Used to drive this road often in the early 1990s between Aylesbury and Hemel. Never even knew it used to be a motorway. Every day's a schoolday. Great vids, cheers.
I sometimes used the A41 in the early 1980s and the bit past Tring was certainly a motorway then. I had to divert through Tring because my 50cc Fantic Turismo Internazionale (honest) wasn't allowed on the motorway. The stretch that was a motorway still had emergency telephones last time I looked in December 2020.
Great choice, Jon. The A41(M) used to cut a very odd figure after the string of settlements from Hunton Bridge to Northchurch. Apart from the hard shoulder, another thing that makes this a curiosity near the outer end of the A41 dual carriageway from M25 junction 20 (completed 1993 or 94) is that it must be the longest stretch without a parking layby. The section beyond, completing the dual carriageway down the Chiltern scarp and bypassing Aston Clinton, was opened in 2003. Incidentally, looking that up for the date, I saw that Aston Hill, presumably the former A41 thus bypassed though it's now called Tring Hill, was a speed hill climb favoured by Lionel Martin - and so gave its name to the Aston Martin company.
I grew up in Tring, when the A41M was already a thing. Going for a blast up the bypass was very much a thing back in the 70s and 80s, where speed limits didn’t exist and even the most humdrum family cars could reach mythical velocities. The extension which joined it to the M25 was a godsend.
@@IAMPLEDGE my memory of the M6 from Warrington to Middlewich in the 1970s and 1980s was of mostly clumsy police range rovers that were no match for any motorcycle, Ford Escort or my lovely 131 Panorama, on the rare occasions you encountered one. They couldn't touch you once you switched to the Cheshire lanes and radios were pretty basic back then. 70mph was always a courtesy rather than a speed limit. In fact the M5 from J26 to J30 was a drag strip through the 80s & 90s so long as Cullompton plod were busy dealing with the drunks in town and Exeter plod were distracted. First time I topped 130 was that section. These days you'd be up the rear of a smoking Corsa 5 up with young lads before you got a couple of miles and two lanes of traffic to the left.
@@IAMPLEDGEI find that the ability to read people’s lines as they write them simply doesn’t exist in today’s environment of stunted education. He didn’t say they didn’t exist- he is basically saying that the youth taking a turn up the road ignored them. 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️
@@IAMPLEDGE It’s possible you have missed the slightly tongue in cheek nature of my comment, but thank you for putting me to right; I consider myself suitably chastened and corrected.
The section around Aston Clinton wasn't added until around the year 2003. That took over the large roundabout junction you showed, which now has an over bridge with two small roundabouts, and then carried on west towards Aylesbury, bypassing Aston Clinton.
3:13 I believe that the motorway declassification, the A41 to the south and the A41 to the north were built at separate times. The A41(M) was downgraded to the A41 in 1987, followed by the 12 miles of dual carriageway to the south being built to the south was completed in 1993, linking the ex-A41(M) to the M25. As for the final three and a half miles of dual carriageway to the north, this was completed in 2003-5, the same time as the road was handed over from the Highways Agency to Buckinghamshire County Council and the Hertfordshire County Council.
yup - i worked in tring at the time and the weird sudden end of the dual carriageway was extended to the edge of Aylesbury and all seemed right with the world.
Yes I'm pretty sure you are right that it was declassified some time before the other bits were built. We used to travel this way regularly when I was a child and I recall my dad theorizing that the declassification was probably just some bureaucratic scam, so that it could be reclassified later, allowing politicians to inflate their claims of 'new' miles of motorway.
Thanks Jon, I have driven along this road so many times and never knew it was previously a motorway. You’re right, now I know why there are hards shoulders. That road can be so very dangerous when the sun is low. There are also some dangerously short slip roads along it. It has to be closed so many times because of collisions Another great report. Thank you again 👍
I was driving down here with my mum just this week and got to the part with the hard shoulder and she was FASCINATED to learn that it used to be a motorway. You'd think she'd have remembered it being one, seeing as she's... old enough to remember it being one
Thanks, Jon! Being based at RAF Halton from 1983 to 1986, with my weekend civvy home in North London, I used to love this little stretch of motorway. Hacking down there, to get through the not-magic Hemel roundabout and, eventually, the M1, coming off on the M10 to get on to the start of the M25... Great times, on two Herts motorways that are no longer motorways
Here's another bit of trivia I picked up, having lived in Berkhamsted Berkhamsted had a very large police station, for the size of the town. It was built to be able to cater for the Traffic Units needed for the completed Tring to Watford Motorway
And as soon as it opened, the traffic in Berko seemed to get worse because people wanted to use the bypass (hurray) but needed to go through the town to get to it (boo).
Between Hemel & Berkhampstead(off the A41) there is another former hillclimb track called Westbrook Hay which was(still is) the access driveway to a school.I drove up many years ago & not very exciting.
Only been up that road ONCE in my life… and I noticed the ‘hard shoulder’ and thought… John’s going to tell me this was once a bit of old motorway… and here we are!!
I remember travelling between Salzburg and Munich in Germany in the 2010’s and always looking out to the north where a partially completed motorway coming up from the south Bavarian alps terminated at a rock face. The motorway was in a cutting, so when they ended the motorway, but presumably planned to continue it northbound at a later date, the motorway continued beyond the last junction by around 75m, then just ended at a very very dead end. I always thought it would be cool to go down there, just to take a photo of this 6-lane stretch of tarmac, complete with painted lines and street lights, but that ended so abruptly.
That’s awesome Jon, a bit of local-to-me stuff 😁 I’ve tramped the A41 on and off for donkeys years and always felt like it was hiding something. It’s a great stretch of road anyways, between the M25 and Aylesbury it’s enjoyable in a between A-road and Motorway way… And now we know why!
I remember it as the shortest Motorway in the UK before it became the A41. There was a slip Road off the then A41 (now A4251) going towards Tring before the Cow Lane junction. It was one way and became the North carriageway just before the bridge of the junction. It saved you having to go around the two roundabout and up the current slip road. Come back South you had to use the current junction slip road on to the roundabout. There was no flyover as suggested.
The M41, a spur from the Westway to Holland Park in London bypassing Shepherd's Bush Green, was definitely shorter at 0.75 mile. Coincidentally also downgraded along with the Westway flyover A40 (previously A40(M)) in 2000, and now the north end of A3220.
Hi Jon, there it was, gone. There is two other dual carriageways I know have hard shoulder the A55 from Llandulas through Colwyn Bay to just before A470 for Llandudno, Conwy and Betws-y-Coed. The A494 Queensferry which has Three lanes and a hard shoulder to the Deeside Industrial Estate and the carriageway goes from three to two lanes as it crosses the English Border to N W England. As always a great video, have a good one
@@paulsengupta971 Hi Paul, I forgot about the A470 North of Cardiff, I have been on that part of the A470. When I drive from Wrexham to Cardiff on rugby days, A483/A470
I remember the M41, it used to go from the roundabout at the top of Tring Hill to the other end at the junction near Wiggington. The carriageways ended in a cutting with no road going to the A41 pictures on the OS map. All traffic on and off used the junction near Wiggington. The M41 was a 1.5 mile race track at night. The police were there often nicking young me who were racing on it. We knew it was a dodgy road after dark on Friday and Saturday nights. Teh same toung men would race in the "Mad Mile" the A41 between Aylesbury and Aston Clinton. This road has a bend on it and many of them died there when using the whole road for racing each other.
The M41 was a short piece of motorway between what was the A40(M) Westway and the Shepherd's Bush roundabout. It is now part of the A3220. Westway is no longer a motorway either.
An oddity I recall about the southern junction at Tring, is that the long-time unused and coned-off northbound 'off slip to nowhere', being quite flat and secluded, frequently attracted travelers to use it as a campsite. Presumably fed up with constant evictions and clearing piles of rubbish, the DfT eventually just opened it, signposted to Wigington, a local hamlet far too small to have it's own motorway junction. Ultimately, once the rest of the A41 was built, it became the Northchurch/Tring turning.
I have a feeling that you have mentioned it in the past, but it would have been a nice touch to do so in this here offering. If for no other reason than the numerical and geographical closeness. I'm of course talking about the short lived M41 just a few miles south east of its little brother, running for a whole mile from the elevated A40 Westway down to the Shepherds Bush roundabout. John Prescott demoted it overnight without warning and the unsuspecting commuters instantly racked up loads of speeding fines too.
Way back in the day on my Honda NSR125 I was on my way from Croydon to the IOM. Following my trusty map I hit this closed Stretch and L plates blazing continued Northwards. It was a lovely 2 miles with no other vehicles.
The A41 former A41M story is compelling, well worth the pixels and I have used it in anger when every road north from the M25 was jammed solid, taking off through Tring along charming countryside and wooded hills back to Milton Keynes. Your usual expert knowledge and charm works well mid week and thanks as ever. However I am still waiting for a expose on the former M10 now identifying as the tail end of the A414, connecting to the M1. Do you take requests gratis or is there a fee? I am a loyal and humble subscriber. Cheers
Also a superb piece of road to stretch out a car legs very early on weekend mornings on a near 3 mile straight downhill north section with no bridges,lay-by’s or junctions; my Morris Minor once reached 66mph on one such sunny morning.
With the current "improvements" on the m1 between Luton and Milton Keynes, the a41 has become a viable route when traveling from Watford to Northampton. You just have to navigate some back roads to Leighton Buzzard, but it still beats the m1 at the moment, as the a41 dual carriageway ends by plowing right through Aylesbury (which is actually having a new ring road built right now)
Nice. Despite it being a long old A-road that goes all the way from Aston Clinton to the M25, we just used to refer to it (and often still do) as the Hemel Bypass.
I'd driven down this stretch of road hundreds of times driving for Ocado and a few times thought, 'why has this road got a hard shoulder?' So funny to find out something I really hadn't bothered to find out before, or care😄This channel is brilliant!
There’s also part of the A414 which used to be known as the M10 for you to cover if you haven’t already done so. It’s the section that’s closest to the M1 and was extremely short even when it was a motorway
I have been asking Uncl John to do a "Short " on that stretch for a while now. As an old hitch hiker I have walked that stretch of road when it was the M10 many times in the 80's. On the right day or night it was a pleasant stroll. Cheers
@@willtricks9432 as an old school hitcher myself, also in the 80s, i think Jon should do a sort of Hitch Hikers Special, on hell holes that you could NEVER get a lift away from, Anderton Services on the M 61, comes to my mind, Gordano Services on the M5, was "another one" Scratchwood on the M1, "NNNNNNO DDDDDONT drop me off there" LOL.
Yes please do the old M10, now A414, the feeder road for the original M1. St Albans Museum owns a photograph of the two men who were employed to sweep it at the Park Street Roundabout.
Hi. As a local who used the A41M a lot back in the day, I hope I can provide some clarity on the way the eastern end of it worked. Heading towards Tring on what is now the A4251, as you approached a sweeping left hander, a filter lane would appear on the left of the carriageway. This lane was only accessible for traffic heading west towards Tring. If you look at google Maps you can see that the tree line appears to be suspiciously distant from the current road. This is because that extra lane has been removed. The slip road would continue to the left as the A4251 straigtened out and would pass through a gap in the embankment just before Pendley Beeches. The line of this slip can be seen in aerial maps by the tree line. The single westbound link would then join the end of the motorway and the Eastbound side of the motorway would suddenly appear as it existed at this point but it was just concrete. Strangely the Arnco central reservation barriers also existed at this point. Westbound traffic continued across the overbridge of the Wiggington junction and the exit slip for Westbound traffic also existed so you could hop back off the A41M at this point to go to Wiggington. You could also join the A41M from Wigginton junction too and the Motorway was your usual jointed concrete fayre right down to the Crowsnest Roundabout. Heading East was more interesting as all Eastbound traffic exited at the Wiggington junction. I recall there being a barrier of those round black and yellow jointed concrete blocks with accomanying chevron signage, directing all traffic off the motorway and down the slip road. The overbridge was there and the surface was just bare concrete and the Eastbound carriageway ended abruptly with spoil heaps from construction. The entry slip for Eastbound traffic was constructed at the Wiggington junction but it was never surfaced and so you just saw a well engineered grass bank slope heading up to where the carriageway would have been. It all looked like it was temporary solution that just got forgotten for about 20 years which in truth it was.
I used to drive along the A41(M) in the 1980s. My recollection is that your diagram at 2:19 is correct. Going West along the old single carriageway A41 (now A4251), you peeled off to the left on to a link road /slip road which took you directly to the westbound carriageway of the A41(M) just before the flyover on the junction. If you were so inclined, you could have continued on the old A41 to the first roundabout of the junction, go under the flyover to the second roundabout and join the A41(M) in the conventional manner via the Westbound on-slip. Going East along the A41(M), you simply left via the west bound off slip. The whole junction was there then - the only thing that’s changed is the addition of the A41 dual carriageway and the complete obliteration of the cheeky link road. On a recent visit, I couldn’t see any trace of where it used to branch off from the old A41 (A4251)
I remember as a boy being driven along this section of road. The southern end was definitely a single direction temporary on slip, across the unused section of dual-carriageway. The dual-carriageway ended abruptly at the foot of a grassy hill! - roughly where now is the cutting and arched bridge. It's also interesting(?) in how the former hard-shoulder is becoming more overgrown now. Does that imply that on current motorways there is regular ongoing maintenance of the hard-shoulder to remove weed growth etc? Perhaps a secret to look into??
When you head north on the A41 from m25 there's a layby. If you park and climb up the embankment some 50 yards you will find the remains of Kings Langley ROC post.
Similar with the A806 in Scotland - A 1 mile section of it used to be part of the M80 before the M80 was completed however in that case, it being downgraded to a A-road didn't remove the motorway from existence as the M80 of course still exists
I love this series. Always wondered why the Tring by pass was stuck on its own. Thanks for clearing this up. Any chance of doing the old M10 in a later episode.
The Aston Clinton Bypass wasn't added until much later, early 2000's after a lot of local campaigning for it. Before that the dual carriageway finished at a roundabout that was shown at the west side of Tring and traffic that carried on through Aston Clinton was awful, I remember the week the bypass opened and how much the the traffic dropped off and A.C. became a quiet village. I'm sure I have the letter still from MP John Bercow when we all wrote in to get the last section built.
Another great video! Secrets of The Hidden Motorway A14(M)!! I would love to see what you've got to say about this because it's a hidden motorway on certain maps where the A1307 lies as well as in theory the 'new' A14 linking the M11 to the A1 was built all under motorway regulations but no motorway signs.
Have vague childhood memories of the weird starting slip for the A41M, as well as later memories of using that stretch to achieve legally inadvisable velocities in a 1.1 Fiesta Popular Plus.
The on-ramps at Bourne End and Berkhamsted are the worst that I have ever seen - there is no acceleration lane and, basically, both these ramps are unacceptably dangerous. Additionally, road users drive at speeds beyond the legal limit - there is not one camera to (at least) keep an eye on things.
I grew up there, lived in tring and went to school in Berkhamsted, used those junctions thousands of times and agree they're not great. I moved to Devon near the A30 and in comparison the ramps on the A41 seem fine now! We have literal T junctions and crossings for farm traffic on the A30, it gets properly dangerous in summer when you combine tourists, caravans and tractors on an 80mph dual carriageway.
It's like they were designed specifically to hide the traffic already on the bypass from the on-ramp until you were going too fast to do anything if there was traffic in the left lane
From memory, there was never a two or single lane connection to the A41 at the eastern end. The bridges remained out of use for 25 years and any traffic westbound went past the end of a stub embankment on the south side up to a roundabout that led under the out of use bridges and entered the motorway section up a one lane slip from the Wigginton roundabout. Eastbound traffic came down the slip before the bridges and joined the roundabout on the north side. The original alignment plan to the motorway toward the railway and canal where it was intended to go the other side of the River Gade valley and Berkhamstead rejoining the current alignment near Bourne End. If you look to the east of the original motorway junction you might see (if using Google Earth aged views) the is a lush green bank with dots on it next to a large farm house. That was the original carriageway the was abandoned as the bypass was extended, curving sharply right as you come off the original bridge eastbound (the realignment also lost the hard shoulder on the east bound bridge to ease the curve a bit). The lust green area had the road bed removed and was turfed, the dots being newly planted saplings.
The Tring motorway "bypass" always used to remind me of the very similar, and only slightly longer (8 km) Naas motorway "bypass" in Ireland (near Dublin). That was the very first genuine section of motorway constructed in Ireland (in 1983), and the only difference to Tring really was that it was then successfully added to the later M7 motorway as planned (albeit on one end only)... and therefore kept its original designation after being linked into newer dual carriageways either side.
You had to exit on the junction slip road 02:24 when heading to berkhamsted. In th eother direction, i think if i remember correctly you entered over the bridge.
Hard shoulders on fast A road dual carriageways are very good ideas. The A23 desperately needs either hard shoulders or more refuge areas and warning signs as most motorists only look as far as their bonnet or the bumper of the car in their way.
Not to be confused with the M41, which was also downgraded to an A-road along with the A40(M) Westway in London, of which it was a sort of southern spur to the A40 at Shepherd's Bush.
The A41 extension towards Aylesbury was not started tell the 2000 that is when they rebuilt the roundabout at the end also interesting part the bit they built in the 80 was not to plan the part from Bourne End to Tring had to have the slip road alter to save money one contractor went bust doing the A41 from the M25 to Hemel hence Hemel Junction has a proper slip road
Have the orange emergency phones been removed? I'm sure they were still there - although probably out of service - the last time I drove on this section of road but that was way back in 2011.
Potentially the finest, provided it's swept often. Have you used it? I think when I brought my bike by that route from Harrow to Oxford I probably went through Tring town. That was 1987 - year of the downgrade, but I can't remember whether it had happened yet.
@@ChrisBrown-px1oy it's not too far from me, but I haven't used it. Mostly when I've been through Tring, it's been on the train. I would have liked a wide shoulder like that the time I cycled up the A1 from Newcastle.
If you enjoy driving, the Tring roundabout between the old and new section of A41 is worth a visit. Lots of positive and negative camber to enjoy loop to loop.
i live near to that said road and nearlly every day you can hear the police cars siren catching the speeders driving down the road at fast speeds. The road has been closed several times due to very bad accidents.
![Would You Fall for It? [ST08]](/img/n.gif)
If it weren't for the cars, I would think this road was just entirely abandoned in the 70s. That road surface looks terrible.
It is terrible!
If it wern't for cars I think all motorways would have been abandoned or not built in the first place...
Terrible like most of the roads around here.
That is how I know I am on the A41
Clearly you have not seen roads in most of the rest of the world....
WHAT ANOTHER SECRETS OF THE MOTORWAY?????!!!!!🎉
seems more secretive than previous secrets of motorway to me but i shan't object it is still funny.
secrets of the secret motorway ...that isnt really a motorway...anymore.
imagine that
@@roderickmain9697 or secret!
@@roderickmain9697 A motorway that is Identifying as an A road. What a modern world we inhabit.
Used to drive this road often in the early 1990s between Aylesbury and Hemel. Never even knew it used to be a motorway.
Every day's a schoolday.
Great vids, cheers.
I sometimes used the A41 in the early 1980s and the bit past Tring was certainly a motorway then. I had to divert through Tring because my 50cc Fantic Turismo Internazionale (honest) wasn't allowed on the motorway. The stretch that was a motorway still had emergency telephones last time I looked in December 2020.
It’s so exciting when JON covers your local road.
Yah, the motorway downgrade means the old hard shoulder has now become a "pull over and piss" lane!
Ah! An Amonia Aroma.
🤣🤣🤣
Bet you cruise along and take photos of willys in the breeze!
@@xr6lad I was thinking more along the lines of those who stoop for a pee, now why would you think of anything else🤔
I was going to leave a comment “you can piss at the side of A roads but not motorways”
You beat me to it 😂
Great choice, Jon. The A41(M) used to cut a very odd figure after the string of settlements from Hunton Bridge to Northchurch. Apart from the hard shoulder, another thing that makes this a curiosity near the outer end of the A41 dual carriageway from M25 junction 20 (completed 1993 or 94) is that it must be the longest stretch without a parking layby.
The section beyond, completing the dual carriageway down the Chiltern scarp and bypassing Aston Clinton, was opened in 2003.
Incidentally, looking that up for the date, I saw that Aston Hill, presumably the former A41 thus bypassed though it's now called Tring Hill, was a speed hill climb favoured by Lionel Martin - and so gave its name to the Aston Martin company.
Aston Hill isn't the old A41. Aston Hill is slightly West of it by Wendover woods. It is still called Aston hill
@@mrbadger9920 I stand corrected, thank you!
The stretch of A41M around Tring was great for checking my motorbike after I'd done some maintenance.
I grew up in Tring, when the A41M was already a thing. Going for a blast up the bypass was very much a thing back in the 70s and 80s, where speed limits didn’t exist and even the most humdrum family cars could reach mythical velocities. The extension which joined it to the M25 was a godsend.
The maximum 70mph speed limit for dual carriageways and motorways has been in place since 1967. Your memory is playing tricks with you.
@@IAMPLEDGE my memory of the M6 from Warrington to Middlewich in the 1970s and 1980s was of mostly clumsy police range rovers that were no match for any motorcycle, Ford Escort or my lovely 131 Panorama, on the rare occasions you encountered one. They couldn't touch you once you switched to the Cheshire lanes and radios were pretty basic back then.
70mph was always a courtesy rather than a speed limit.
In fact the M5 from J26 to J30 was a drag strip through the 80s & 90s so long as Cullompton plod were busy dealing with the drunks in town and Exeter plod were distracted.
First time I topped 130 was that section. These days you'd be up the rear of a smoking Corsa 5 up with young lads before you got a couple of miles and two lanes of traffic to the left.
As was the later bit that joined to (nearly) Aylesbury.
@@IAMPLEDGEI find that the ability to read people’s lines as they write them simply doesn’t exist in today’s environment of stunted education. He didn’t say they didn’t exist- he is basically saying that the youth taking a turn up the road ignored them. 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️
@@IAMPLEDGE It’s possible you have missed the slightly tongue in cheek nature of my comment, but thank you for putting me to right; I consider myself suitably chastened and corrected.
Tring. The home of the bicycle bell. 🚲
Tring, Tring! 🔔 🚲
I thought that was Bell End near Stourbridge.
The section around Aston Clinton wasn't added until around the year 2003. That took over the large roundabout junction you showed, which now has an over bridge with two small roundabouts, and then carried on west towards Aylesbury, bypassing Aston Clinton.
I remember watching this bit get built as a kid. The cutting through the stone looked fresh for years after
3:13 I believe that the motorway declassification, the A41 to the south and the A41 to the north were built at separate times. The A41(M) was downgraded to the A41 in 1987, followed by the 12 miles of dual carriageway to the south being built to the south was completed in 1993, linking the ex-A41(M) to the M25. As for the final three and a half miles of dual carriageway to the north, this was completed in 2003-5, the same time as the road was handed over from the Highways Agency to Buckinghamshire County Council and the Hertfordshire County Council.
yup - i worked in tring at the time and the weird sudden end of the dual carriageway was extended to the edge of Aylesbury and all seemed right with the world.
Yes I'm pretty sure you are right that it was declassified some time before the other bits were built. We used to travel this way regularly when I was a child and I recall my dad theorizing that the declassification was probably just some bureaucratic scam, so that it could be reclassified later, allowing politicians to inflate their claims of 'new' miles of motorway.
As a local, your completely correct. I remember cycling along the stretch from tring to berko before it opened!
Thanks Jon, I have driven along this road so many times and never knew it was previously a motorway. You’re right, now I know why there are hards shoulders. That road can be so very dangerous when the sun is low. There are also some dangerously short slip roads along it. It has to be closed so many times because of collisions
Another great report. Thank you again 👍
You're right, it is wild when you're driving into the sun there 😎
I was driving down here with my mum just this week and got to the part with the hard shoulder and she was FASCINATED to learn that it used to be a motorway. You'd think she'd have remembered it being one, seeing as she's... old enough to remember it being one
Ahhh that explains it, I drive this road often and had no idea
Same. I wondered why it seemed massively overbuilt.
Hugely excited to drive on this road a few days ago to bypass Tring. Just look at those hard shoulders.
I enjoyed another exciting episode of secrets of the motorway so I've pressed the button specifically for that.
Thanks, Jon!
Being based at RAF Halton from 1983 to 1986, with my weekend civvy home in North London, I used to love this little stretch of motorway.
Hacking down there, to get through the not-magic Hemel roundabout and, eventually, the M1, coming off on the M10 to get on to the start of the M25... Great times, on two Herts motorways that are no longer motorways
I dove this road lots when I was working and never knew this A 41M existed. Thank you John for another informative and enjoyable video
This explains a lot, I have driven to work up and down this road for years and wondered what the story was. Thank you.
Thanks for telling us the story of the A41(M) .... and the outro shows what a lovely tree-lined drive it is! 🌲🌳🌲🌳🌲🌳🎄
Again, I’ve driven this road many times with knowing these facts. So, what’s nice. Thanks John. All the best Bob
Thanks
I have been waiting years for you to mention my home town of Aylesbury.... WOOP WOOP THANKS!
Here's another bit of trivia I picked up, having lived in Berkhamsted
Berkhamsted had a very large police station, for the size of the town. It was built to be able to cater for the Traffic Units needed for the completed Tring to Watford Motorway
Having grown up in Hemel, Berkhamstead police station is big to imprison all the miscreants in Hemel.
The police station was converted years ago. It's now a library and luxury apartments. Tring police station was converted long before that too.
@dirtydimes80 yes that is true now
I remember using the old A41M. Thank you for filling in all the details about it.
I remember them adding the Aston Clinton bypass in the early 2000's. So much nicer than grinding through there every day.
And as soon as it opened, the traffic in Berko seemed to get worse because people wanted to use the bypass (hurray) but needed to go through the town to get to it (boo).
Between Hemel & Berkhampstead(off the A41) there is another former hillclimb track called Westbrook Hay which was(still is) the access driveway to a school.I drove up many years ago & not very exciting.
“Cunk on Motorways” came to mind for some reason.
I can totally imagine that!
Secrets of the secrets? I’m up for that!
Thanks a lot mate, appreciate it!
Such an important road yet the road surface is truly shocking
I use it alot going from Aylesbury to brands hatch. Great bit of road 👌
Cripes! I was on this very road yesterday, as this was published. Cheers as always, Jon.
Very unlikely, as it was closed for Jon's film crews.
Only been up that road ONCE in my life… and I noticed the ‘hard shoulder’ and thought… John’s going to tell me this was once a bit of old motorway… and here we are!!
I remember travelling between Salzburg and Munich in Germany in the 2010’s and always looking out to the north where a partially completed motorway coming up from the south Bavarian alps terminated at a rock face. The motorway was in a cutting, so when they ended the motorway, but presumably planned to continue it northbound at a later date, the motorway continued beyond the last junction by around 75m, then just ended at a very very dead end. I always thought it would be cool to go down there, just to take a photo of this 6-lane stretch of tarmac, complete with painted lines and street lights, but that ended so abruptly.
I used to live near this road (just the other side of the railway line in Apsley) and didn't realise it used to be motorway but it does make sense.
That’s awesome Jon, a bit of local-to-me stuff 😁 I’ve tramped the A41 on and off for donkeys years and always felt like it was hiding something. It’s a great stretch of road anyways, between the M25 and Aylesbury it’s enjoyable in a between A-road and Motorway way… And now we know why!
Just when you thought Jon had covered all the Motorways, he only goes and finds another one! Well done.
Excellent, many thanks. I've been using this road since the 1980's and frequently drive into the motoring hell hole of Aylesbury.
Took my driving test there 20 years ago. Fun times. Not.
I remember it as the shortest Motorway in the UK before it became the A41. There was a slip Road off the then A41 (now A4251) going towards Tring before the Cow Lane junction. It was one way and became the North carriageway just before the bridge of the junction. It saved you having to go around the two roundabout and up the current slip road. Come back South you had to use the current junction slip road on to the roundabout. There was no flyover as suggested.
How does it compare in length with the former M10? the M1 spur to the A414 that was also quite short.
@@willtricks9432 The old M10 was longer, probably around 6 miles compared to the M41 of around 2 miles
@@jonrollit623 I walk that many times but it seemed short, mind you I was about 17.
The M41, a spur from the Westway to Holland Park in London bypassing Shepherd's Bush Green, was definitely shorter at 0.75 mile. Coincidentally also downgraded along with the Westway flyover A40 (previously A40(M)) in 2000, and now the north end of A3220.
Hi Jon, there it was, gone. There is two other dual carriageways I know have hard shoulder the A55 from Llandulas through Colwyn Bay to just before A470 for Llandudno, Conwy and Betws-y-Coed. The A494 Queensferry which has Three lanes and a hard shoulder to the Deeside Industrial Estate and the carriageway goes from three to two lanes as it crosses the English Border to N W England. As always a great video, have a good one
The A470 itself from Abercynon to Cardiff has a hard shoulder. The A3 from the M25 to the outskirts of London has a hard shoulder.
@@paulsengupta971 Hi Paul, I forgot about the A470 North of Cardiff, I have been on that part of the A470. When I drive from Wrexham to Cardiff on rugby days, A483/A470
The A41M had bothered me for ages - so grateful you cleared it up PROPERLY Jon 👍
I remember the M41, it used to go from the roundabout at the top of Tring Hill to the other end at the junction near Wiggington. The carriageways ended in a cutting with no road going to the A41 pictures on the OS map. All traffic on and off used the junction near Wiggington. The M41 was a 1.5 mile race track at night. The police were there often nicking young me who were racing on it. We knew it was a dodgy road after dark on Friday and Saturday nights. Teh same toung men would race in the "Mad Mile" the A41 between Aylesbury and Aston Clinton. This road has a bend on it and many of them died there when using the whole road for racing each other.
The M41 was a short piece of motorway between what was the A40(M) Westway and the Shepherd's Bush roundabout. It is now part of the A3220. Westway is no longer a motorway either.
An oddity I recall about the southern junction at Tring, is that the long-time unused and coned-off northbound 'off slip to nowhere', being quite flat and secluded, frequently attracted travelers to use it as a campsite. Presumably fed up with constant evictions and clearing piles of rubbish, the DfT eventually just opened it, signposted to Wigington, a local hamlet far too small to have it's own motorway junction. Ultimately, once the rest of the A41 was built, it became the Northchurch/Tring turning.
I have a feeling that you have mentioned it in the past, but it would have been a nice touch to do so in this here offering.
If for no other reason than the numerical and geographical closeness.
I'm of course talking about the short lived M41 just a few miles south east of its little brother, running for a whole mile from the elevated A40 Westway down to the Shepherds Bush roundabout.
John Prescott demoted it overnight without warning and the unsuspecting commuters instantly racked up loads of speeding fines too.
Way back in the day on my Honda NSR125 I was on my way from Croydon to the IOM. Following my trusty map I hit this closed Stretch and L plates blazing continued Northwards. It was a lovely 2 miles with no other vehicles.
The A41 former A41M story is compelling, well worth the pixels and I have used it in anger when every road north from the M25 was jammed solid, taking off through Tring along charming countryside and wooded hills back to Milton Keynes.
Your usual expert knowledge and charm works well mid week and thanks as ever.
However I am still waiting for a expose on the former M10 now identifying as the tail end of the A414, connecting to the M1.
Do you take requests gratis or is there a fee? I am a loyal and humble subscriber. Cheers
Wow! I was driven twice on the A41, I never knew of it. Thank you for sharing.
Also a superb piece of road to stretch out a car legs very early on weekend mornings on a near 3 mile straight downhill north section with no bridges,lay-by’s or junctions; my Morris Minor once reached 66mph on one such sunny morning.
With the current "improvements" on the m1 between Luton and Milton Keynes, the a41 has become a viable route when traveling from Watford to Northampton. You just have to navigate some back roads to Leighton Buzzard, but it still beats the m1 at the moment, as the a41 dual carriageway ends by plowing right through Aylesbury (which is actually having a new ring road built right now)
Nice. Despite it being a long old A-road that goes all the way from Aston Clinton to the M25, we just used to refer to it (and often still do) as the Hemel Bypass.
I'd driven down this stretch of road hundreds of times driving for Ocado and a few times thought, 'why has this road got a hard shoulder?' So funny to find out something I really hadn't bothered to find out before, or care😄This channel is brilliant!
There’s also part of the A414 which used to be known as the M10 for you to cover if you haven’t already done so. It’s the section that’s closest to the M1 and was extremely short even when it was a motorway
I have been asking Uncl John to do a "Short " on that stretch for a while now. As an old hitch hiker I have walked that stretch of road when it was the M10 many times in the 80's. On the right day or night it was a pleasant stroll.
Cheers
@@willtricks9432 as an old school hitcher myself, also in the 80s,
i think Jon should do a sort of Hitch Hikers Special,
on hell holes that you could NEVER get a lift away from,
Anderton Services on the M 61, comes to my mind,
Gordano Services on the M5, was "another one"
Scratchwood on the M1, "NNNNNNO DDDDDONT drop me off there" LOL.
@@organickevinlondon That Would be great.
I have many tales good and bad. People and places.
Is John an old hitcher?
Yes please do the old M10, now A414, the feeder road for the original M1. St Albans Museum owns a photograph of the two men who were employed to sweep it at the Park Street Roundabout.
@@princeofgonville Spent so many hours on that Roundabout.
Hi. As a local who used the A41M a lot back in the day, I hope I can provide some clarity on the way the eastern end of it worked. Heading towards Tring on what is now the A4251, as you approached a sweeping left hander, a filter lane would appear on the left of the carriageway. This lane was only accessible for traffic heading west towards Tring. If you look at google Maps you can see that the tree line appears to be suspiciously distant from the current road. This is because that extra lane has been removed. The slip road would continue to the left as the A4251 straigtened out and would pass through a gap in the embankment just before Pendley Beeches. The line of this slip can be seen in aerial maps by the tree line.
The single westbound link would then join the end of the motorway and the Eastbound side of the motorway would suddenly appear as it existed at this point but it was just concrete. Strangely the Arnco central reservation barriers also existed at this point. Westbound traffic continued across the overbridge of the Wiggington junction and the exit slip for Westbound traffic also existed so you could hop back off the A41M at this point to go to Wiggington. You could also join the A41M from Wigginton junction too and the Motorway was your usual jointed concrete fayre right down to the Crowsnest Roundabout.
Heading East was more interesting as all Eastbound traffic exited at the Wiggington junction. I recall there being a barrier of those round black and yellow jointed concrete blocks with accomanying chevron signage, directing all traffic off the motorway and down the slip road. The overbridge was there and the surface was just bare concrete and the Eastbound carriageway ended abruptly with spoil heaps from construction. The entry slip for Eastbound traffic was constructed at the Wiggington junction but it was never surfaced and so you just saw a well engineered grass bank slope heading up to where the carriageway would have been. It all looked like it was temporary solution that just got forgotten for about 20 years which in truth it was.
Another fantastic and informative video Jon.
I used to drive along the A41(M) in the 1980s. My recollection is that your diagram at 2:19 is correct.
Going West along the old single carriageway A41 (now A4251), you peeled off to the left on to a link road /slip road which took you directly to the westbound carriageway of the A41(M) just before the flyover on the junction. If you were so inclined, you could have continued on the old A41 to the first roundabout of the junction, go under the flyover to the second roundabout and join the A41(M) in the conventional manner via the Westbound on-slip.
Going East along the A41(M), you simply left via the west bound off slip.
The whole junction was there then - the only thing that’s changed is the addition of the A41 dual carriageway and the complete obliteration of the cheeky link road. On a recent visit, I couldn’t see any trace of where it used to branch off from the old A41 (A4251)
I remember as a boy being driven along this section of road. The southern end was definitely a single direction temporary on slip, across the unused section of dual-carriageway. The dual-carriageway ended abruptly at the foot of a grassy hill! - roughly where now is the cutting and arched bridge.
It's also interesting(?) in how the former hard-shoulder is becoming more overgrown now. Does that imply that on current motorways there is regular ongoing maintenance of the hard-shoulder to remove weed growth etc? Perhaps a secret to look into??
When you head north on the A41 from m25 there's a layby. If you park and climb up the embankment some 50 yards you will find the remains of Kings Langley ROC post.
Intellectual as always, thanks Jon
Similar with the A806 in Scotland - A 1 mile section of it used to be part of the M80 before the M80 was completed however in that case, it being downgraded to a A-road didn't remove the motorway from existence as the M80 of course still exists
Hey MNIJ, thanks as usual. That's my midweek fix of motorway creamy goodness sorted 😀
I love this series. Always wondered why the Tring by pass was stuck on its own. Thanks for clearing this up. Any chance of doing the old M10 in a later episode.
Just when we thought there were no more secrets!
Short and sweet road and video
Blimey, I was driving that just a few weeks ago, thinking it was an odd stretch of road. I was also stood on that bridge ... spooky.
I’ve driven up and down this part of the A41 and always noticed the hard shoulder part but never knew why, now I do
The Aston Clinton Bypass wasn't added until much later, early 2000's after a lot of local campaigning for it. Before that the dual carriageway finished at a roundabout that was shown at the west side of Tring and traffic that carried on through Aston Clinton was awful, I remember the week the bypass opened and how much the the traffic dropped off and A.C. became a quiet village. I'm sure I have the letter still from MP John Bercow when we all wrote in to get the last section built.
If you watch some of the "On the Buses" films and Carry on films, they often used the A41 as a "stock" duel carriageway or motorway.
I always thought it was going to be part of the M41 once they connected the bit in central London through to connect.
I used to live in Tring……nice town…thank god they got the bypass. The best thing about it is the bridges going over the road to the parks & woodlands
I love your droll style of delivery. 😊
Another great video! Secrets of The Hidden Motorway A14(M)!! I would love to see what you've got to say about this because it's a hidden motorway on certain maps where the A1307 lies as well as in theory the 'new' A14 linking the M11 to the A1 was built all under motorway regulations but no motorway signs.
I travel down this road everyday and now it makes a lot more sense that sections of it are the way they are!
Have vague childhood memories of the weird starting slip for the A41M, as well as later memories of using that stretch to achieve legally inadvisable velocities in a 1.1 Fiesta Popular Plus.
Awww...I was looking forward to hearing the old music. But nice video, sir, as always!
The on-ramps at Bourne End and Berkhamsted are the worst that I have ever seen - there is no acceleration lane and, basically, both these ramps are unacceptably dangerous. Additionally, road users drive at speeds beyond the legal limit - there is not one camera to (at least) keep an eye on things.
I grew up there, lived in tring and went to school in Berkhamsted, used those junctions thousands of times and agree they're not great. I moved to Devon near the A30 and in comparison the ramps on the A41 seem fine now! We have literal T junctions and crossings for farm traffic on the A30, it gets properly dangerous in summer when you combine tourists, caravans and tractors on an 80mph dual carriageway.
You've never seen the junctions on the M50, then? Similarly lethal.
It's like they were designed specifically to hide the traffic already on the bypass from the on-ramp until you were going too fast to do anything if there was traffic in the left lane
They are too short
@@oliverstemp9132Are you saying they were built on the cheap? Surely not in the UK! 😂
From memory, there was never a two or single lane connection to the A41 at the eastern end. The bridges remained out of use for 25 years and any traffic westbound went past the end of a stub embankment on the south side up to a roundabout that led under the out of use bridges and entered the motorway section up a one lane slip from the Wigginton roundabout. Eastbound traffic came down the slip before the bridges and joined the roundabout on the north side.
The original alignment plan to the motorway toward the railway and canal where it was intended to go the other side of the River Gade valley and Berkhamstead rejoining the current alignment near Bourne End.
If you look to the east of the original motorway junction you might see (if using Google Earth aged views) the is a lush green bank with dots on it next to a large farm house. That was the original carriageway the was abandoned as the bypass was extended, curving sharply right as you come off the original bridge eastbound (the realignment also lost the hard shoulder on the east bound bridge to ease the curve a bit). The lust green area had the road bed removed and was turfed, the dots being newly planted saplings.
The Tring motorway "bypass" always used to remind me of the very similar, and only slightly longer (8 km) Naas motorway "bypass" in Ireland (near Dublin). That was the very first genuine section of motorway constructed in Ireland (in 1983), and the only difference to Tring really was that it was then successfully added to the later M7 motorway as planned (albeit on one end only)... and therefore kept its original designation after being linked into newer dual carriageways either side.
Ooh, I'm going to be in Tring in July, I'll keep an eye out for that
Quick simple and susinsict!
Amazingly I drove on this road on Tuesday. How exciting.
awesome video, wonder how many people will drive on the A41 to see that hard shoulder now
At the A41 Tring Road, A4157 Oakfield Road, there's a odd shade of a motorway sign for the A41 for the a41m
You had to exit on the junction slip road 02:24 when heading to berkhamsted. In th eother direction, i think if i remember correctly you entered over the bridge.
Interesting as always. Keep at it!
I have driven on this a few times, I always think the bridge design was nicked from the M62.
Cheers Jon 👍🏼
I believe this was where Noel Edmonds was caught *very* speeding in his original GT40.
"Tring Bypass".
This would be late 1970s, perhaps.
Please do one of these on the secret motorway part of the A55. I've been waiting for someone to do that one
Brilliant as always thank you
Hard shoulders on fast A road dual carriageways are very good ideas. The A23 desperately needs either hard shoulders or more refuge areas and warning signs as most motorists only look as far as their bonnet or the bumper of the car in their way.
Not to be confused with the M41, which was also downgraded to an A-road along with the A40(M) Westway in London, of which it was a sort of southern spur to the A40 at Shepherd's Bush.
The A41 extension towards Aylesbury was not started tell the 2000 that is when they rebuilt the roundabout at the end also interesting part the bit they built in the 80 was not to plan the part from Bourne End to Tring had to have the slip road alter to save money one contractor went bust doing the A41 from the M25 to Hemel hence Hemel Junction has a proper slip road
Have the orange emergency phones been removed? I'm sure they were still there - although probably out of service - the last time I drove on this section of road but that was way back in 2011.
Love these vids, lots to learn about :)
Always with the great content here
do more of these secrets of a hidden motorway, make this a series
3:48 that's not a hard shoulder anymore, it's the finest cycle lane in the country!
There is another from M1 J7 to south St Albans... Another former motorway.
Potentially the finest, provided it's swept often. Have you used it? I think when I brought my bike by that route from Harrow to Oxford I probably went through Tring town. That was 1987 - year of the downgrade, but I can't remember whether it had happened yet.
@@TheRip72 The M10! Are there connections to cycle tracks or the A-road network at the west end?
@@ChrisBrown-px1oy it's not too far from me, but I haven't used it. Mostly when I've been through Tring, it's been on the train.
I would have liked a wide shoulder like that the time I cycled up the A1 from Newcastle.
@@shm5547 Looking on Streetview, it could do with weeding too!
John popping back to tidy up loose ends. More wonderful trivia! Don’t governments have short attention spans?
If you enjoy driving, the Tring roundabout between the old and new section of A41 is worth a visit. Lots of positive and negative camber to enjoy loop to loop.
i live near to that said road and nearlly every day you can hear the police cars siren catching the speeders driving down the road at fast speeds. The road has been closed several times due to very bad accidents.
Driving via Tring this weekend, queue me veering off the road as I seek out M road features