On the last leg of his journey from a notorious slum in Manchester to the grandeur of a ducal seat in Derbyshire, Michael Portillo tunes in to the music of the mills and collieries of Victorian England, testing his puff with the brass band at Honley. In Holmfirth, Michael finds out about a nineteenth-century tragedy that struck the town and led to a tourist boom on the railways. At Chesterfield, Michael pays homage to the father of the railway, George Stephenson, before finishing his journey in style at one of the first stately homes to welcome visitors by rail - Chatsworth.
