The Hogarth Roundabout sees the merger of two of the nine direct feeders to the main radial roads to or from London. Namely the A316 Great Chertsey Road and the A4 Great West Road in Chiswick. [lower-alpha 1] In addition Dorchester Grove, becoming Chiswick Lane, branches off to the north and Church Lane to the conserved, affluent, Old Chiswick nucleus to the south. It contains trees and is much-lined with greenery yet is at surface level, save for a one-way flyover for much of the lighter eastbound traffic.
The roundabout is named after the eighteenth-century painter William Hogarth whose home is behind a long, high wall west of the junction: Hogarth's House. [3] The eastern approach abuts the Griffin Brewery of Fuller, Smith and Turner where beer has been brewed since 1654. [4] The south side has the 18th-century George and Devonshire pub. [5] Another pub by the roundabout, the Mawsons Arms on Chiswick Lane, was sold along with the brewery to Asahi in 2019. [6]
The junction is important for road transport as it is the only non-circuitous route to Heathrow Airport from the City and the West End. On 29 October 2013, after the previous day's stormy winds, Transport for London inspectors discovered 'defects' and closed the flyover, declaring it "unsafe". Garrett Emmerson stated its engineers identified a degradation in the concrete deck of the flyover. Traffic thus concentrated with queues in day-time back to the Hammersmith flyover and many more miles, at morning peak, to the west. [7]
The junction is noteworthy for the single-lane flyover to ease some eastbound traffic from the A316 onto the A4. It was built as a temporary measure in 1971, using the Bridgway format devised and offered to highway authorities by Marples Ridgeway Ltd. [8]
The flyover was quickly put together with a cheap steel frame and was designed to last no more than a few years. The central span has pairs of diagonal cross-braces to give the structure strength and help protect it against strong winds. The junction would have been in the plans for London Ringways – shelved in the latter years of the 20th century. [9] These would have a more durable structure put in place. In the early 2010s a major refurbishment: a new deck, surface and parapets has ensured its survival and confirmed its stature as a permanent fixture. [10] The work opened in September 2014, at a total cost of £3 million. [11]
Chiswick is a district of west London, England. It contains Hogarth's House, the former residence of the 18th-century English artist William Hogarth; Chiswick House, a neo-Palladian villa regarded as one of the finest in England; and Fuller's Brewery, London's largest and oldest brewery. In a meander of the River Thames used for competitive and recreational rowing, with several rowing clubs on the river bank, the finishing post for the Boat Race is just downstream of Chiswick Bridge.
The M4, originally the London-South Wales Motorway, is a motorway in the United Kingdom running from west London to southwest Wales. The English section to the Severn Bridge was constructed between 1961 and 1971; the Welsh element was largely complete by 1980, though a non-motorway section around Briton Ferry bridge remained until 1993. On the opening of the Second Severn Crossing in 1996, the M4 was rerouted over it.
The M40 motorway links London, Oxford and Birmingham in England, a distance of approximately 89 miles (143 km).
The Westway is a 2.5-mile (4 km) elevated dual carriageway section of the A40 trunk road in West London running from Paddington in the east to North Kensington in the west. It connects the London Inner Ring Road to the West London suburbs.
The A4 is a major road in England from Central London to Avonmouth via Heathrow Airport, Reading, Bath and Bristol. It is historically known as the Bath Road with newer sections including the Great West Road and Portway. The road was once the main route from London to Bath, Bristol and the west of England and formed, after the A40, the second main western artery from London.
The M23 is a motorway in the United Kingdom, running from the south of Hooley in Surrey, where it splits from the A23, to Pease Pottage, south of Crawley in West Sussex where it rejoins the A23. The northern end of the motorway starts on what is effectively a 2-mile (3.2 km) spur north of junction 7 of the M25 motorway. From Hooley it runs for 17 miles (27 km) past Redhill, Gatwick Airport and Crawley. A spur runs from junction 9 to Gatwick Airport.
The North Circular Road is a 25.7-mile-long (41.4 km) ring road around Central London in England. It runs from Chiswick in the west to Woolwich in the east via suburban North London, connecting various suburbs and other trunk roads in the region. Together with its counterpart, the A205 South Circular Road, it forms a ring road around central London. This ring road does not make a complete circuit of the city, being C-shaped rather than a complete loop as the crossing of the River Thames in the east is made on the Woolwich Ferry.
Staples Corner is a major road junction in London, United Kingdom. It is about 6.3 miles (10.1 km) north-west from Charing Cross and directly to the west of the Brent Cross crossover.
Fuller's Brewery in Chiswick in the west of London was a family-run business from its foundation in 1845 until 2019. In that year, the brewing division of Fuller, Smith & Turner PLC was sold to the Japanese international beverage giant Asahi.
Fuller, Smith & Turner is a public limited company based in London, England. Its origins lie in John Fuller's Griffin Brewery, which dates from 1816. In 1845, John Fuller's son, John Bird Fuller, was joined by Henry Smith and John Turner to form the current company.
Gallows Corner is a major road junction in Romford in Greater London, England. It was the site of the gallows of the Liberty of Havering, hence the name.
The A329(M) is a motorway in Berkshire, England. It is 4 miles (6.4 km) long and runs from the west of Bracknell to the north west of Winnersh. It is one of a small number of parts of the motorway system in England that are managed by the local highway authority, in this case Wokingham Borough Council, rather than National Highways.
The A316, known in parts as the Great Chertsey Road, is a major road in England, which runs from the A315 Chiswick High Road, Turnham Green, Chiswick to join head-on the M3 motorway at Sunbury-on-Thames. Its initial London section Chiswick Lane heads south – following this it is a mostly straight dual carriageway aligned WSW.
The West Cross Route (WCR) is a 0.75 mile (1.2km) segment of dual carriageway section of the A3220 route in Central London in The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, with a small part being shared with bordering borough Hammersmith and Fulham. It runs north–south between the northern elevated roundabout junction with the western end of Westway (A40) and the southern Holland Park Roundabout. It opened in 1970, together with Westway.
The London Ringways were a series of four ring roads planned in the 1960s to circle London at various distances from the city centre. They were part of a comprehensive scheme developed by the Greater London Council (GLC) to alleviate traffic congestion on the city's road system by providing high speed motorway-standard roads within the capital, linking a series of radial roads taking traffic into and out of the city.
The A3220 is a primary A road in London. It runs north from Clapham Common to the A40 Westway at Ladbroke Grove.
The A40 is a major trunk road connecting London to Fishguard, Wales. The A40 in London passes through seven London Boroughs: the City of London, Camden, Westminster, Kensington & Chelsea, Hammersmith & Fulham, Ealing and Hillingdon, to meet the M40 motorway junction 1 at Denham, Buckinghamshire.
The Chiswick flyover is a short elevated section of the M4 motorway in the western approaches to London, United Kingdom. The flyover in the west London suburb of Chiswick, was opened in 1959 with the intention of reducing congestion and the impact on local traffic of vehicles travelling around London on the North and South Circular Roads and between London and the west on the Great West Road. Although it was not originally built as a motorway, it was later incorporated into the M4 motorway.
The George and Devonshire is a Grade II listed public house at Burlington Lane, Chiswick, London. It was built in the 18th century, but the architect is not known. The pub claims that it dates back to 1650.
Old Chiswick is the area of the original village beside the river Thames for which the modern district of Chiswick is named. The village grew up around St Nicholas Church, founded c. 1181 and named for the patron saint of fishermen. The placename was first recorded c. 1000 as Ceswican. In the Middle Ages the villagers lived by fishing, boatbuilding, and handling river traffic. The surrounding area was rural until the late 19th century.