Seven Wonders of the Industrial World

Seven Wonders of the Industrial World is a ground-breaking drama-documentary series that tells the story of how our modern world was forged – in rivets, grease and steam; in blood, sweat and human imagination. Using CGI and reconstructions based on records and journals of the time, the epic monuments of the Industrial Revolution are brought to life. The great achievements celebrated in this series reveal as much about the human spirit as they do about technological endeavour.

The period of over 125 years from the beginning of the nineteenth century saw the creation of some of the world's most remarkable feats of engineering, now celebrated as great wonders of the industrial world. The slowly evolving Industrial Revolution was the fertile ground that gave life to dreams of iron, cement, stone and steel. Dreams such as Isambard Kingdom Brunel's extraordinary Great Eastern, the 'Crystal Palace of the Seas' that he hoped would join the two ends of the British Empire and Ferdinand de Lesseps' Panama Canal, that linked the Atlantic and Pacific oceans more than half a century later. The pioneers of the age were practical visionaries, seeing beyond the immediate horizon, the safe and the known, as they cut a path to the future. Yet their unique masterpieces could never have been built without an army of unsung heroes, the craftsmen and workers also willing to risk their lives as they laboured to bring each dream to life. Not to mention the financiers and shareholders hanging on for the ride as reputations were lost and won.