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Roads to Birmingham

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P

Peter Walker

gone but not forgotten
Here is new series of essays on the history of roads leading to Birmingham. A series on the development of roads within the city will follow later.
Perhaps Keith can put them on the main site some time.
Peter
 
Roads to Birmingham
By Peter Walker
Part 1: Before the 17th century

The early roads
Not being an ancient town, and located at the meeting of three counties (Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire), Birmingham grew up after a crude pattern of cross-country routes already existed. The crossing of the river Rea at Deritend, together with its mill, became the nucleus from which the later city was to develop.
In Roman times, there was a fort at Metchley, near Selly Oak, and Icknield (or Ryckneld) Street, passed it on its way north, skirting the west of Birmingham. It is said that some roads in Birmingham, such as Lifford Lane, the Pershore road at Stirchley, Icknield Street, Great Hampton Row, Wellhead Lane and parts of Kingstanding Road are on the line of the Roman road, but this is not much more than speculation.
Map 1: This conjectural map of roads and settlements around Birmingham area is based on work by the Birmingham Roman Road Project. It also shows principal rivers, which were the main obstacle to road building) and the location of later towns and settlements. CLICK BELOW

Fig 1: Remains of the Icknield Street in Sutton Park today. The road was probably built after AD 100, and remained in use for several centuries. An enclosed deer park was created here in Anglo-Saxon times, and the line of the road has been disused but undisturbed ever since. CLICK BELOW

Fig 2: Watling Street old and new, near Kilsby, Northants. The old Roman road followed the straight line of trees on the right, while a winding new road on the extreme left replaces it. CLICK BELOW
Mediaeval records reveal a network of tracks converging on Birmingham, which started to grow as a minor market town in the 13th century. King Henry III is known to have travelled from Lichfield to Worcester in 1235, and Henry VII from Nottingham to Worcester in 1486, in both cases presumably via Bromsgrove and Droitwich, along the ancient salt way which was a passable road by the 10th century between Bromsgrove and Droitwich.
During the later Middle Ages, roads and bridges in and around Birmingham were maintained by the Guild of the Holy Cross, founded in 1392. In those days, no-one was charged with maintaining the roads, and it was not until 1555 that an act of Parliament was passed which made each parish responsible for maintaining roads in its area, overseen by the local Justices of the Peace. In practice, maintenance by the Parish meant that roads might be virtually impassible for large parts of the year to wheeled vehicles except for very local journeys.
In the late seventeenth century, the Industrial Revolution brought a large increase in traffic, which required a much more reliable transport system. Birmingham must have felt the great strain of demands for the two-way movement of raw materials, food and fuel, and the export of manufactured goods on the primitive road system as much as anywhere in the country. This was the more so because the nearest navigable rivers were the Trent at Burton, the Severn at Bridgnorth and possibly the Avon at Stratford.
Fig 3: an artist's impression of road conditions before the turnpikes were introduce [from a Highways Agency web site]. CLICK BELOW
But things got worse without any action being taken. In 1763 it was announced that "The carriers from Birmingham to intercourse London intend to raise their prices . . . because . . . they cannot carry so much by one third of the weight as they aforetime have done, on account of the badness of the roads." According to a Directory of the period, carriers' carts were operated between Birmingham and 168 other towns. The Turnpike roads were to be the belated answer. They are described in the next part.
 
Roads to Birmingham
By Peter Walker
Part 2: Georgian and Victorian times

The turnpikes
The first private toll road was established by act of parliament in 1663 in Hertfordshire, and the first Trust was set up in 1707 on the London - Coventry - Chester road. They became known as turnpike trusts because of the "pikestaff" or wooden beam, which was swung across the road to check passers-by and collect their dues. The trusts had power to raise capital to build or repair a road by raising a loan on the security of the toll income. Some were more profitable than others: the Birmingham to Wednesbury trust had a total income of £5478, of which £4751 was derived from tolls, but it was an uphill battle to keep the roads in a passable condition. There was always some resistance to paying to use the roads, and in later years when traffic had become much heavier, it became impossible to collect enough revenue to maintain the roads to a good standard.

Table 1: Opening dates of turnpikes in the Birmingham area. This table is extracted from data in the Victoria County Histories, which sometimes differ from dates given by J M Jones in his works. CLICK BELOW

The main benefit of the turnpike system was the reduction in journey times, resulting from the road improvement. Advertised passenger coach journey times between Birmingham and London were steadily reduced from four days in 1659 to three days in 1702, to 2½ days in 1731, and to two days by 1747. The local historian William Hutton went to London in 1784, and wrote that the journey took 19 hours, but an advertisement dated 1787 claimed that the overnight journey took 16 hours. During the 1820s the time for the journey was further reduced to just over eleven hours, and in 1836, the record time was seven and a half hours. By this date, however, canals had been providing cheap but slow transport for bulky freight for over 50 years, and the new railways were about to take over most traffic from the roads. The last brand-new coach on the London-Birmingham route ran in 1837, a year before the opening of the London & Birmingham Railway.

Map 2: The network of turnpike roads serving the Midlands, showing the dates of opening and abandonment.CLICK BELOW

Fig 4: The toll-gate on the old Walsall turnpike at Villa Road, Handsworth, painted here in the 1830s. CLICK BELOW

Mail coaches
The postal service was originally set up in the eighteenth century in a rudimentary form, but its growth was handicapped by the deficiency of the road system. By 1767 there was a daily service to and from Dudley, Hales Owen, Stourbridge, Kidderminster, and Bewdley. A Post Office notice issued at the same time informs the public that letters from Worcester, and places beyond it were given out at Birmingham on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings; and that "such letters as are to be sent to that county" were to be posted at the Birmingham office "before ten o'clock on those nights". In the next year the Post Office announced that the post to and from Ireland via Holyhead and Dublin would be increased from three tosix times a week, instead of three as at present, between England and Ireland, by way of Holyhead. Even in 1770 the post between Birmingham and Derby was limited to four days a week each.
 
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Roads to Birmingham
By Peter Walker
Part 3: In place of horses

Early experiments in mechanical traction
It is hard today to realise how dependent early Victorian society was on horse-power for its dynamic growth. But horses had their limitations, and inventors soon made experiments with steam traction. It is claimed that the first steam-powered road vehicle was built as early as 1672 by Ferdinand Verbiest, but records are scanty. From 1765 Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot experimented with working models of steam-engine-powered vehicles for the French Army, intended for transporting cannon. He built his first "fire engine for transporting wagons and especially artillery" in 1769.
In 1784 William Murdoch from developed and patented a steam carriage, which he built in model form, despite opposition from his partners, James Watt and Matthew Boulton, who were concerned over the practical difficulties and dangers of using high-pressure steam. In 1801, Richard Trevithick built and demonstrated an experimental steam-driven vehicle, but on its first trip it was left unattended for a moment and blew itself up. Trevithick built a steam carriage that ran successfully in London in 1803. It is claimed that that in the 1830s, Robert Anderson invented the first electric carriage, powered by accumulators, while Samuel Brown had adapted an old Newcomen steam engine to burn gas, and propel a vehicle up Shooter's Hill in London in 1824, but the venture failed to attract interest.
In Birmingham, American inventor Dr William Church built a 40-seat steam carriage which he demonstrated in the 1830s. After a steam carriage drove through from Oxford to Birmingham on 1 September 1833, the London and Birmingham Steam Carriage Company was set up, but no one could produce a vehicle capable of running that distance on the road, so the company was wound up in 1837. By 1840 the development of steam-powered road vehicles had lost impetus, partly because the heavy road tolls imposed by the Turnpike Acts turned inventors away from steam road vehicles.

Fig 7: Dr William Church's steam coach, built in Birmingham, which made trips to Wolverhampton, Coventry and Worcester in the 1830s. CLICK BELOW

The turnpike proprietors were seriously concerned about the damage caused to their overloaded roads by steam engines and, with the backing of canal and railway interests, effectively put pressure on the government to discourage their use on the roads. Later legislation in Great Britain virtually eliminated all mechanically propelled vehicles from the roads for 30 years: the Locomotive Act of 1861 imposed restrictive speed limits on "road locomotives" of 5 mph (8 km/h) in towns and cities, and 10 mph (16 km/h) in the country. Four years later, the Locomotives Act of 1865 (the famous Red Flag Act) further reduced the speed limits, down to 4 mph (6.4 km/h) in the country and just 2 mph (3.2 km/h) in towns and cities, and required a man carrying a red flag to walk before each vehicle.

Fig 8: This colourful cartoon by Carrace illustrates the fears which antagonists of mechanical road transport were trying to arouse in the 1840s. CLICK BELOW

By contrast France saw a good road system as of strategic importance to the country. A government ruling in 1861 expressly permitted the circulation of steam vehicles on ordinary roads, resulting in many technological advances throughout the 1870s and '80s. During that time, British inventors tended to concentrate on traction engines, which could be used mainly for stationary work such as driving wood saws, threshing, and even ploughing machines, but little for transporting outsize loads too big to go by rail. By the 1890s, steam trucks were also developed but their use was generally confined to the local distribution of heavy materials such as coal, building materials and beer to and from railway depots and ports.
One Birmingham protagonist of the steam road vehicle was Sir Richard Tangye, who had designed and built a ten-seat steam car in 1862, which could travel at 20 miles per hour. In view of the ruling 4-mph speed restriction, this development was doomed, but Tangye (who was interested in the development of gas and petrol engines as well as steam power) wrote in 1905 that if it had not been for the ÔbovineÕ speed restriction, "the manufacture of motor cars would have taken root in Britain forty years ago". Tangye's later became a distinguished manufacturer of hydraulic pumps and engines, but they might well have become pioneers in motor vehicle construction.
Fig 9: Because of the restrictions on the use of mechanical vehicles in England, development was restricted largely to traction engines, which could also be used when stationery to power any kind of machines, from sawing, grinding, ploughing, or just working a merry-go-round. These preserved examples are seen at a Steam Ploughing Club rally in 2006. . CLICK BELOW
Despite the handicaps in this country, new forms of traction were still being being developed abroad. Progress on the internal combustion engine was fastest on the European continent, with the first internal combustion engines built by Jean Joseph ƒtienne Lenoir (Belgium, 1858), Alphonse Beau de Rochas (France, 1862), Siegfried Marcus (Austria, 1864), Eugen Langen and Nikolaus August Otto (Germany, 1864). The first two-stroke engine was developed in the USA by George Brayton in 1873, which was improved in England in 1876 by Sir Dougald Clerk, while in France, Edouard Delamare-Debouteville built a single-cylinder four-stroke engine that ran on stove gas. But was not until the end of the 1880s that the internal combustion engine became a serious alternative to horse traction, due to the decisive work in Germany by Gottlieb Daimler (1885), Karl Benz (1886) and Wilhelm Maybach (1890).

Fig 10​
: The outstanding steam motor bus demonstrated by Amedee Bollee in 1875 ​
CLICK BELOW​
The end of the turnpikes
With bulk freight using the canals and ever-growing passenger and ever-growing traffic on the railways, the turnpike roads lost much of their strategic importance, and the turnpike trusts found themselves short of income to maintain, let alone improve, the roads. From 1830, railways offered a far more efficient means of transporting both goods and passengers, and the first Great Railway Mania sealed the fate of long-distance horse-drawn traffic on the public highway. The only growing traffic on the turnpikes was human-powered, as the bicycle began to replace the horse as a means of personal travel. The Highways Act, passed in 1835 was an attempt to set up districts, composed of a group of parishes to look after roads, but it failed because of the difficulty of reconciling conflicting local loyalties and prejudices.
During the 1860s, the first trunk roads were "disturnpiked", to use the legal term, but it was not until 1878 that the Highways and Locomotives Amendment Act was passed to set up highway authorities. However, the restrictions on steam-hauled road traffic remained much as before. The last turnpike trust was dissolved in 1885. County councils were formed in 1888 partly to take over responsibility for main roads, while rural district councils accepted responsibility for main roads from 1894.

Fig 11: The 1899 Daimler model was one of the first successful motor cars. CLICK BELOW

Attachments:
Fig 7: Church Steam Carriage
Fig 8: Carrace cartoon larger.jpg
Fig 9: Traction engines at Steam Ploughing Club rally 2006.jpg
Fig 10: Autobus amedee bollee, 1875.jpg
Fig 11: Daimler 1899.gif
 
Roads to Birmingham
By Peter Walker
Part 4: The growth of motor traffic and new roads

A reluctant revolution
By the 1890s motor vehicle had established itself as a reliable mode of transport, as the viability of the internal combustion engine was increasingly demonstrated, particularly in France, Germany and the USA. In Britain, it was not until 1896 that the "Red Flag Act" was replaced by the new Locomotive Act of 1896, which recognised the reality of motor vehicles on the road, and did away with the "man with the red flag", while raising the speed limit to 14 mph (23 km/h). Since 1927 the old Act has been commemorated each year by the London to Brighton veteran car run.
By the turn of the century, despite a slow tentative growth of the motor vehicle, there was relatively little long-distance road traffic on the roads system, whose strategic value was apparently not noticed until the outbreak of World War 1. The registration of motor vehicles with the compulsory display of number plates was introduced with the Motor-Car Act of 1903, bringing in a basic system of vehicle identification that lasted until 2001. Under this act, drivers had to be licensed by the local authority in whose area they lived, although a licence could be obtained by anyone over 17 years of age for a payment of five shillings (25p). Provisions specifying reckless, negligent and dangerous driving were introduced while the general speed limit was raised to 20 mph, although local authorities could reduce this to 10 mph in certain areas. This was the act that introduced officially road signs to indicate speed limits or to mark dangerous corners or other hazards. In 1904 regulations on the roadworthiness of vehicles were laid down: cars had to be able to reverse, be fitted with two brakes and carry a red light to the rear and a white light to the front of the vehicle. Car engines had to be capable of being switched off to prevent noise when the vehicle was stationary.
In 1909 the Development and Road Funds Act was passed to raise money to meet the additional wear and tear on the roads caused by motorists, and taxes were levied on petrol and on motor vehicles according to their horse-power rating, the money so raised being distributed to local authorities for road improvements or for the building and maintenance of new roads.
There were of course difficulties in distributing this money fairly throughout the country. In 1914, William Rees Jeffreys, the Secretary of the Road Board, set about commissioning the traffic surveys that would later allow the road network to be classified. This work was quickly halted by the start of the First World War.

World War 1 and after
In Edwardian times, vehicle use had been restricted to the better-off members of society, and it was not until the outbreak of the First World War that the value of the motor vehicle was fully recognized by the authorities. The mass production of military vehicles then became an essential part of the war effort. The end of the war saw the disposal at attractive prices of many of those vehicles no longer need for military purposes. This enabled small businesses to buy lorries cheaply, to replace their horse-drawn wagons. In addition, many men had learned to drive, and to maintain, vehicles during their military service and all of this led to a huge increase in vehicular traffic in the post-war years. In addition, mass production reduced the cost of cars.
The new motor traffic was clearly too much for the old road system. A brand new Ministry of transport was set up in 1920, and work resumed on classifying the road network. Provisional numbers were allocated within a year, and the final numbering scheme arrived in 1922-23. By and large it is the same system as is used today, but without the network of motorways that were added fifty years and more later. Two other related issues needed early attention Ð road signing and safety, and during the 1920s standards and practices were set up for the new road authorities. A start was made in replacing some of the older bottleneck and danger spots, and plans were drawn up for future roads and by-passes. A handful of these were built during the 1930s, by which time motor traffic had grown drastically, but such plans were brought to a halt by the second World War.
Fig 12: The Wolverhampton New Road was one of the few new roads constructed in the West Midlands between the wars. Completed in 1927, it was built mainly over derelict industrial waste land and was intended provide access to new industrial redevelopment. CLICK BELOW
Fig 13: Most major roads changed but little before World War 2. This view shows the Worcester Ð Birmingham main road just north of Bromsgrove, when it had changed little since turnpike days, apart from the quality of paving. CLICK BELOW
Map 3: The Midland network of A- and B- classified roads, as developed between the 1920s and the 1950s, before the advent of the motorway. CLICK BELOW
World War 2 and after
While World War 1 had cost many lives and much suffering, the country recovered relatively quickly, because it still had some of the reserves left from its vast empire. The second world war exhausted most of those reserves, and the country was left almost penniless. Even so, the will to rebuild and progress was still present, and bold plans for new roads were developed in the 1940s and 1950s: at a time when food and petrol were still rationed! In 1949, the Special Roads Act was passed, laying down the legal basis on which motorways would be built and, by 1957, the government had firm plans for three main motorway routes, London to Yorkshire (M1), Birmingham to South Wales (M6) and Birmingham to Preston (M6). The first short length of road to the new standard was opened in 1958 - in the form of the Preston By-pass. In 1951 Sir Owen Williams and Partners were commissioned to investigate a 140-mile route for a motorway between St Albans and Doncaster. The first 67-mile (107-km) section of what was to be known as the M1 motorway, between Berrygrove near St Albans and Crick in Northamptonshire, was opened on 2 November 1959 by Sir Ernest Marples, who had just become Minister of Transport. The M1 was extended four miles southwards to Elstree in 1966, Hendon in 1967 and Staples Corner in 1977. Northwards it was extended to Kegworth in 1965, Nuthall in 1966, and Wadworth in 1967, and through to Leeds by 1968. The Doncaster part of the route was not opened until 1979. Originally the M1 was designed for a daily traffic flow of 20 000 vehicles per day, but by 1997 the actual level flow was seven times that level. As a result, the road has been widened and strengthened on several occasions.
Closer to Birmingham came the first section of the M5 Bristol motorway, opened as far as Lydiate Ash in 1962 and extended to Quinton by 1965. Also in 1962 the whole of the Staffordshire section of the M6 motorway to Preston and the north was completed, but it was not until 1970 that the link between the northbound M6 at Bescot to the M5 at Quinton was opened, and 1972 that the the link from Bescot to Junction 19 on the M1 at Catthorpe was completed. At the same time the Aston Expressway A38(M) was opened to provided a fast link into the city centre.
Three years later the first short part of the M42 between Bromsgrove on the M5 and Nottingham, skirting the south of Birmingham was built: this was in effect a by-pass to the south of Solihull. Planning delays held up building the rest of the motorway, which was not opened until 1986 between Alvechurch and to Appleby Manor, just beyond Tamworth, with Junction 4A on the M5 near Bromsgrove in the following year. Planning delays put the opening of the M40 from Junction 3A on the M42 south of Solihull back to 1989, and the main link past Warwick and Banbury to a junction with the M4 near Oxford to 1991. The only other motorway development has been the first privately-funded Toll road in the UK, the M6 Toll between Junction 8 the M42 near Bacons End and Junction 11A on the M6 near Cheslyn Hay, opened in 2003.
Map 4: The network of motorways built in the Midlands since 1959, showing today's residual pattern of A and principal B roads. CLICK BELOW
Few changes have made a greater mark on the landscape of our countryside and built-up areas than the development of the road system to cater mainly for the demands of the internal combustion engine.
Fig 14: This scene pictures part of the M42 near Widney Manor, immediately after opening in 1979. CLICK BELOW

References
Material for this essay has been drawn almost exclusively from sources on the internet. The following are the principal sources from which material has been taken.

https://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=22960
Victoria County History, Vol 7: County of Warwick: Communications
https://www.brrp.bham.ac,uk/maps/midlands/html
Birmingham Roman Roads Project.
https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/
Society for All British Road Enthusiasts
https://www.rrtha..org.uk/
Roads & Road Transport History Association
https://www.sapiensman.com/old_cars/
History of the automobile & first steam machines
https://steam-up.co.uk/traction_engine_history/
History of the Traction Engine
https://www.btinternet.com/~roads/signs/history/history1.html
History of British Traffic Signs
https://www.ausbcomp.com/~bbott/cars/carhist.htm
Short History of the Automobile for Young People by William W. Bottorff



Attachments
Fig 12
Fig 13
Map 3
Map 4
Fig 14
 
Thanks Peter, fascinating history. The cartoon of roads filled with smoke-emitting carriages has come true!

The link for the Birmingham Roman Roads Project is now https://www.brrp.bham.ac.uk/index.html
I think the standards of road building they used far exceeds present day standards, bearing in mind their roads were designed for foot soldiers and ours for high speed mechanically propelled vehicles.

There is a detailed timeline for Turnpike roads on https://www.geog.port.ac.uk/webmap/hantsmap/hantsmap/turnpike.htm
of course there are many turnpike toll houses still standing, their design to a standard allowing windows with clear view of the roads to see oncoming travellers.

John Palmer started the first mail coach service from London to Bristol. His service halved the time it usually took to do the journey. Palmer was a great planner, he had his coaches carry a horn to warn toll gate keepers of their arrival so that the gates were already opened when the coaches arrived. The toll was paid at a later date direct from Palmer's company - the toll keepers simply kept a record of the number of times his coaches had gone through a toll gate. His coaches also had to carry repair kits to allow basic repairs to be made rather than wait for someone to come out. Mail coaches also carried passengers.​

​
To assist the growth in coaches, coaching inns grew up along the route where fresh horses were kept and passengers and drivers could refresh themselves. The time taken to do a journey was greatly cut.
In 1750, it could take 6 days to get from London to York. By 1830, it took a day. London to Manchester fell from 5 days to one day in the same time span.


From the British Postal Museum Archive:
​
"In 1787, Charles Bonnor, deputy to John Palmer, Surveyor and Comptroller General of Mails, negotiated a contract with coach designer John Besant for the supply of Besant's patent mail coaches exclusively to the Post Office. The carriages were supplied only to mail coach contractors who were regarded as joint owners with the coach builders and paid a rental based on mileage at 2d per double mile. Coaches were serviced regularly and kept in repair for an additional fee charged to contractors. Contractors supplied their own horses and coachmen and paid part of the oil lighting bill. The Post Office supplied armed guards. Contractors made profits mainly from passenger fares and charges for parcels.

Following the death of John Besant, in December 1791, his partner John Vidler became sole proprietor of the monopoly to supply coaches to the Post Office. Vidler petitioned the Postmasters General in July 1792 to secure his legal and financial position, particularly in view of complaints from mail coach contractors concerning the design and operating costs of the patent coaches. The documents enclosed with his petition included copies of the original agreements between Besant and John Palmer and Besant and mail coach contractors, 1786-1789. Also included was a copy of Vidler's agreement to purchase for £6000 the share in the mail coach concern secretly owned by Bonnor. Vidler's contract was confirmed in 1793 and renewed in 1809 and 1813. The Vidler family held the mail coach contract until 1835 when Finch Vidler refused to agree to new terms set out by the Post Office. Following advertisements for tenders, contracts to supply mail coaches in the Northern District and Midland and Southern District were signed respectively by the firms of Croall & Wallace and Wright & Horne and Walter Williams at the beginning of 1836."

There are dozens of documents in the archive dealing with the Mail coaches, their specification and operation including such gems as "London mail coaches: response to inquest regarding dangerous driving on road to Hounslow", "Birmingham-London mail: Explanation for delay" (1837), and "Certificate of sickness for a horse with sore shoulders".
There is a fascinating history of Mail Coach operation, with vehicle and route specifications laid down by statute not too far removed from today's coach operation legislation. National Express a la 1800s!


​
 
Thanks for that excellent piece of work, Peter.

In Norman Tiptaft's (Feb. 1945) book "I Saw A City" he devotes three of four pages to the question of city traffic and roads, including comment on the embryonic inner ring road plans. Let me know if you would like a copy as you work on the next phase.

Chris
 
Thanks for the very interesting articles about the Transportation system for Birmingham going right back in history to the l300's. Makes very interesting reading indeed especially how the stage coaches timings on specific routes were reduced over the years. It must have been quite devastating for the coaching inns when coaches no longer plied these routes at all.

Lloyd's addition of facts is great to have also along with the links. Good work, thanks to you both.
 
First Traffic Lights, Princes Square, Wolverhampton circa 1927?, the Traffic Light poles are the only ones still painted black & white.
 
Whilst that certainly is the location of the first traffic lights, (that should be 'outside London'), the ones in that picture are very modern. Here is a link to a picture of the original set. https://shireweb.net/wolverhamptonbak/picturesview.php?ID=39

Outside London?
"On 10 December 1868, the first traffic lights were installed outside the British Houses of Parliament in London, by the railway engineer J. P. Knight. They resembled railway signals of the time, with semaphore arms and red and green gas lamps for night use. The gas lantern was turned with a lever at its base so that the appropriate light faced traffic. Unfortunately, it exploded on 2 January 1869, injuring the policeman who was operating it.
....The first automatic experimental traffic lights in England were deployed in Wolverhampton in 1927."

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_light and
https://www.localhistory.scit.wlv.ac.uk/plaques/LichfieldStreet.htm
 
When I left school (down Zummerzet) my first job was a clerk in a factory belonging to the Avon Tyre Co. They used to produce rubber tubes that formed pads in the road that you had to drive over to change the lights back then. A firm called SGB used to order them. Later on, when I went on the buses it was a regular thing for the conductor(ess) to jump up and down on the pads when the bus was stuck at a light that didn't want to change, much to the amusement of onlookers. (I think they were really hoping to see the bus take off and leave em behind!)

Talking of traffic lights does anyone remember the set of really big ornate ones at Taunton Road/Stoney Lane junction?.
 
Good Value!

I've just discovered this excellent thread. Thanks for the wonderful research, Peter! (And to others for their additions). :)
 
I remember traffic lights in Wolverhampton. They were on a single large post in the middle of the junction which also served as a direction signpost forming a mini roundabout not on the corners as we now see them. The lights faced in all four directions
 
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