Radford Bank double roundabout

[acpoynton]

Just wondering if anybody has a photo of the top of Radford Bank without the double roundabout. I think it is an odd junction but wonder what it was like before the two roundabouts where put in place.

 

[Gramaisc]

It was a single set of traffic lights - just for Weeping Cross onto Lichfield/Cannock Road - getting out of Baswich Lane was 'up to you', just a Give Way sign.

 

[Gramaisc]

You can just see a set of lights here and the Give Way line of Baswich Lane.

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The war memorial was moved a bit to allow space for the double mini roundabout set-up.


The only other location in Stafford that I can think of, where a set of lights was replaced by a roundabout, is the Silkmore Lane/Lichfield Road junction.

 

[Gramaisc]

Before the traffic lights arrived, it was a Y-junction, much as Tixall Road/Weston Road and Lichfield Road/Wolverhampton Road also were.

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The remains of the old road is still there as the 'service road' by the top exit from Radford Rise.


I'm not sure when the roundabouts arrived - the lights were still there in 1977 - it may well have occurred in the early '80s?

In the days of the lights, the more with-it driver, living east of Baswich Lane would enter the queue via Lynton Avenue, rather than attempting to get out of Baswich Lane. Also, Baswich Lane, in the opposite direction, was rather less navigable than it is now.

 

[Mudgie]

You can just see a set of lights here and the Give Way line of Baswich Lane.

Resource Details - Staffordshire Past Track

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The war memorial was moved a bit to allow space for the double mini roundabout set-up.


The only other location in Stafford that I can think of, where a set of lights was replaced by a roundabout, is the Silkmore Lane/Lichfield Road junction.

I remember the cedar tree being struck by lightning in the mid 1970s.
And I remember Weeping Cross being closed by the police from there on 18th September 1990 after the IRA shot Peter Terry at his Milford home because of his shoot to kill policy as Governor of Gibraltar.

There can't be many junctions where a roundabout has been replaced by a set of lights. Weston Road - Riverway - Lammascote Road - Corporation street is one.

 

[Gramaisc]

There can't be many junctions where a roundabout has been replaced by a set of lights. Weston Road - Riverway - Lammascote Road - Corporation street is one.

Sandon Road/Corporation Street was a successful mini-roundabout for a short period, before being replaced by the infuriating light set-up that has been there for the subsequent decades.

 

[Mudgie]

Sandon Road/Corporation Street was a successful mini-roundabout for a short period, before being replaced by the infuriating light set-up that has been there for the subsequent decades.

I don't remember a mini-roundabout there but that was probably after about 1974 when the terraced building on the corner of Albert Terrace was a shop and off-license with a handpump for Joules Bitter.

 

[Gramaisc]

I don't remember a mini-roundabout there but that was probably after about 1974 when the terraced building on the corner of Albert Terrace was a shop and off-license with a handpump for Joules Bitter.

It would have been 1981/2/3ish, probably - the short-lived roundabout was a great improvement on the previous crossroads arrangement, but a vast amount of money was then spent on making it worse again.

There was still a shop there into the 90s - Lancaster's may have been the final incarnation?

 

[Glam]

And I remember Weeping Cross being closed by the police from there on 18th September 1990 after the IRA shot Peter Terry at his Milford home because of his shoot to kill policy as Governor of Gibraltar.

It took the ex almost an hour get in and out of the RAF camp then. For about a month afterwards, every car was checked over completely. Bit like locking the stable door after the 'os has bolted.

 

[Steve_b]

Some from way back

 

[Mudgie]

It took the ex almost an hour get in and out of the RAF camp then. For about a month afterwards, every car was checked over completely. Bit like locking the stable door after the 'os has bolted.

Yes, he secretly stayed in the Officers Mess there for quite a while after being released from hospital.

 

[staffordjas]

I remember when the Cannock Rd was a side junction onto the Lichfield Rd , as on the top photo of @Steve_b above. Didn't need lights controlling it then , as was hardly any traffic on the Cannock Rd. (Silkmore/Lichfield Rd junction was just a side junction with no lights needed at that time as well )

I remember seeing hubby off onto the Walsall bus from the bus stop on the Cannock Road when I first met him in 1979 , so the junction was still like that then. The bus stop was on the grassy triangle between the Lichfield Rd & Cannock Rd.

Used to be quite spooky walking home alone from Top of the World in the early hours in the early 70's, as the trees up Radford Bank used to meet over the top making a dark tunnel , and the owls used to be hooting in the trees in the middle bit on top of the bank by the police headquarters.

 

[Mudgie]

I remember when the Cannock Rd was a side junction onto the Lichfield Rd , as on the top photo of @Steve_b above. Didn't need lights controlling it then , as was hardly any traffic on the Cannock Rd. (Silkmore/Lichfield Rd junction was just a side junction with no lights needed at that time as well )

I remember seeing hubby off onto the Walsall bus from the bus stop on the Cannock Road when I first met him in 1979 , so the junction was still like that then. The bus stop was on the grassy triangle between the Lichfield Rd & Cannock Rd.

Used to be quite spooky walking home alone from Top of the World in the early hours in the early 70's, as the trees up Radford Bank used to meet over the top making a dark tunnel , and the owls used to be hooting in the trees in the middle bit on top of the bank by the police headquarters.

Yes, "the trees up Radford Bank" were large elms soon to be lost to Dutch Elm Disease.