B4497

Route

Redditch

The B4497 is a short B-road through Redditch. Its present route dates to the growth of the New Town in the 1970s.

Starting on the B4101 at Beoley the road briefly heads south along Icknield Street to reach a T-junction, where it TOTSOs right to follow Paper Mill Drive around the suburb of Church Hill. This is a typical New Town distributor: there are a number of side roads leading to residential areas but no buildings front onto our road at all. Presently a roundabout is reached where we rejoin Icknield Street and cross the A4023.

We continue south between the suburb of Wynyates and the Arrow Valley Park and soon reach another roundabout where the A4189 is crossed. We then continue along more of the same, still skirting the Arrow Valley Park before entering an industrial estate. We cross a large roundabout then end at a T-junction on the A435 shortly afterwards.

History

However, the road's original route, dating back to around 1930, was somewhat different, and now only the northernmost 100 m remains of that route. From Beoley, it headed south along the historic Roman Icknield Street (or Ryknild Street) to the centre of what is now Church Hill, then turned southwest along Marlfield Lane (now severed by the A4023 Coventry Highway). It crossed the River Arrow slightly to the south of the current crossing, and headed into St Georges along Beoley Road (now severed in several places, and split into East and West sections), meeting the B4093 and terminating there (the B4093 now terminates just south of Woodrow and so no longer reaches St. Georges).

It should be noted that though the B4497 is signed at each end, there is very little evidence that it has a classification through the new town of Redditch.