Pick of the day: Coast
8pm, BBC2
In Nelson’s navy the British guns were more accurate than our enemies’, thanks to our ability to make super-smooth cannonballs.
The secret to it all was a mysterious and rare mineral called plumbago, the purest kind of which existed in only one mine in the world, near the port of Whitehaven in Cumbria.
Tessa Dunlop explores the abandoned mine workings to find the long-forgotten source of plumbago. Meanwhile Nick Crane tells the chilling tale of an abandoned refrigeration plant that kept Britain’s biggest fishing fleet afloat.