Coast: Sea and the City

SYNOPSIS

Stories that connect cities to the sea. Nick Crane visits the east coast port of Immingham, finding out how it has been specially engineered to import the vast quantities of coal it handles. Tessa Dunlop discovers how Hitler's bombers could have drowned London, and possibly helped win the Second World War, by destroying the embankments that contain the River Thames - if not for a series of top-secret defensive schemes. Ruth Goodman investigates how the Victorian government introduced laws to detain women suspected of prostitution as the Navy's sailors fell prey to sexually transmitted diseases, and Mark Horton reveals how determining a ship's exact position at sea meant Greenwich became the epicentre of global sea navigation.

Host: Mark Horton, Nick Crane