Roundabout the M11
Super 8mm film Colour Silent 1972 14:17
Summary: Amateur film of roadwork in Woodford.
Title number: 624
LSA ID: LSA/812
Description: This film records the circumlocutory road junction on the London to Southend Road in South Woodford known as Charlie Brown's roundabout. In the year the film was made, the area was significantly altered in order to make link roads for the M11 motorway. Much attention is placed on the large public house called The Roundabout, and its pub sign, a model merry-go-round on a tall pole. There are also views of derelict buildings in the area, and boarded up houses along Maybank Avenue. A crane stands idle with a wrecking ball beside a demolished building, while other machinery goes to work tearing down a row of houses. 'The Roundabout' is filmed part destroyed with roof tiles missing, windows and doors smashed in, and men pulling away rafters. Some shots are taken inside the building, where floors have been removed and the interior exposed to the elements. Ted's Transport Cafe is seen through a window. The signs of new construction are piled up nearby, sections of concrete drainage pipe lie ready for installation beside large cement mixers. A travelling shot through the front windshield of a car takes the film down Chigwell Road and on to the roundabout revealing the flattened area where the pub once stood. On the construction site, scaffolding surrounds new concrete bridge struts being built. The next section of the film shows a temporary stop to the building process, with the River Roding flooding, its waters rising up to the arch of a road bridge over it. A car drives through water on a flooded street, and some police officers inspect the scene, while a man from the Borough of Redbridge's Engineers Department Public Cleansing Section takes a sample of material left behind by floodwaters. At some point later, the construction site is filmed again, with floodwaters receded and road building in full flow. Maybank Avenue appears again, now with its houses all flattened. Later again, the raised flyovers crossing the roundabout are filmed completed. Two local businesses can be seen in the film - Lambs of Woodford, a car dealership and the head office of Martin the Newsagent on Raven Road.
Further information: The name 'Charlie Brown's Roundabout', which survives to this day, originates in the name of 'The Roundabout' public house's landlord Charlie Brown Jnr, who was the son of another famous east end landlord, the original Charlie Brown.
Keywords: Motorways; Public houses; Road construction
Locations: United Kingdom; England; London; Redbridge; South Woodford
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