Inner Ring Road

I lived just off Four Pounds as a young 'un. It was always a single carriageway road then, although the bed for the extra carriageway was laid at the same time. They turned it into a dual carriageway some years after we left the area.

Does anyone know why the Earlsdon Avenue bridge across the railway is so much wider than the existing road width? A former CCC worker has suggested to me that it was designed thus in anticipation of construction of a "middle ring road" which included Four Pounds Avenue (hence that being dualled)

^^ interesting and quite believable. I read a book recently that talked about plans for new suburbs to be linked by dual carriageways to older suburbs and the city centre, but the plans never fully happened (I think Canley was one, hence the dual carriageways up there). Discussion here (Not much, but similar speculation).

There were plans for an 'outer' ring road as Rob details here. However it was much further out of the city.

The M6/A46/A5 largely follow the line of the "Outer Ring Road". The missing North West section and a new southern bypass for the A45 ("southern bypass") is being discussed by the council on Tuesday! Peter.

Here's a couple of interesting images dated 29th August 1973 showing Ring Road development and the Ringway Queens section that's just being changed again as part of the Friarsgate project. You can see the area where they cleared Stoneleigh Terrace, they used as a ramp to dig out the underpass. Also visible are the foundations going in for the Tax Offices. Were they the brick 'sheds' from what was Parkside Garage on the very left? I can remember they were there before the whole Tax Office area was cleared in the '80's/'90's, certainly the backs of them were visible from Grosvenor Road.

My friend Steve and I did 4 circuits of the ring road with my Go-Pro running. Above are a couple of frames going under the Warwick Road.

As an aside to all this, has anyone ever seen a copy of the "original" ring road layout, that encompassed the station? I'd be fascinated to see it. Just 'cause I'm a nosey sort haha

I have a scan of an early plan for a ring road on this page (from the 1945 "Future Coventry" guide) - but it doesn't stretch as far out as the station. Do you know of any other plans that encompassed it but were later ditched?

It's referred to here, under "A change of plan". I just wondered if anyone had ever seen the original layout. Edited by Midland Red, 29th Jun 2017 8:49 am (Link clarified)

No map, but this was the proposed route from The Coventry Telegraph July 1944. Interestingly it was agreed in principal in 1945 that the city's main bus station would be next to the railway station.

By my reckoning, that is pretty close to the current route, St Patrick's Road being north of the station. That, and I've just done a dot-to-dot on a print of a stitched-together map from 1914 from old-maps

Rob, There is a February 1941 plan in the Historic England book "Coventry - The Making of the Modern City". It shows a circular road roughly along the line of Corporation Street, Queen Victoria Road to the current Junction 6 then east to Acacia Avenue, it then turns north and follows Vequerary Street, Lower Ford street and Ford Street. Most of the junctions are simple crossroads (not roundabouts). The plan in the book is copyright Edinburgh University so unfortunately I can't reproduce it here. Hopefully they have a copy in the Local History section at the Herbert. Peter.

There are several plans on here, looks like an interesting read anyway. It is by the architects who wrote the book that PeterB has mentioned. Coventry planned

Annewiggy, Thanks for the link. It will be an interesting read. The drawing I was referring to is the lower drawing on page 12 of the booklet (page 18 of the pdf). Peter.