fronds

and the vines are a series of stone walls

with windows and doorways.

This isn't just a palatial house,

this is something far more complex.

Given that there's this chimney and there are channels

you then start to wonder if it's an industrial building.

Was this once an industrial site?

And what exactly is this large flat circle of stone?

Such an exact round shape suggests a specific process

but it's not clear what that process is.

A short distance away near the water's edge

another ruin towers over the landscape.

There's a huge stone building that's on the mountainside

and it doesn't seem connected at all.

Both buildings are in the same stone style

and with a specific design but it's not quite clear

what the linkage between the two sites was.

So, what were these used for and is this damage a clue

as to why these buildings have just been left

to crumble into the jungle?

The history of this small island is rooted in an era

of exploration and a time

when European countries

were looking to expand their empires.

In the 17th century

the Caribbean was being divided up by European powers

eager to exploit its resources and this particular area

was settled by the Danes.

(Dramatic music)

The Danish explores faced a whole host of difficulties

and dangers.

There were hurricanes and earthquakes,

there wasn't much fresh water on the island.

Many lost their lives upon arriving here

but the risk was deemed worth it.

Here they could produce a commodity that was more valuable than gold

and as addictive as a drug.

This industry is not just going to produce a lot of wealth

for those who own it,

it is going to change the social and economic fabric of the west.

Without the wealth generated here in the Caribbean,

the industrial revolution would have been impossible.

And so the money poured into Europe

but for others in the Caribbean the birth of the new industry

had dreadful consequences as park ranger Ken wild

discovered through his analysis of the ruins.

So, as you look into this small space

we think it's probably a place where

they may have been incarcerating somebody in some dungeon.

But for some this was home.

Who were the people forced to live in these conditions

and why were they here?

So, the Danes

didn't have any indigenous labour force

and they couldn't convince fellow Danes to come over.

So, instead, they turned to buying enslaved peoples from Africa.

You would have people

being not only subject to an incredibly arduous

long cramped deadly voyage across the Atlantic

but then they would be in a situation

where they would often work 18 to 20 hour days

especially during harvest.

This is the cinnamon bay plantation.

What was grown and processed here was sugar cane.

The sugar industry and the slave industry

were intimately interlinked

and you need a large labour force to produce it economically.

Indeed one of the reasons why there's such a high-level

export of enslaved labour

to the Caribbean is that people die off,

it's deadly labour.

If you have 4,000 enslaved people on this island,

it must have been just horrendous and because of the punishments

for any infraction were just so severe.

Sugar's a very delicate process and you need to have workers

that are completely subsumed to a heavy disciplinary system

so you can get them doing what you want them to do

at the time you want it done.

The back-breaking work began

in the dense fields of towering sugar cane.

Most people haven't wheedled a machete

and tried to cut cane but it's one of the most

difficult agricultural tasks you can imagine.

From here, it was transported to the processing site above

where the circular structure still visible today did its work.

So, we're standing on top of the animal mill

you've got your rollers here and so you have your animals

going around in a circle,

we find these round platforms all over the island.

Four people were needed to run the horse mill,

one drove the animals, two worked the rollers

feeding the store back and forth and a fourth took away

the leftover sugar cane pulp called bagasse.

The pulp was then turned into highly lucrative brown sugar.

But trouble was brewing on st John's.

(Suspenseful music)

So, in these terrible conditions

we shouldn't be surprised

that the slaves started to hatch plans for rebellion.

The Danish west India company only employed six soldiers

to watch over the entire island.

They were vastly outnumbered, the revolt started on one plantation

coral bay and then moved on to the fort.

This revolt was not only long-lasting,

it was incredibly deadly and destructive.

One-third of the white inhabitants were perhaps killed

and up to one-half of the plantations destroyed.

The Danish just didn't have the manpower to fight back,

instead they enlisted the help of French

and Swiss colonialists.

The insurgents held their ground, fighting a guerrilla-style war

that lasted for ten weeks,

the last rebel was finally captured on the 23, August 1734.

After the slave uprising was finally crushed,

punishments and cruelties only worsened.

It was all intended to serve as a warning to others.

But the terror tactics, in the end, didn't work.

The Caribbean sugar industry would be plagued

by rebellions right up until abolition of slavery

by the British empire in 1834.

With slavery at last outlawed and with increased competition

from mainland Europe, the sugar industry rapidly declined.

Before long the stone buildings here were abandoned.

For decades the structures lay

at the mercy of the ever-encroaching jungle

until the American government purchased the island

from the Danish and preserved much of it as a national park.

This site is incredibly important, it's one of the few sites

in the Americas

especially something that's now part of the United States

where we actually can go to the site of a slave revolt,

one of the earliest, one of the longest,

one of the largest.

(Dramatic music)

Now, they lie abandoned but once

they were at the cutting edge of engineering,

there are echoes of history in these decaying structures.

They remind us of terror and war

but also of great innovation and human endeavour.

Captioned by ai-media ai-media. TV