The London to Birmingham Motorway Presentation Book by L.T.C. Rolt
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The London to Birmingham Motorway Presentation Book |
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Sir Owen Williams |
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Sir Owen looking down from the motorway bridge |
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A view of Dunstable and Luton divided by the new M1 |
I was going to post about Sir Owen Williams yesterday, but
then I got side-tracked by the pretty Hugh Lofting end-papers and in the meantime we’ve sold this
book. However, I think it’s still worth
a mention. We came across this book in a
lot we bought recently – it is the presentation copy of Sir Owen Williams, who
was one of Britain’s motorway pioneers. It was published to mark the opening of
the South of Luton-Dunchurch-Crick Section of the London to Birmingham Motorway
(the M1.) Sir Owen Williams (no relation
sadly) was an engineer and architect, and as well as being the chief engineer
on the first phase of the M1, he was the chief consulting engineer of the
original Wembley Stadium and also the
principle engineer for Spaghetti Junction on the M6. So it seems he led quite an eventful life –
which always interests me.
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Christmas Cards & the List of Signatures |
I liked this
book particularly because it had some local pictures of Dunstable taken during the
construction of the Motorway – which feels quite relevant to us at the moment as the new A5
bypass has just opened. Every Radio 2 listener in the country has
heard of Dunstable because we are the main diversion
route when the M1 is closed and we quite often get mentioned
by Sally Traffic.
This presentation copy was presented to O.T. Williams
in 1959 –his name was embossed on the
front cover in gilt and it was signed by numerous members of the project including
Williams himself. The book also included two 1959 Christmas Cards marking the opening of the Southern Section.