MT 106/54

London CC West Cross Route: plans

Date range	1963
Location	National Archives (see all files stored here)
Catalogue	See entry
File base	Series MT, subseries MT 106

Note: the date listed for this file is inaccurate; its contents date from the 1930s to the early 1960s.

Context

The title of this file is almost completely inaccurate. It's really a file of reports and plans concerning the Western Avenue eastern extension; what we know today as the Westway. Quite possibly the file was titled in the mistaken belief that this road was the West Cross Route. If so, that still doesn't explain why the card folder inside the front cover claims it is to do with a trunk road scheme called the "Brent Crossover". The misfiling fairy strikes again.

Just like its sister file MT 106/93, the plans here are a mix. Some concern 1930s schemes to continue Western Avenue towards London from its Wood Lane terminus by crossing the railway, then dispersing the traffic into existing streets either by marshalling them into a one-way system or by widening them. Others are for an early 1950s-era draft version of the elevated motorway we know today, in most cases showing it running south of the railway line and having a junction at the west end of Bishops Bridge. There are multiple proposals for how this junction might have worked, most of which involve a monstrous gyratory system formed out of the local street network.

Finally, there is also a 1963 report describing the LCC's scheme to build an elevated motorway from Wood Lane to Harrow Road, including a short section of the West Cross Route, which is, of course, all that we ever knew of West London's embryonic motorway network. That is more or less the only appearance of the West Cross Route in this file.

Nonetheless, while it has little to do with its title, it's still full of very worthwhile drawings of the incarnations that Westway went through on its way to becoming an elevated motorway. Just don't look here if you're hoping to find out about the Brent Crossover. Whatever that is.

Links to related files

MT 57/147 Hackney to White City; line of route and variations. Ordnance Survey plan (1926)

MT 106/93 West Cross route: Westway to Holland Park Avenue (1958-1963)

People with camera copies

Chris Marshall has a partial copy.