Ringway 1

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Ringway 1 or the London Motorway Box was the innermost of the series of four London Ringways, 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 scheme was cancelled in 1973.

for a detailed history see London Ringways

Ringway 1 was planned to comprise four sections across the capital forming a roughly rectangular box of motorways. These sections were designated:

North Cross Route - from Harlesden to Hackney Wick via West Hampstead, Camden Town, Highbury and Dalston
East Cross Route - from Hackney Wick to Kidbrooke via Bow, Blackwall and Greenwich
South Cross Route - from Kidbrooke to Battersea via Lewisham, Peckham, Brixton and Clapham
West Cross Route - from Harlesden to Battersea via North Kensington, Shepherds Bush, West Kensington, Earls Court and Chelsea Harbour

Only the East Cross Route and the section of the West Cross Route between North Kensington and Shepherds Bush were constructed. The Westway which links Paddington to the north end of the built section of the West Cross Route was also built.

Much of the motorways would have been constructed as elevated roads on concrete pylons and the routes were designed to follow the alignments of existing railway lines to minimise the amount of land required for construction. Nevertheless the disruption and widespread demolition required to build the Ringway would have been considerable; in 1970 the GLC set aside £1.7billion in 1970 (about £18billion in 2006) for the construction of about half of the Ringways. Of this sum Ringway 1 was expected to cost £480m, including £144 for property purchases. It would require 1,048 acres and affect 7585 houses^[1]