MT 39/351

HIGHWAY DEVELOPMENT SURVEY (GREATER LONDON): Hyde Park Corner Tunnel

Date range	1936-1938
Location	National Archives (see all files stored here)
Catalogue	See entry
File base	Series MT, subseries MT 39

Context

This file, and its close relative MT 39/352, set out the plans that Bressey and Lutyens formulated for Hyde Park Corner, at the time thought to be the busiest and most congested location in London. In this file they are predominantly concerned with providing a tunnel underneath the junction for north-south traffic; in the second file they look at options for remodelling the junction on the surface.

Here you will find the full rationale for the tunnel scheme, and several testimonies from important figures describing just how important the junction is and how critical it is to the rest of London's road system. Bressey sets out his proposal for a tunnel under the junction, and then examines the Minister's proposal to extend the tunnel underneath Hyde Park to bypass the whole length of Park Lane, emerging into Edgware Road. Bressey ruled this out, suggesting that if (as he wanted) the carriage drive inside Hyde Park could be turned into a second carriageway for Park Lane, there would only need to be a tunnel at each end to bypass the two junctions.

Much of the work on this road proposal was actually to do with reinstating building lines once the tunnel had been built underneath, and a large part of this file is actually to do with designs that Lutyens produced for new buildings on the cleared sites on Piccadilly and Grosvenor Place.

Links to other files

MT 39/352 HIGHWAY DEVELOPMENT SURVEY (GREATER LONDON): Hyde Park Corner: surface lay-out (1936-1938)

MT 39/392 IMPROVEMENT AND NEW CONSTRUCTION: Improvement at Hyde Park Corner, London (1925-1947)

People with camera copies

Chris Marshall has a partial copy.