- You may know Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, and the London Eye but do you know the Royal Crescent, Sally Lunn's, and the SS Great Britain?

Today, we're taking you to get curious about England's Great West Way.

(cheerful music) Curious Traveler is made possible by the following.

- [Vacations By Rail Announcer] For more than 45 years, Vacations By Rail has been helping travelers explore the world with a collection of rail journeys and luxury river cruises through awe-inspiring nature and cosmopolitan cities from America's National Parks to Europe and beyond.

Vacationsbyrail.com.

- [GET Announcer] At GET, we believe travel is more than just getting away, it's about experiencing a destination at iconic sites and delving deep into local culture.

Learn more at GETours.com.

- [SmarTours Announcer] SmarTours offers group tours to over 50 must-see destinations around the world.

With SmarTours, we want you to enjoy the fun of travel while we do the planning for you.

The journey begins at smarTours.com.

- Buckingham Palace, Piccadilly Circus, the Victoria and Albert Museum, but London only has some of England's great curiosities.

So today, we are taking a train out West to explore historic towns, quaint villages and ancient sites.

So queue up and mind the gap, it is time to get curious about England's Great West Way.

I promise, it will be your cup of tea.

(cheerful music) This curious journey takes us across the southern half of England from London to Bristol along a 125 mile ancient route that has been here since pre-Roman times.

In the 17th century, King Charles I ordered his great roads to be built partly to establish the Royal Mail postal system.

And today, the M4 runs pretty close to that original great road.

But we won't be driving along that road.

Nope, we are taking the train.

The Great Western Railway to be exact because in the 19th century a very curious fella designed this railway that ran nearly parallel to that original great road.

Today, this entire region is known as England's Great West Way.

So all aboard.

(train chugging) Here's what I'm curious about along England's Great West Way.

Who blazed this path across the country and then built this ship and this bridge?

What was Stonehenge built for?

Where can you find a town with its own time zone and a tasty bit of English history?

Why are these buildings shaped like a circle, a square, and a crescent moon?

When did someone spend the night under the fish and over the water?

How is this Georgian roundabout connected to Stonehenge?

Who, what, where, why, when, and how?

So much to be curious about along England's historic Great West Way.

(upbeat music) Just west of London is Windsor, home of Windsor Castle which is where the royal family's last name comes from.

Nearby is Runnymede where Magna Carta was sealed in 1215.

As we keep chugging along westward we come across Highclere Castle of course the setting for Downton Abbey.

To the north is Oxford and the picturesque Cotswolds and the south, Salisbury, home to Salisbury Cathedral and one of the only original Magna Cartas left in the world.

And along the Salisbury Plain is our first stop, a world heritage site shrouded in mystery, the legendary Stonehenge.

(mystical music) Was it built as an ancient temple, an ancient calendar, or a magical place of healing?

Thousands of years later and Stonehenge still fascinates us.

So many wonderful theories about the wonder of the world that is Stonehenge.

Here is what today's scientists believe to be true, that Stonehenge was built sometime between 3000 and 1520 BCE.

Some of the smaller stones are believed to have come from more than 100 miles away in Wales.

Why those particular stones were chosen, maybe they were believed to have been sacred, and how they were transported all this way is still being debated.

Why this location was chosen is also a fascinating topic.

One theory is that it is the highest point in the plain so it would have been chosen to be closer to the heavens or as the highest spot as a lookout point for safety.

But what its use was is the most curious question of all.

We do know that sunlight strikes in specific spots during the summer solstice leading some to believe that Stonehenge was an ancient clock, calendar, or even an ancient computer of sorts.

Other theories include Stonehenge being simply just a central meeting place for the Bronze Age rulers of the area to gather and have a latte and a chat or whatever British Bronze Age people drank.

Well, we do know they weren't drinking tea because that didn't come along until much, much later but I do know a spot where we can get some lovely tea today.

(cheerful music) In a search of tea and English charm, next in our journey is the darling Bradford-on-Avon.

(cheerful music) One of the great things about England's Great West Way is that you can discover these gorgeous little villages and towns like this one, Bradford-on-Avon.

And here you have to check out The Bridge Tea Rooms which looks straight out of a fairy tale.

Could this look anymore like a storybook cottage?

The Bridge Tea Rooms stone building dates back to 1502.

Darling doesn't even begin to describe just how cute and cozy it is with its wooden beams, wonky and warped floors and walls, along with its Victorian era tea settings complete with frilly table settings, delicate china and a proper afternoon tea service.

Just outside the Tea Rooms, the fairytale continues as well as the history.

The town gets it's name from the Saxons who drove their carts over the shallow part of the river, or the Broad-Ford which over time became pronounced Bradford.

You will feel like you've stepped back in time as you wander the narrow streets and winding alleys like The Shambles which was once where the old medieval market stalls were.

And then there is this curiosity, the town bridge.

Parts of it date back to the 13th century but that's not what makes it so curious.

This is the town bridge and that funny little house that's attached to it has a quite curious history.

It was originally used as a travelers chapel so that people coming through would have a place to worship.

But then it had a quite different purpose, it was later used as the town lockup so that if anybody committed a petty crime or maybe had a bit too much to drink they were locked up in here overnight and if they were good, maybe they were let out in the morning.

And those poor unfortunate souls who were locked up in the lockup overnight were said to have spent the night under the fish and over the water.

Why?

Because if you look closely at the weather vane, you can see a fish, or a gudgeon, which is an old Christian symbol and a remnant of the lockups original purpose, a sweet traveler's chapel.

To this day, locals call themselves Bradford Gudgeons.

(whimsical music) Next, it is on to Bath full of ancient history and some curious masonic architecture.

The city of Bath is a UNESCO World Heritage Site full of treasures.

It is named for its ancient Roman baths, known for its medieval abbey, and is remarkable for its elegant Georgian architecture.

We'll get to all that in a minute, but first it's time to celebrate Christmas at Bath's darling Christmas Market.

(magical tones) This local restaurant owner has participated in the Market for 15 years.

Are you a Bath resident for your whole life or did you move here from other parts or-- - Pretty much yes I'm a born and bred Bathonian although I worked in London for a long time but no I came back nearly 30 years ago.

And they often talk about Bath being the graveyard of ambition because you come here and don't ever wanna move on again and 'cause it's a fantastic city and that's what happened to me.

- It's just too nice, you don't wanna leave.

- It's a fantastic city.

- Excellent, and you just taught me a new phrase.

So a resident here is a Bathonian.

- Bathonian, yes.

- I like that a Bathonian, oh.

Can I be a temporary Bathonian for three days?

- Of course, we'll give you the keys of the city.

- (laughs) Excellent, excellent.

The Bath Christmas Market carries on the tradition of open air markets in a central market square with little chalets of handmade goods and goodies.

The Christmas Market spills out from the main squares and streets and extends in front of Bath's main landmark, the legendary Roman Baths, our next curiosity.

The legendary Roman Baths of Bath are some of the best preserved Roman baths in the entire world.

Throughout Ancient Rome, there were many Roman baths but only a few have survived all these centuries later.

Historians believe that this particular one was built around 70 AD.

But why did the Romans build their baths exactly here?

Well, because they found this weird hot bubbly water shooting up out of the ground.

- After all, if you see hot water coming out of the ground-- - It seems strange.

- It does, yeah.

- Yeah.

- So some people which they have no natural explanation.

So therefore, the reason was obvious-- - Sacred.

- It must be the work of the gods.

- But the Romans weren't the first to recognize the magical hot springs as the work of the gods.

They kind of stole this spot from a Celtic tribe.

Before the Romans invaded Britain, the Celts were already worshiping their goddess named Sulis at this spot.

Then, once the Romans took over they renamed that goddess Sulis Minerva.

Do we have any statues to Sulis here?

- Well there's a golden head of her statue which is on display in the museum.

- Interesting.

- And it's unusual in that it's one of only three gilt-bronze statues known from Britain and they're pretty rare throughout the whole of the Roman Empire really.

Apart from the head of Minerva, the only two gilt-bronze objects from Britain are a golden arm from London and a golden leg from Scottish Border so that's it.

- Put them all together and you have half a person almost, half a god.

- It's rather strange, yes.

- [Christine] So at these pools, or baths, the Romans would worship Sulis Minerva and on occasion ask her to do some really mean things to their neighbors.

- All kinds of objects were thrown into the spring, one of the special things was what we now call curse tablets which are small sheets of lead with messages to the goddess written on them.

It's quite interesting to see what they say.

- What did they say?

- Well, a lot of the time they're looking for the goddess's help in restoring a wrong.

And if they've had something stolen they wanted help getting it back so Documetis had two gloves stolen, no modest thing, but he wanted the goddess's help to get his gloves back-- - Why not?

- that's fine.

But he also wanted the person who had stolen them to lose both his mind and his eyes.

- Well that's not very nice.

But on a much lighter note, the Roman Baths were also just a really nice place to hang out.

When you think of a modern day spa, you know it's a place to go to relax and rejuvenate but for the Ancient Romans the spa, or the baths, were believed to be sacred created by the gods and therefore a place to worship the gods.

But let's be honest, there was a little socializing going on back then too.

Just like our spas and pools of today, people would come to the Roman Baths to swim, relax, and schmooze.

And they did all this in many different chambers within the bath complex.

The West Baths, the East Baths, the Great Bath all made possible by some savvy engineering skills.

The Romans simply used gravity to direct the water from the springs through pipes under the floor like these into the different bath chambers.

Other tubes carried hot air into the walls and under the floors, you know to keep the Romans little toesies warm when they got out of the pool.

(cheerful music) Now that we are rejuvenated from the Baths, there are more curiosities to explore.

So time for a walking tour of Bath's gorgeous Georgian architecture and its' secrets.

This is the Royal Crescent built in the late 1700s, it is one of the finest examples of Georgian architecture in the entire United Kingdom.

The Royal Crescent is Bath's most iconic landmark.

At 500 feet long, it is a sweeping arc of elegant townhouses forming a perfect half-moon shape around the Royal Victoria Park.

It was designed to give the upper class of Bath a country home feel right here in the heart of the city.

How lovely.

Today there's even a five-star hotel in the center of the Royal Crescent.

(classical music) And when it was built, the Royal Crescent was intended to be the crown jewel of Bath's New Town, an entire redesign of the city in the 1700s.

This dapper gentleman is Martin Salter, the greeter for Bath's Jane Austen Center and quite the expert on Bath history.

Why was a whole entire new town being created at all?

What was wrong with the old town?

- Nothing wrong with the medieval but it was getting small.

You got to imagine the people that came here for the season which was six months right in the winter they needed places to stay so basically this was built as very grand lodging houses for the wealthy from London and indeed around the world.

- But there's more to Bath's elegant architecture than first meets the eye.

The shapes found within the new town architecture are truly curious and mysterious including this square.

This is Queen's Square, a lovely little public park in the heart of Bath.

It is historically significant because it was built in the 1730s as part of Bath's New Town.

The architect was John Wood the Elder who also is responsible for most of what we see today in Bath.

And as we are about to learn, he was a very interesting guy.

John Wood the Elder is interesting because he was a Freemason and it is believed he designed much of Bath's important buildings and squares in the shape of Masonic symbols.

We have just seen the crescent, the square, and now here's the circle.

This is The Circus which is basically a really fancy roundabout here in Bath.

It also was designed by John Wood the Elder and there are all kinds of fantastic theories about it.

The first one is that when viewed from above, The Circus along with Queen's Square and an adjoining street together form the shape of a key and the key is a very important Masonic symbol.

Theory number two is that the size and shape of The Circus mimics Stonehenge because John Wood the Elder believed that the Druids centered their life here.

Theory number three is that The Circus, along with the nearby Royal Crescent together symbolize the sun and the moon.

It is fascinating, when you look from above you can see the shapes, the circle, the square, the key, and the half-moon.

And there are even more mysterious symbols down at eye level.

Adorning the doorways of the homes surrounding The Circus.

It is fun to try to interpret them today.

(classical music) Now we leave Bath and continue out west to our final curious stop that owes so much to the Great West Way, beautiful Bristol.

Bristol Temple Meads Station was built in the 1840s originally as the terminus for the Great Western Railway.

If you think this station looks a bit like a palace, you're right, it was actually modeled after Henry VIII's Hampton Court Palace.

And the man who designed it was the same curious fella who built the Great Western Railway.

His name was Isambard Kingdom Brunel, yes seriously.

He also built something else spectacular here in Bristol which takes us to lovely Bristol Harbor.

(birds calling) Before the railway brought passengers here, Bristol was important because of its harbor.

It was once one of the busiest trading ports in the world.

So, with a rich maritime history our next curious stop is no surprise the SS Great Britain built by, you guessed it, Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

So he engineered obviously the Great Western Railway which we're talking about a lot and then he got bored he said well what am I going to do next?

I'll create a ship 'cause how did the order of these things, how are they all interrelated?

- It was said that during a meeting of the shareholders they were talking about extending the Great Western Railway to well past the country and someone made a joke about extending all the way to America and then he said well, what a good idea let's give that a go.

- And what a go it was.

The SS Great Britain was an engineering marvel.

What was so new and groundbreaking about this ship?

- There were several features which were new.

So she's the first iron hulled screw-propelled ship to cross the Atlantic.

She was also the biggest ship in the world when she was built.

She was so big actually they had to build a new dry dock just to fit her in.

- And to get to be a Transatlantic passenger on this giant groundbreaking ship would have been an amazing experience.

Where we're sitting is a very elegant place I'm going to guess not everybody on this ship got to dine here.

This is the steerage class, these third-class passengers would all bunk out together in these tiny bunk beds.

- It's cramped, it's narrow, it would have been dark, it would have been extremely smelly and there's not much privacy as you can see.

- Not much privacy, so these are all bunk beds but these are families and strangers and everybody just all bunking out together no matter what.

No real privacy, or doors, or partitions or anything.

- Yeah, so you'd have a little curtain-- - Ah, there you go.

- that you could pull across for a bit of privacy.

And there are doors at the end but this was basically a (mumbles) at the same time.

So I mean yeah it's pretty small but then we know that people were giving birth in here, there were people having fights in here, people living their everyday lives.

- Okay, let's come back up for air, shall we?

It's time to disembark the SS Great Britain to see Brunel's final achievement, the symbol of Bristol.

This is the Clifton Suspension Bridge, it opened in 1864 sadly after Brunel's death.

To this day, it is one of the world's great suspension bridges.

My favorite tidbit is that these towers were originally supposed to be Egyptian with two sphinxes on the top of each.

That Brunel really was quite curious.

Next, we travel inland to visit Bristol's Old City where King Street is full of old village charm and it's the home of the legendary Bristol Old Vic.

The Bristol Old Vic was built in 1766 and is the oldest continuously working theater in the English speaking world.

Many famous actors got their start here including the legendary Peter O'Toole.

But that is not what makes this theater so curious.

This cherished landmark once operated like a speakeasy.

When the theater first opened in 1766, this brick that you see here was the original entrance but to save money at the beginning the founders didn't bother to get their theater license so it was technically illegal to put on a show or even attend a show.

So what did audience members do?

Well, before they came to the entrance they entered through this brick building here which happened to be the private home of a man named Mr.

Foot.

So people would knock on the front door, Mr.

Foot would let them in through the front and then take them out the backyard and enter through the theater here.

What a nice guy Mr.

Foot was.

Next, from King Street to Corn Street also in the Old City, here you will find the historic Corn Exchange Building and it's historic clock which wouldn't you know it, has a connection to our Great Western Railway.

- Bristol as well used to have it's own time zone.

- Yeah, explain that part that's what I think it needs a little help explained.

So how did it have its own time zone and how did that change with the train?

- So Bristol if you look at a map, Bristol is two degrees west of London, the Greenwich Meridian.

So if you translate that that's 11 minutes of a time difference.

And that continued up until Brunel built the Great Western Railway all the way from London to Bristol, the same route as the Great West Way.

So if you were gonna get the scheduled 12 o'clock train actually that would pull out of Bristol Station at 11:49 so it didn't last very long.

Once the trains were here we all went okay, Greenwich Mean Time it is.

- But there is still a clock here in the city that remembers back to that time when Bristol had it's own time zone.

- There used to be many clocks which would show Bristol time and Greenwich Mean Time but nowt there is only one.

(clock chimes) - This brings us to our final stop, St. Nicholas Markets and you want to guess who designed it?

John Wood the Elder, our pal from Bath.

While many buildings in Bristol were heavily bombed during World War II, thankfully St. Nicholas Markets survived.

And today it is the perfect spot to taste a truly English tradition.

Just ask any local the best spot in Bristol for lunch, well they'll say go see the Pieminister.

It's a modern twist on the traditional pub pie.

How did this develop into a traditional pub fare?

- Well I think, I mean to be honest with you their pies have been around forever.

I mean in London back in the few hundred years ago I think there was 30,000 pie and mash shops across London so it was a really-- - Oh interesting.

- It was equivalent of a sandwich shop or something like that back then.

Yeah, it stuck around.

It's a good solid British thing.

- A true pub pie will have mushy peas on the side or in the case of Pieminister, a scoop right on top.

The name Pieminister is of course a play on Prime Minister and the names of the individual pies are quite curious too.

Like the Kate & Sidney, the Mistle Moo and the-- - We've got our Kevin Pie which is our vegan pie which Kevin Keegan is actually real cockney rhyming slang for vegan.

- Oh yeah, cockney rhyming slang is a curiosity all its own.

It began in the 1800s and words were replaced with another word that rhymes with it.

For example apples and pears means stairs.

And Kevin Keegan means vegan.

Kevin Keegan was a famous British football player by the way.

But just to make it more confusing in many cases the word that actually rhymes with the original phrase is dropped off.

So vegan just become Kevin.

Confusing, I know.

So let's just stick with eating the Kevin pie and relax after our Great West Way journey across curious England.

(cheerful music) From an ancient path out of London that became a great Western Railway with stops at castles and abbeys and ancient mysterious circles that led to other mysterious circles and squares and half-moons.

To the coolest swimming pool ever watched over by a golden goddess that was both Celtic and Roman.

Onto darling little villages with funny little jails topped by a funny little fish.

To a seriously smart cookie who built a train station that looks like a castle.

A ship to outshine all other ships and a mighty bridge to match his groundbreaking railroad that created the need for this curious clock in a town famous for a sneaky theater.

A beautiful marketplace and some seriously curious pub pies.

England's Great West Way has so much to be curious about.

Thank you for joining us on our educational journey and hopefully now you're even more curious about the who, what, where, why, when and how of England's Great West Way.

As the English say, cheers!

(classical music) Curious Traveler is made possible by the following.

- [Vacations By Rail Announcer] For more than 45 years, Vacations By Rail has been helping travelers explore the world with a collection of rail journeys and luxury river cruises through awe-inspiring nature and cosmopolitan cities from America's National Parks to Europe and beyond.

Vacationsbyrail.com.

- [GET Announcer] At GET we believe travel is more than just getting away, it's about experiencing a destination at iconic sites and delving deep into local culture.

Learn more at GETours.com.

- [SmarTours Announcer] SmarTours offers group tours to over 50 must-see destinations around the world.

With SmarTours, we want you to enjoy the fun of travel while we do the planning for you.

The journey begins at smarTours.com.

- [Christine] Still curious?

Go to curioustravelertv.com and follow us on Facebook @CuriousTravelerTV, on Twitter @CuriousTravTV and on Instagram @CuriousTravelerTV.

(upbeat tones)