HLG 136/195

Gants Hill flyover: points for consideration. Includes 20 photographs depicting: Proposed erection of flyover at Gants Hill, London: undeveloped area showing shops, housing, roads and traffic. Also in file are artistic impressions of development and copies of photographs on photographic paper.

Date range	1964
Location	National Archives (see all files stored here)
Catalogue	See entry
File base	Series HLG, subseries HLG 136

This file is truly delightful. It is likely to bring a smile to your face, probably because it contains the sort of thing that makes trawling through dusty archive documents worthwhile. The thing in this file that makes your day might actually have nothing to do with its subject matter.

Context

This file covers the same story as HLG 131/284, and I'm not typing it out again. Suffice to say a double-deck flyover was planned for Gants Hill Roundabout on the A12 which nobody thought was a good idea, and as doubts were forming, the material collected here was created and circulated in an attempt to find a solution.

What makes this a delight are that - as well as all the artists' impressions available at the other file - there are also a collection of general photographs of the Gants Hill area from 1964. These are a joy.

Contents of note

• A wealth of photographs of Gants Hill in the early 60s, some with bizarre "give way to traffic from right" signs that are non-standard.
• Artists' impressions of the proposed double-deck flyover structure.
• Documents describing other ideas tabled, including a one-way loop for eastbound traffic passing underground to the north of the site, and an underground route for Woodford Avenue around the north, joining the A12 further east, with a single-level flyover for A12 over the roundabout.

Links to other files

HLG 131/284 Ilford BC: proposed flyover at Gants. Includes 1 photograph depicting: Photocopies on photographic paper of a proposed fly-over for Gants Hill, London: affected sites and drawings of proposals. (1963-1965)

People with camera copies

Chris Marshall has a partial copy.