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The idea for an orbital road around London was
first mooted in 1907, which was the very year that
mass production of motorcars began. There were
20,000 cars on the road and the AA had recently
begun cycle patrols to warn its 100 members about
police speed traps. Just a decade earlier the speed
limit had been 4 miles an hour and each motor
vehicle was required to be operated by at least
3 people one of whom was to walk ahead of the
vehicle with a red flag. You could probably still do
that on the M25 in the rush hour.
In 1903 the speed limit was increased to a
whopping 20 miles an hour and driving licences
and number plate registrations were introduced.
By 1910 the number of cars registered in England
had shot up to 200,000, which coincidentally is the
average number of cars to use the M25 on a daily
basis in 2012.
The M25 was originally planned to be two
motorways, with the M16 outer orbital in the north
and the M25 in Kent and Surrey in the south. Like
many such projects it was talked about for a very
long time before anything actually happened.
In 1937 Edwin Lutyens, best known as the
architect of New Delhi and many a fine English
country house, took a turn talking about the project
in his capacity as co-author of a Ministry of
Transport survey. Little was done to progress
plans until the 1960s when the
developed the
lan
consisting of four 'rings' around the capital. I know
my father (vintage 1928) isn’t alone in persisting to
refer to the M25 as The Ringway because some of
our group organisers do the same.
As in “We
should get to you for 10-30am as long as the
Ringway is clear”. Sections of the two outer rings -
nd
ere constructed in the
early 1970s but the destruction required for the
inner two ring roads (Ringways 1 and 2 – did you
guess?) rendered this a vastly controversial and
troubled project. Against stiff opposition parts of
Ringway 1 were constructed before the overall
plan was finally abandoned in 1973 following
39 public inquiries sitting for a total of 700 days.
The decision was finally made in 1975 to create
one single motorway circling London. Well OK, to
be pedantic, the M25 doesn’t complete a full circle.
At the Dartford Crossing the road briefly becomes
the A282. Nor does it completely enclose Greater
London. North Ockendon, near Upminster in
Essex, lies outside the M25. Poor old North
Ockendon. It used to be its own ancient parish –
abolished. It used to have a stately home –
demolished. No one famous has ever come from
North Ockendon. I looked it up. Unless the early
17
th
century vegetable and plant wizard William
Coys counts. He introduced hops as an ingredient
in beer and cultivated exotic crops such as
Jerusalem artichoke, ivy-leaved toadflax and the
first yucca to flower in England. So he probably
does count to beers lovers at least, though I doubt
he’s often toasted in the Old White Horse.
Certainly not for ivy-leaved toadflax – if you look
that up its name is usually followed by the promise
of “how to get rid of it”. However if you do ever find
yourself still in Greater London but just outside the
M25 in other words in North Ockendon do visit the
Edwardian Art Nouveau church of St. Mary the