Season 1
4 episodes
45 min. per episode
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Michael Portillo uncovers hidden stories in forgotten places, revealing secrets that challenge Britain’s rich history and identity.
Episodes
Michael visits the Royal London Hospital in the East End which closed its doors in 2013 but pioneered medical breakthroughs and universal health-care for generations from its founding in 1740.
Michael visits one of the most mysterious places in Britain. On the Suffolk coast lie a complex of bunkers, rusting towers and crumpled military hardware once home to an Anglo-American over-the-horizon radar system.
Michael explores Shepton Mallet prison which over its 400-year history has seen executions and escape attempts, been used as a store for historical documents during wartime and became the U.S. military's WWII death-row.
In 1943, the village of Imber on Salisbury Plain began to be used as a Second World War training ground. The residents were ordered to leave by the War Office and, despite promises to the contrary, have never been allowed to return.
Former British Secretary of State for Defence Michael Portillo visits abandoned, iconic locations around the UK that were at the centre of relatively unknown historical events but which are not open to the public.