Victoria Square
Victoria Square | |||
Location Map ( geo) | |||
Looking southwest across the square | |||
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Location | |||
Wolverhampton city centre | |||
County | |||
Staffordshire | |||
Highway Authority | |||
Wolverhampton | |||
Junction Type | |||
Crossroads | |||
Roads Joined | |||
unclassified | |||
Junctions related to the A454 | |||
Five Ways (Wolverhampton City Centre) • Queen Square (Wolverhampton) • Bilston Street Island • Princes Square • Bentley Interchange • Bentley Junction • Anson Junction • Horseley Fields Junction • Keyway Junction • Portobello Island • Fox Crossroads • Stafford Place • The Dale • Green Lane Roundabout |
Victoria Square within Wolverhampton city centre is located at the junction of Railway Drive, Lichfield Street, Fryer Street and the unnamed link to Five Ways, as well as formerly Railway Street, now a car park.
The square was created in the late part of the nineteenth century upon the construction of Railway Drive, and was formerly a simple T-junction.
It is shown in its pre-square form on Isaac Taylor's 1750 map of Wolverhampton, with Five Ways to the south, Lichfield Street to the west, and Fryer Street to the north.
With the completion of the Inner Ring Road in 1986, traffic was diverted out of the city centre, and the junction was removed, with Fryer Street and Railway Drive running into one another on the north side of the square, Railway Street and the connecting link to Five Ways closed, and the central part of the square being taken up by a roundabout which was simply used as a method of U-turning back along Lichfield Street, and a new connection to the then-new bus station was added. As a result of its effective removal, the name of the junction has now fallen into virtual disuse.
In 2011, as a result of the construction of a new bus station as a replacement for the 1980s version, the square and junction was re-instated as a light-controlled crossroads between Five Ways, Lichfield Street, Railway Drive and Fryer Street. Railway Drive was then closed in early 2017 as part of the works to replace the High Level railway station and redirect the Midland Metro via Victoria Square to the rail station.
The only classified road that ran through the junction was A454, which passed through the junction from Lichfield Street to Horseley Fields via Five Ways until 1986.
Additional 21st century use of name
To add some confusion, as part of the 2011 changes, the reinstated route between the Queen's Building at Five Ways just to the south, and the High Level railway station has the official street name of Victoria Square, despite clearly not being part of the square at all.
This echoes the confusion found a few hundred yards away within the city centre with St. Peter's Square having similar naming issues.