Roundabouts of Great Britain

By Kevin Beresford

Book Overview

This is the first ever book devoted to the popular hobby of roundabout spotting. A self-confessed traffic-island fanatic, author Kevin Beresford has travelled the length and breadth of the country to... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1843308541
• ISBN13: 9781843308546
• Release Date: January 2004
• Publisher: New Holland Publishers Ltd
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.74 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.8" x 6.4"

Customer Reviews

An American invention developed in Britain

This book had its beginnings in a calendar. A small publishing house in Redditch (near Birmingham and Stratford-on-Avon) had a tradition of producing a calendar each year in small volumes. In 2002, they were so desperate for ideas that they decided (as a joke) to do a roundabouts calendar. With over forty in Redditch, they had plenty to choose from. Although some people laughed at the calendar, the ten they originally printed expanded to a few hundred, so the idea for this book was born. We often hear about things invented in Britain but developed elsewhere, often America, so it is nice to know that occasionally events happen in reverse. The first roundabout was actually installed in New York in 1903 but, despite that, roundabouts have not become widespread in America. France came next but it is in Britain that roundabouts have really proliferated.The first British roundabout was installed in Letchworth, north of London but within commuting distance. They are now so common in the UK that it would be difficult to do any kind of road journey, especially in well-populated areas, that avoiding them. What is clear from this book is that roundabouts are not as boring as they might seem. Most but not all are of a generally circular shape - the book shows roundabouts that look more like triangles and rectangles, albeit with rounded angles. Some are very small - mini-roundabouts just painted on the road. Others are very large with the spaces in the middle used for a variety of purposes including wildlife, landscape, monuments and electricity pylons. One roundabout was built where (it seems) an ordinary junction would have been sufficient for traffic purposes, but there was an old oak tree at the site. The roundabout was apparently built around the tree.It is said that the contributors researched roundabouts the length and breadth of the UK but it is clear that some towns proved to be disproportionately interesting. I was disappointed by the absence of Basingstoke, which is famous for its roundabouts - one of them is mentioned in Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy. I would have thought that one would have got into the book simply for that reason, but it didn't. However, Swindon, Slough, Milton Keynes, Grimsby/Cleethorpes, Telford and (of course) Redditch are all well represented.The star is, of course, the magic roundabout in Swindon (that really is the name by which it is known). It is actually one central roundabout with a series of roundabouts in a circle around it, which has to be seen to be believed - you can look at it and think that the traffic is sometimes going the wrong way. I lived in Swindon when it was built and no photograph (not even the one in this book) can do justice to it.The book also describes a type of person whose existence I was unaware of - the roundabout spotter. These people have get-togethers and exchange ideas. Well, you can always learn something new. But although this book is interesting and I may never look at roundabouts in qu