B4461

Route

Looking east at Red Hill. The road to the left is today's B4461; that to the right is the original route.

The B4461 is a short B-road in south Gloucestershire.

The road starts at Junction 1 of the M48, the Aust Interchange; indeed the southeastbound onslip turns off the B4461 rather than the roundabout. Our road parallels the motorway southeastward for about half a mile before striking off in a generally easterly direction through Elberton and soon reaching the village of Alveston, where, after a TOTSO left at a crossroads, it ends at a T-junction with the B4061.

History

Olveston in the 1950s; all these roads are numbered B4461

Historically, the B4461 appears to have been created in the late 1920s. While it was situated in the same general area, it had a rather different route.

The road started at Old Passage, from where the ferry ran over the Severn to Beachley. After 1935 the B4055 also reached this point. Our road ran through Aust to join the road's present route but then headed southeastwards via Olveston to join the A38 near Almondsbury. There was a multiplex southwest along that road before the B4461 regained its number and continued to end on the B4055 near Easter Compton.

In 1935 the B4461 gained a spur, from Olveston to Alveston, whilst round the same time the section from Almondsbury to Easter Compton became a spur of the B4055.

Construction of the motorways in this area has led to multiple renumberings. As such about half a mile of road, a little to the east of Aust village, is common to the original and the present routes of the B4461, whilst the section between the two T-junctions in Alveston has been part of the road for only a few years less.