Uk's 1st roundabout 1909.

[GuyBoden]

Roundabouts are an unpleasant cycling experience.

Here's the first.

Letchworth Roundabout

 

[Drago]

C.? So they don't even know for sure when it was built? So how do they know its the oldest? We demand answers!

 

[TheDoctor]

I pass that roundabout most days. It's in Letchworth.

 

[classic33]

C.? So they don't even know for sure when it was built? So how do they know its the oldest? We demand answers!

UK Roundabout Appreciation Society
Yet the history of the one-way gyratory would you believe has foreign roots. It’s widely accepted that William Phelps Eno was the bright spark who first devised the idea of a one-way rotary system in 1903, for Columbus Circle, New York City, USA. Closely followed by Eugene Hernard, Chief Architect of Paris, France in 1907. Great Britain’s claim in the history of gyratory circles was that the term ‘roundabout’ was coined by us in 1926, and replaced the term ‘gyratory’. Our first true ‘gyratory flow’ system was developed at Sollershot Circus, Letchworth Garden City in the late twenties.

 

[CanucksTraveller]

I pass that roundabout most days. It's in Letchworth.

Yeah I'm about 9 minutes walk from there.
And it looks so benign, and yet with 5 roads joining at what amounts to a flower bed, it can be a bugger at times, especially when people don't signal or when they take it like Colin McRae on a tricky Catalonian gravel stage.

 

[raleighnut]

The 'Clocktower' in Leicester was one of the first although it was originally called a traffic 'Island'.


http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rc...tower/&usg=AFQjCNGvJy40mauHoEuQ_bEfCKduJBgJsA

 

[NorthernDave]

It's the thin end of the wedge...

 

[classic33]

It's the thin end of the wedge...

Thought it was a roundabout, not a wedge!

 

[KnackeredBike]

Love a good roundabout, I always think that if motorised traffic didn't exist they'd be the perfect solution at busy junctions for cyclists unlike hateful traffic lights.

 

[TheDoctor]

... when they take it like Colin McRae on a tricky Catalonian gravel stage.

You've seen my cornering style then?
My regular Sunday ride involves breakfast in Letchworth, that roundabout, then home via Willian and Graveley.

 

[lutonloony]

I went to Letchworth once, think it was shut.

 

[CanucksTraveller]

You've seen my cornering style then?
My regular Sunday ride involves breakfast in Letchworth, that roundabout, then home via Willian and Graveley.

I take my daughter along the greenway to Willian with her hitched up on the trail gator. She likes to have a bag of pork scratchings at The Fox. She's quite taken with that little roundabout.

I went to Letchworth once, think it was shut.

Yeah it's very quiet isn't it. I went to Luton once, I thought it was Yemen.

 

[robjh]

It's not only roundabouts that Letchworth is responsible for, it also spawned the millions of mass-produced faux cottage style suburban houses that surround almost every city and town in the UK.

And don't forget the legend that it inspired Lenin on a visit there - now that is some legacy.

 

[clid61]

i was born in letchworth !

 

[Sharky]

The 'Clocktower' in Leicester was one of the first although it was originally called a traffic 'Island'.

Near St Helens, the junction between the Rainford bypass and the East Lancs is still called Windle Island, even though traffic lights have been there for at least 50years.