All Our Yesterdays

[KeithW]

Exeter Bypass? What do you mean?

Yes, the main route before the M5, as described in Sabre Wiki

https://wheathill.wixsite.com/holiday-roads
Some news stories of the time plus

A30(T) at Blackbushe Airport Hants - 1965
A30(T) near Fairmile Devon - 1970

See also the Sabre Wiki
https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/wiki/ind ... he%20A3085.

I was fortunate enough to be an early user of the M5 when the last section opened in 1977, what a difference it made.

[chaseracer]

3 decades from the Golden Age....
Exeter plates - ELX London - MOW Southampton - GYD Somerset - NDA Wolverhampton
Portgate - ELJ - Essex
Fraddon - KLO? - Luton for the chap with no shoes

That's a very early Hillman Avenger AND a very late mk1 Cortina in the first pic.

[Summers-lad]

I believe Rutland over ever used a single code, and even by 1974 it still wasn’t exhausted.

It was then handed over to Leicester, and later Nottingham until the end of the system.

The longest a code could’ve run for was between 1903 and 2001. Some stopped when their county was merged with another one, or when they were exhausted later on.

The system became more flexible when DVLA took over the issuing of registration numbers from county councils in 1975. I think they were then allocated to DVLA regional offices. Some stayed in pretty much the same area (SE, previously Banffshire, was generally used in Moray, and SO, the old Morayshire code, tended to be used slightly further away, but still in the same region, in Aberdeen) but others moved to different regions (SS, previously East Lothian, became an Aberdeen / North-east code). Scottish registrations were mostly -S or S-, but some weren't, and I've no idea where AV (Aberdeenshire) or RG (Aberdeen City) landed up after 1975.

Under the county system before 1975, if you were buying a new car, what registration you got usually depended on where the dealer was. So people in Banffshire buying Volkswagens usually got SO registrations because the nearest dealer was in Elgin, but if they were buying Austins they would get an SE registration because there were several Austin dealerships in Banffshire.

[SteveA30]

A few more yesterdays on the Big 3 roads to the west

1. Heading west near Bridestowe in 1991
2. Ilminster awaits its bypass

[SteveA30]

Donkey death on the A38, no really..... in other news, smash and grab raid and more crashes. Otherwise, everything ship shape and Bristol fashion.

A303 heading towards Ilminster. The bypass can be seen to the right, 5 months from opening.
A30 Cornwall. The layby is now a forest, with a small access retained at the far end.

More jam today news in Holiday Roads and new pics too......
https://wheathill.wixsite.com/holiday-roads

[SteveA30]

More from yesteryear or even yestercentury....

Clyst Honiton layby. Now wiped out by the signalised junction for the CH bypass. All of the background is now built on.

Kensey Hill Launceston. Grannies house was opposite the lorry. Grandad kept his car in one of the sheds at the end of the terrace. The scar of the bypass can be seen in the valley beyond.

(Copyright newspaper scan removed.)

[SteveA30]

The coming of the M5 worries some Devonians.

Newspaper road reports

https://wheathill.wixsite.com/holiday-roads

[IAN]

The coming of the M5 worries some Devonians.

Newspaper road reports

https://wheathill.wixsite.com/holiday-roads

Interesting to read that that the locals were worried about visitors having 'metropolitan attitudes' - I wonder what's meant by that! (possibly - 'we think everyone's riff-raff who lives north of Taunton or east of Dorchester!')

However, the concerns about second homes have come true in many parts of Devon and Cornwall.

[SteveA30]

There are also imagined boundaries at Exeter. Cornwall might be the separate Kernow to some but, the World is east of Exeter. The old slow roads to the west increased the sense of isolation, as it took so long to get anywhere east. The railways were the first to invade and ironically, the closures of the 60's increased this perception of being cut off. The A30 and A38 were still the same as they had always been and now there were no trains from large areas of North Cornwall and Devon. It was almost like a reversion to 100 years earlier. So, the coming of the M5 gradually from Gloucester downwards did seem like an intruder, snaking its way south, a bit more each year from 1970 on.