Milton Keynes, The M1 At Junction 14 c.1965

Photo ref: M388050

More about this scene

The New M1 Comes into service 2 november 1959 Parliament first debated the 187-mile London to Leeds link in 1906. Construction of the M1's first 55 miles (including Milton Keynes's section) took 586 days - a bridge every three days and a mile of road every ten. More than 5,000 men used 5 million tons of gravel, stone, sand, cement, and steel to build it; they removed 20 million tons of soil and rock from the cuttings to fill the embankments - four times the volume of the Great Pyramid. The River Great Ouse flooded eight times in 1958- 59, hindering a viaduct construction of eight massive reinforced concrete arches. Of three million vehicles registered in 1959, 14,000 used Milton Keynes's section of the M1 daily; 40 years later there were over ten times that number - 150,000 out of 22 million vehicles. There was no 70mph limit: top speeds of 150mph and averages of 80mph were routinely recorded. The hard shoulder was littered with steaming radiators and blown engines! 40 years later in 2005, the junction is much busier than it was in the photograph. Milton Keynes city centre is just three miles away.