Western Avenue (London)

Western Avenue, some 10 miles (16 km) in length, is one of the major roads leading out of London, England. It is part of the A40, leaving the city in a north-westerly direction. The A40 is named as Western Avenue from its junction with Old Oak Common Lane in "East Acton"; the junction now has traffic lights, but its name "Savoy Circus" commemorates the roundabout which once formed the junction. East of this point is Westway, part of the A40 Central London link from Paddington.

The road

After Western Circus the road, dual carriageway, takes a bend towards "North Acton", and crosses the Great Western Main Line as it does so. Road junctions occur on this section, but from the Hanger Lane Gyratory System (2 miles (3km)) the main intersections are by means of underpasses and slip roads (see History below). The first of these (4 miles (6.4km)) connects southwards to "West Ealing" and the River Thames at Kew Bridge; next follows Greenford Roundabout (6.75 miles (11km)); "Target Roundabout" (9 miles (14km)), junction for Heathrow Airport; and the "Polish War Memorial" junction (1 mile (1.6km)) for (Northolt Aerodrome).

In the ten final miles of the road, some minor junctions occur (to Ruislip and Hillingdon (see below) before the road meets its end-on junction with the M40 at the Denham Roundabout, northwest of Uxbridge.

History

When first constructed, all intersections with other roads were flat junctions with roundabouts, resulting in significant congestion at busy periods. Now the Greenford Road junction is a flyover taking Western Avenue over the Greenford Road; all the other junctions take Western Avenue under the crossing road. The last junction to be improved was the "Master Brewer" junction with Long Lane, Hillingdon. Here the work diverted Western Avenue to the north of the old line of the road, taking it under both Long Lane and the Uxbridge branch of the Metropolitan Line; Hillingdon London Underground Station was rebuilt as part of the work.

Hoover Building

A notable landmark on Western Avenue at Greenford is the Art Deco Hoover Building, now a Tesco supermarket.

The Hoover building is referred to in a song by Elvis Costello and "Westway" is the title of a tune by the 1980s rock band Sky. On the album notes bass player Herbie Flowers, who co-wrote the tune with Francis Monkman says of "Westway":" "When we recorded this album, I was living out in West London, and the studio was in Central London. Every night, I would drive home along the Westway elevated road and listen on my car tape player to what we'd done that day. This track is such a great groove for driving and it got its name because if I put it on at the Marylebone Road end of the Westway and stuck right on the speed limit, it would finish just as I came off the other end."'

Trivia

Western Avenue features prominently as a location for much of the action in J.G. Ballard's 1973 novel Crash.

Western Avenue borders RAF Northolt in Uxbridge. On Tuesday 13th August 1996 in a very unusual accident a Lear Jet landing at the airfield overshot the runway and ended up crashing into a van that just happened to be passing on the A40. Fortunately the van driver was not seriously injured although he was trapped for 40 minutes. It was later determined that the crash may have been caused when the Spanish pilot and co-pilot were having a disagreement over who should handle the landing. There was only one passenger on the Lear Jet, a female actor called Lisa Hogan. She was slightly injured. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/htmlContent.jhtml?html=/archive/1996/08/14/njet14.html]

External links

* [http://edward.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/1157_art_deco/about/buildings/hoover.htm The Hoover Building]

References

* Edward Platt, "Leadville: A Biography of the A40" (Picador, 2001). ISBN 0-330-39263-8.
* [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/htmlContent.jhtml?html=/archive/1996/08/14/njet14.html Original Newspaper report on the accident]