Roads that don't go anywhere.

Tarkus · Post by **Tarkus** » Fri 19 Jun, 2009 10:21 pm

This dead end is Gelderd Road (A62) near its former junction with Spence Lane, Holbeck. The old alignment was straight ahead, through the railway bridge arch and eventually on to a junction with Wellington Road under another railway bridge near the round and half-round houses. Nowadays, the Ingram Distributor and Armley Gyratory have all but obliterated this once major route.Stationary traffic on the Ingram Distributor can just be glimpsed through the foliage on the right. The Distributor now takes inbound traffic under the Spence Lane railway bridge (far left) to the Gyratory. Outbound traffic from the Gyratory now uses the old course of Gelderd Road under the right-hand bridge.Incidentally, The Skew Bridge Inn (a Leeds 'lost pub' named after the odd arrangement of these railway bridges) stood about 15 yards to the right of the parked car, at the junction of Spence Lane & Gelderd Road.

Cardiarms · Post by **Cardiarms** » Fri 19 Jun, 2009 10:34 pm

I was stuck in stationary traffic on the ingram disrtibutor, about there, thinking about this just today and the skew inn was demolished before I was born. Strange what secret leeds does to you!

patter · Post by **patter** » Sat 20 Jun, 2009 9:18 pm

Tarkus wrote: This dead end is Gelderd Road (A62) near its former junction with Spence Lane, Holbeck. The old alignment was straight ahead, through the railway bridge arch and eventually on to a junction with Wellington Road under another railway bridge near the round and half-round houses. Nowadays, the Ingram Distributor and Armley Gyratory have all but obliterated this once major route. Hmmm, if Armley Gyratory's the one under & around the railway viaducts, where's Wortley Gyratory? think I've heard it mentioned somewhere.

Tarkus · Post by **Tarkus** » Sun 21 Jun, 2009 12:25 pm

patter wrote: Tarkus wrote: This dead end is Gelderd Road (A62) near its former junction with Spence Lane, Holbeck. The old alignment was straight ahead, through the railway bridge arch and eventually on to a junction with Wellington Road under another railway bridge near the round and half-round houses. Nowadays, the Ingram Distributor and Armley Gyratory have all but obliterated this once major route. Hmmm, if Armley Gyratory's the one under & around the railway viaducts, where's Wortley Gyratory? think I've heard it mentioned somewhere. I've never heard it referred to as 'Wortley Gyratory', but I'd guess that it's the late 1970s roundabout that now links Domestic Road, Gelderd Road and Whitehall Road. The roundabout itself is roughly 100 yards behind the camera in my picture. There are some photographs (on Leodis) of mid-1940s plans for a gyratory in the vicinity, but the planned location was about 50 yards closer to Leeds than the roundabout which exists today.The Gelderd/Whitehall junction had been a bottleneck and accident backspot for many years, and a crude gyratory of one-way and connecting streets (Spence Lane was one such) had been in operation until the Ingram Distributor was built in the late 70s. There are some Highways Dept. documents on the LCC website which list the one-way streets and the waiting restrictions which were enforced in the 40s & 50s.The 1940s gyratory plan would have built the roundabout roughly where Copley Hill meets Whitehall Road, and would have carried a new road (Domestic Road) from Domestic Street to this point. In the event, the roundabout was built roughly where the Cattle Market Hotel (a Leeds 'lost pub') once stood, and used Smithfield Street (the former main entrance to the Victoria Cattle Market) as the link to Whitehall Road.