If you look on Google earth at the northern most bit of the M23 north
of the M25 just where it joins the A23 you can see what looks like an
unmetalled bit of the motorway continue over a bridge with trucks and
cars parked on it. Further on still theres a completely unused bridge
that goes over the A23 surrounded by scrubby woods.
Anyone know what this bit is used for now and was the M23 originally
supposed to have continued further north than it does now?

B2003

Boltar wrote:

If you look on Google earth at the northern most bit of the M23 north
of the M25 just where it joins the A23 you can see what looks like an
unmetalled bit of the motorway continue over a bridge with trucks and
cars parked on it. Further on still theres a completely unused bridge
that goes over the A23 surrounded by scrubby woods.
Anyone know what this bit is used for now and was the M23 originally
supposed to have continued further north than it does now?


Turn on the "Google Earth Community" layer in Google Earth. Someone
called "londingham" has placed a placemark there with a comment that it
was left unfinished in the 1970's.

http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showthrea.../Number/331643
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M23_motorway

No idea about what the bit is used for though, but looks like some kind
of storage area for highway construction/maintenance works or something
like that.

--
Olof Lagerkvist
ICQ: 724451
Web: http://here.is/olof

In article . com,
Boltar wrote:
If you look on Google earth at the northern most bit of the M23 north
of the M25 just where it joins the A23 you can see what looks like an
unmetalled bit of the motorway continue over a bridge with trucks and
cars parked on it. Further on still theres a completely unused bridge
that goes over the A23 surrounded by scrubby woods.
Anyone know what this bit is used for now and was the M23 originally
supposed to have continued further north than it does now?

I don't know of a better site for this sort of thing than CBRD:
http://www.cbrd.co.uk/histories/m23/

Unless it's www.pathetic.org.uk of course, but AFAICS he doesn't cover
the "lost" M23 extension.

Nick
--
Serendipity: http://www.leverton.org/blosxom (last update 28th Sep 2007)

"The Internet, an ersatz counterfeit of real life"
-- Janet Street-Porter, BBC2, 19th March 1996

In message . com,
Boltar writes

as the M23 originally supposed to have continued further north than it
does now?

Yes, it was to have continued as far as Balham, from where spurs would
have connected it to the inner London Ringway ("London Motorway Box").
The only bits of the latter to be built were the sections either side of
the Blackwall Tunnel, plus the tiny bit of (former) motorway from
Westway down to the Shepherd's Bush roundabout:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...1960s_Plan.png

Everything else was abandoned due to the cost and unacceptability of
demolishing tens of thousands of properties.

--
Paul Terry

On Sat, 2007-09-29 at 09:12 +0100, Paul Terry wrote:
In message . com,
Boltar writes

as the M23 originally supposed to have continued further north than it
does now?

Yes, it was to have continued as far as Balham, from where spurs would
have connected it to the inner London Ringway ("London Motorway Box").
In which case it really WOULD have become the 'Gateway to the South'

On Sep 29, 5:18 pm, John Hearns wrote:
On Sat, 2007-09-29 at 09:12 +0100, Paul Terry wrote:
In message . com,
Boltar writes

as the M23 originally supposed to have continued further north than it
does now?

Yes, it was to have continued as far as Balham, from where spurs would
have connected it to the inner London Ringway ("London Motorway Box").

In which case it really WOULD have become the 'Gateway to the South'

In the same vein, just before J8 on the Londonbound side of the M4,
there's a curious bit where the roadside fence stops and it looks like
there was some sort of exit at some point. Google Earth just shows a
field beyond and a fairly new housing estate. It does however look as
if something turned away from the motorway at some point in the past.
Was it a contractors depot or similar?

Neill

In message 1191082728.8057.1.camel@Vigor13, John Hearns
writes

On Sat, 2007-09-29 at 09:12 +0100, Paul Terry wrote:

Yes, it was to have continued as far as Balham, from where spurs would
have connected it to the inner London Ringway ("London Motorway Box").

In which case it really WOULD have become the 'Gateway to the South'

LOL! Although I think Balham's grand vista of ever-changing lights (red,
red and amber, green, amber and then red again) might have been a bit
sub-optimal for a motorway.

(According to the WIKI entry on Balham, "Gateway to the South" was an
actual advertising slogan used by the Southern Railway in 1926 when the
Northern Line tube station opened adjacent to their own station - but I
find it hard to believe!).

--
Paul Terry

verbena wrote:

In the same vein, just before J8 on the Londonbound side of the M4,
there's a curious bit where the roadside fence stops and it looks
like there was some sort of exit at some point. Google Earth just
shows a field beyond and a fairly new housing estate. It does
however look as
if something turned away from the motorway at some point in the
past.
Was it a contractors depot or similar?

I think you're referring to the original J8 which was on the London side
of the current J8/9.

When the Maidenhead by-pass section of the M4 was constructed, there was
a junction where the M4 crosses A308. The slip roads were on the London
side of the A308 bridge, and led to T-junctions with A308, uncontrolled
as far as I remember. Going west from here, the motorway then curved to
the north-west and headed for Maidenhead Thicket with the intention of
continuing westwards to the north of Reading.

When it was decided to route the M4 south of Reading a new junction was
needed between the Maidenhead Thicket route (now A404(M)) and the new
alignment. When the junctions were numbered, the A308 junction became
J8, the new junction was to be J9, and the two junctions on the Thicket
route became J9a and J9b. However, it was then realised that J8 needed
upgrading and was very close to the planned J9. The upgrading was
achieved by building the A308(M) spur to a combined junction J8/9, and
the old J8 was closed.

You can still see the original curve of the M4 just to the north-east of
the J8/9 roundabout.
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

On Sep 29, 7:59 pm, "Richard J." wrote:
You can still see the original curve of the M4 just to the north-east of
the J8/9 roundabout.

You can see it quite clearly in google earth, it looks quite green.
Did they dig up the road surface or did they just let it return to
nature on its own? If the latter it says a lot about how long our
infrastructure wouldn't last if humanity suddenly vanished from the
planet

B2003

Boltar wrote:
On Sep 29, 7:59 pm, "Richard J."
wrote:
You can still see the original curve of the M4 just to the
north-east of the J8/9 roundabout.

You can see it quite clearly in google earth, it looks quite green.
Did they dig up the road surface or did they just let it return to
nature on its own? If the latter it says a lot about how long our
infrastructure wouldn't last if humanity suddenly vanished from the
planet

I'm pretty sure they dug it up. There are, after all, hurriedly
constructed runways on wartime airfields which are still there 60 years
later.
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)