Great British Railway Journeys
Great British Railway Journeys is a TV show on BBC4. All aboard! Michael Portillo explores the UK the railways made. Uncover hidden gems and fascinating communities from across the nation. The program has been available since 2024. A total of 285 episodes have been broadcast, most recently in July 2025.
Last episode
25:00
25:00Great British Railway Journeys
Michael Portillo visits Crewe, a town steeped in railway history, to investigate the making of cinema classic The Night Mail during the 1930s.
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25:00Michael Portillo is in Suffolk on the last leg of his tour of East Anglia, visiting the racecourse at Newmarket and the Roman Catholic shrine at Walsingham.
35:00Michael Portillo heads for the Hertfordshire village of Perry Green to learn about Henry Moore became one of the defining artists of British modernism.
25:00Michael Portillo's travels resume in leafy Hertfordshire, where he attempts a canoe slalom course, and visits the estate of author Barbara Cartland.
25:00Michael Portillo continues through East Anglia, where he discovers the Essex origins of the BBC and joins the Women's Land Army to pick damsons at Tiptree.
25:00Michael Portillo explores East Anglia between the wars, beginning at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk, where archaeologists discovered a 27-metre-long Anglo-Saxon ship in 1939.
35:00Michael Portillo heads for Farnborough, Hampshire, famous today for its airshow and home to what was then the Royal Aircraft Establishment.
25:00Michael Portillo resumes his tour of the Home Counties in the historic town of Guildford. Eventually he crosses into Hampshire to reach Aldershot.
25:00Michael Portillo travels to leafy Hatch End in north-west London, where he meets the great-nephew of the famous illustrator William Heath Robinson.
25:00Michael Portillo continues his travels through England's Home Counties at Stoke Mandeville in Buckinghamshire, before making his way to Beaconsfield.
35:00Michael Portillo sets out on another railway adventure as he explores Britain between the world wars, beginning a tour of the Home Counties and beyond in Oxford.
Series 11
25:00
25:00Michael Portillo begins the last leg of his rail journey through 1930s Britain in Norfolk at the headquarters of an international horse welfare organisation.
25:00Michael Portillo's journey takes him to the Snape Maltings music and arts venue, the Norfolk seaside resort of Great Yarmouth and the city of Norwich.
25:00Michael Portillo's railway journey from Canterbury to Skegness reaches Witham in Essex. He visits the factory of the world's oldest supplier of metal-framed windows.
35:00Michael Portillo explores the east of England en route to Lincolnshire. He learns how the Crossrail project is helping to conserve birds.
25:00Michael Portillo explores the east of England in the inter-war period, his journey beginning in Canterbury and ending at Alexandra Palace in London.
Series 16
Michael Portillo’s railway tour of the green and pleasant landscape between the North and South Downs, known as the Weald, nears its conclusion.
Series 11 25:00
25:00In Bath, Michael visits the ex-home of a refugee emperor, whose country was invaded by the Italian dictator Mussolini.
25:00Michael Portillo arrives in Paignton, where the Dartmouth Steam Railway takes him to the home of Agatha Christie, in the company of her great-grandson.
35:00Michael Portillo reaches Bodmin en route to Totnes, as he explores the West Country from St Ives to Salisbury Plain, learning more about Daphne du Maurier on the way.