CBRD Blog

Quiet motorways

At work this morning, a colleague of mine mentioned the M45, and it sent me into a bit of a reverie. Now I find myself itching to post something about what might well be the best kept secrets in British motoring.

I am sometimes guilty of letting my mind wander to thoughts of a golden age of motoring when the roads were clear, the cars were sleek with plenty of chrome (but made an enjoyable amount of noise) and the sun was always shining, though never directly into your eyes.

The late fifties and early sixties are usually given as a time when it was really quite pleasant to go for a spin. Britain was in a frenzy of roadbuilding, paving countless miles of fast new roads every year. The fuel was cheap and the motor car was increasingly within the grasp of the average family man in his average trilby hat. There was, overall, an unmatched optimism about the whole motoring experience.

There is, of course, no highway equivalent of the steam railway. Volunteers do not keep three miles of preserved motorway in order to run ancient buses up and down for tourists at the weekend. (And what a tragedy that is.) But it’s still possible to go for a drive on a fast, open road of that era without being bothered by too much traffic if you know where to look.

Personally, I’ve always had a soft spot for the M45, or the Dunchurch Spur if you like. It was opened in its entirety in December 1959, at the same time as the first sixty miles of the M1. It was the only way to get from the new motorway to Birmingham and the north-west, taking you to Coventry and the A45. Its period of real usefulness finished abruptly in 1972, when the parallel M6 opened to the north, and since then it has become a trunk road motorway of astounding insignificance.

Take a drive along it and you’ll soon see what I mean. It’s best reached from the south, when you can approach it along the M1’s most chaotic section and experience it as a sanctuary. (In reverse, you will achieve a state of advanced motoring relaxation before being plunged into the fearsome melée. It’s like shock therapy conveniently administered at 70 miles per hour.) Its profound lack of purpose these days is evident from its direction signs, which suggest it is only fit for “Coventry (S)”. Even traffic for the north of Coventry is thought too much for this ageing relic. The M1 widens to five lanes in a moment of 1950s extravagance, but you will almost certainly be the only person in sight to use the two of them marked ‘M45’.

The sliproad peels away from the jostling madness of the mainline M1, and all is calm. For eight glorious miles the motorway rolls and unfolds before you, and for much of the ride you may well be the only vehicle in sight.

The bridges are smaller versions of those on the M1, designed by Sir Owen Williams, a man who achieved the rare distinction of making beautiful things with concrete. They are sculpted rather than built, with sweeping curves and smooth lines. Soon the M1’s handsome Williams bridges will be demolished for widening works – some have gone already – making the M45 even more of a treasured museum.

It’s also distinguished by what it lacks. The M45 is happily free of many of the hectoring road signs that major routes have sprouted in the last few decades. You don’t need to keep two chevrons from the vehicle in front because there isn’t one.

The scenery on the M45 is pleasant English countryside, but nothing to write home about. For a landscape worth seeing, make your way to Herefordshire and the M50 Ross spur.

There is something timeless about this road; something slightly innocent. It was opened in 1960, while the first sections of its parent route M5 were still under construction. Just two years after the very first section of motorway opened, there remains something experimental about its design. It’s certainly a far cry from the broad expanses of asphalt we usually associate with the word ‘motorway’.

Its hard shoulder, for one thing, is a fickle beast. It’s there one moment, bounding alongside the intrepid motorway traveller like the usual faithful companion. But as soon as there’s any hint of an overpass, or a bridge, or a drainage gully, or a retaining wall, or sometimes just a stiff breeze, it’s gone.

In fact, the whole M50 feels slightly claustrophobic. Its impressive crossing of the Severn is soured somewhat for those driving it. Make your way across and you could anticipate the lackadaisical hard shoulder to vanish; what you might not expect is that only the left-hand lane is full width. The right hand one has special signs asking you to breathe in. Even its interchanges are crammed into the smallest possible space, most remarkably at junction 3 which is little more than a break in the boundary fence, and which requires special signs reminding motorists to turn left as they join.

Who am I kidding? Nobody drives the M50 for the engineering. It’s considerably busier than the M45, forming part of the route between the West Midlands and South Wales for those in the know. But it makes up for all that with the scenery. Not for nothing was it described, at its opening, as a parkway to be enjoyed. In its early years people made the trip from Birmingham just to enjoy a scenic ride in the country.

Cutting through the homely edges of the Malvern Hills, the M50 is at one with its landscape. It is small enough to dodge through natural gaps and crest hills without ever feeling like it was engineered at the expense of its surroundings. Its bridges are faced with local stone. One is a handsome brick arch. Boy, they don’t make them like this any more.

For a few years, the M50 was actually the main road to South Wales, forming the only sensible route between London and Cardiff that didn’t involve putting your car on a train or a boat. The road that stole its thunder is, ironically, another quiet motorway today.

Take the M4 between Bristol and Cardiff. We all have to at some point. In 1996, the Second Severn Crossing was opened, carrying six lanes of M4 traffic over the river. To the north is the bridge that served traffic for the previous thirty years, and to use it all you have to do is keep an eye out and take the exit signposted for Chepstow and the M48.

It’s not really anything more than two incredibly impressive river crossings (the Severn Bridge and the often-overlooked Wye Bridge), a junction for Chepstow and sliproads to the M4. The whole route is just an oxbow lake of motorway.

But for twelve miles you can escape the rat race of the M4 and take in some sensational engineering on an empty road. You will of course be charged for admission to Wales, but it’s free to leave, so a very pleasant circuit for a drive can be had using the eastbound M48 and westbound M50, taking the A48 down the Wye Valley between the two.

The canny motorist will always know a few roads locally that are open and fast, where you can safely put your foot down and have some space to drive. But it takes a particular kind of highway to give you the sheer joy of the open road, the giddy pleasure of having the tarmac to yourself and a glimpse of that long-forgotten romance of the motorway.