MT 95/727

Chiswick-Langley: design

Date range	1962-1964
Location	National Archives (see all files stored here)
Catalogue	See entry
File base	Series MT, subseries MT 95

Context

This file is the last in the extensive series dealing with the creation of the M4 between Chiswick and Slough, and this one actually spans part of the construction phase too.

It is not the most interesting of the files - by this time Heston Services have been invented and a site for them found, which is a serious change to the design of the road since 1961, but there is nothing here to describe how they came to be - it is just here as a fait accompli. The site was used for piling up material for embankments before it was ready to be used elsewhere on the site.

There is some detail on the construction process and the challenges the MOT faced in building the road, which is quite instructive and saves this file from "Waste of Time" status.

The rest of this file is competently summarised in my pencil notes, made while reading through it:

Now we're into carriageway markings. More subways. Wow - how can the subways generate so much paperwork? Expansion joints. Very demanding land owner at "The Aviary" getting his lawyer and quantity surveyor to send snotty emails to the MOT every time he's unhappy about the state of his boundary fence or the size and grade of gravel used on his new access road. Motorway is being built at this stage. Thick folder of plans all to do with the bloody Aviary. Gah.

Links to other files

MT 95/309 London-South Wales Motorway (M4): design of Chiswick-Langley section (1957-1960)

MT 95/653 London-South Wales motorway (No.7): Chiswick-Langley; design (1961)

MT 95/654 London-South Wales motorway (No.7): Chiswick-Langley; design (1961-1962)

MT 95/726 Chiswick-Langley: general. Includes 10 photographs depicting: M4 motorway: construction at Chiswick, Brentford and Boston Manor (1962-1963)

MT 121/135 London South Wales Motorway: Chiswick-Langley Special Road; Cromwell Road extension to Slough by-pass (1957-1961)

People with camera copies

Chris Marshall has a partial copy.