Fred Dibnah explores Britain’s industrial heritage, tracing the evolution of key industries like textiles, iron and steel, mining, railways, and shipbuilding.
Through nostalgic tours and insightful commentary, he reveals the engineering marvels and human ingenuity that shaped the Industrial Revolution.
00:00:00 – Episode 1: Wind, Water and Steam & Mills and Factories
Watch as Fred takes you to key factories and structures that spearheaded the industrial revolution and shows us how the machines actually worked. Fred takes a nostalgic tour of the country giving his own inimitable view on the Industrial Revolution.
The series continues as Fred Dibnah traces the development of Britain’s textile industry from the picturesque Scottish countryside of New Lanark to the urban mill town of Burnley.
00:56:03 – Episode 2: Iron and Steel & Mining
Fred Dibnah celebrates our nation’s rich industrial heritage, beginning with a look at the development of the iron and steel industries at Ironbridge Gorge in Shropshire. Fred Dibnah continues his series on Britain’s industrial heritage with a look at mining.
01:51:13 – Episode 3: Railways & Ships and Ship Engineering
Fred recollects his early excitement as steam locomotives roared past his bedroom window. In this programme he traces the development of the railways from the first steam locomotive to the world record-breaking Mallard. The series continues as Fred takes a look at the great age of shipbuilding and examines the skills of the engineers who turned Britain into a great manufacturing nation.
Director : David Hall
Watch the video by Best Documentary
Video “Fred Dibnah's Engineering Greatness: Britain's Industrial Legacy” was uploaded on 12/16/2024 to Youtube Channel Best Documentary
the OG vlogger
Britain lost a legend when our Fred passed. RIP Fred.
How did the "heroes 3 soundtrack" end up on this documentary? A bit surprising but no matter, always love listening to mr dibnah
48:30 We need someone to go find them engines
Omg I LOVE seeing Fred enjoy himself This much 🤩🤩🤣
1:15:13 Is that Charlies yard from Peaky Blinders?
The old steam stuff is so cool looking but alas we find better cleaner and smarter ways of doing things.
oh the good old days when they didnt care about the environment or child labor laws or really anything that was good or safe for workers…….yeah lets bring those days back…….WTF
@1:36:05 no roof for the child labor but the precious machine gets its own building……ohhhh the good ole days……wtf
my father was a boiler engineer in the world war two for greens boilers of Leeds
When I was young, there were loads of Fred Dibnah's about. If you wanted something fixed or made, there was always a bloke who would do it for some woodbines, A bottle of ale or some carrots for his horse. We had two near us, the Kipper brothers, I kid you not that was their name, Rag & Bone men with the biggest shed/stable in the world full of stuff from yesteryear, I heard when they died, some of their stuff was sent to Beamish museum.
Great Britain where our only remaining steelworks are owned by foreign countries…
As the village paperboy, of all of the numerous rounds, I was always fascinated by what my customers did for a living, the cars on their drives. On the whole, they were nice, chatty folk, whether tradesman or company directors, even to me, an inquisitive 13 year old.
I bet living next door to Fred would have been a life lesson at every pop next door.
Thankfully "British Steel" still Rules the United Kingdom.
What an absolute legend Fred was they don’t make them like that no more sad to think he passed away in 2004
This man was sent from the past to remind us of how great we once were.
Men in overalls built this great country while men in suits destroyed it : Fred Dibnah .
England has been destroyed by treacherous politicians
Man he got about a lot didn't he? old Fred. 😂
He should have been knighted but the pigs at Westminster stopped it gits
All this heroes of might and magic 3 music is giving me hard nostalgia feelings
Fancy not preserving his work shop,
Fred was a Northern man through and through, so I don't blame him for spending most of his time exploring the fantastic preservations and industrial heritage local to his home – after all, much of Britain's industrial heritage lies up north – but I wish documentaries like these would spend a little longer looking at Cities like Bristol, which are often somewhat overlooked despite the sheer wealth of interest they hold. From the Clifton Suspension bridge to the beating heart of the GWR , From the SS Great Britain to the floating harbour in which she was built, from the Funicular railway now defunct to the Fairbairn steam crane, there is an immense amount of unbridled Victorian arrogance against nature and engineering prowess.
For anyone who has never been but holds an interest I encourage you strongly to visit Bristol at least once and explore. I think it is fair to say it is a fairly unique city in how it has been so strongly shaped by Brunel and other's efforts. The floating harbour alone, and accompanying "new cut", are immense feats of human effort. Where else in Britain is a city divided into 3 by what is essentially 2 rivers, a North, a South, and a thin sliver of land at points no more than 70 meters across but well over 4km in length.
Fred would be turning in his grave to see what the Labour Party is doing to destroy whatever is left of industrialisation.
We vote them in…….they don't magically appear,funny how everyone bashes them but nobody holds their hands up for putting them there in the first place…….
The rhythm of industry has been replaced by the muzzy call to prayer. Oh well, Englandistan.
Asalamu Aleikum (may Peace be with you) I'm pretty sure that Fred and Guy Martin would have been very good friends.And our creator knows best. Amin. They could be father and son. 🙂They can talk all about it in Jannah (Paradise) Inshallah (God willing). 👆🤲
I remember Fred in the early days , pretty nervous and maybe a little embarrassed by all the media attention he was getting. But in his latter years his confidence , enthusiasm and knowledge of how steam/water/wind engines worked was incredible. He was an absolute legend , very much missed.
Nice I'm from Alberta Canada and just watched the first of videos of Fred and his life and the history he knew should be preserved. He reminds me of my grandfather's, real men. I'll learn as much as you can show me, he's someone I would have been proud to have met, just listening to what he remembered is something for people to listen to. So thanks and now I'm off to the next video 🙏 👍😎
My first postgrade course was in Bolton. Fred lived opposite our halls of residence. The man was veery kind and veritably enclyopeadic about British industrial history. Eccenentric , yes. A real true Northern industrialist. Yes.. A brilliant.man by any metric.
While a romantic look back. People destroyed their health, their environment in this era. It’s always rosy to look back. Make no mistake, going back doesn’t make the world great again.
This is one genuine bloke.
Legend has it that when Fred Dibnah washed his hands they just got dirtier. 😂
Sounds like Heroes of Might and Magic 3 soundtrack
Great stuff. Love Fred.
Trying to get into this but the amount of adverts are insane!
How true
What i wouldn't give to have a pint with Fred , and listen to him tell stories.
This gives mre such a sense of pride in my Anglo Saxon Protestant Christian English ancestors
Its amazing what the people of this tiny island achieved technologically and gave to the whole World .
All inspired through the various Christian Revivals.
Praise Jesus.
Remarkable Steam Engineer. Selfishly, hopeless husband and father.
They've destroyed everything so much better now
You don’t see this anymore. My dad was the same. Look at his hands, never clean because he’s always working, tinkering, a man of many talents, can fix anything, an all rounder. The world has changed so much. Most Men these days can’t wire up a plug socket.
An absolute Legend!
These Men are gone what a shame for us all, what a legend and so much knowledge Mr. Dibnah had.
In the early 1960s, a pro-Japanese figure named Park Chung-hee seized power in South Korea through a military coup. Under the pretext of modernization, he launched a campaign called the "Saemaul Undong" (New Village Movement), which led to the destruction of traces of Korea's long-standing historical and cultural heritage. Traditional elements of life such as jangdokdae (fermentation jar stands), spinning wheels, water mills, metong (grain storage), threshers, and the thatched or wooden-shingled roofs of traditional homes were replaced with cement slate, and bulldozers carved out new roads and built the Gyeongbu Expressway. While this is said to have brought about industrial development and economic growth, it also gave rise to a society where children grow indifferent or even annoyed with their aging and powerless parents, where money is the only thing pursued, and where students now assault teachers in the classroom.
I wish him well because this man’s been smoking 🚬 on 100f scaffolds since the 60’s
I want our England back i want my coal fire we have abundance of coal under our ground