please empty your brain below
As ever, a superb entry. I'd love to know more about the horse-and-cart roadsign! Is it an art piece? A joke? A misunderstood instruction?

Someone must know!

Doktorb | Homepage | 04.01.13 - 9:04 a.m. | #

We have a horse and cart sign as well in Ilford where the North Circular has a junction to Ilford Town Centre. Perhaps it was for the old rag and bone men (no Steptoes allowed!)

kissenme | 04.01.13 - 9:24 a.m. | #

I'm sure that the "no horse and cart" sign used to be in the Highway Code though it seems to be missing from the latest online version. I have seen quite a few of these whilst cycling along narrow bridleways in rural Sussex.

They'd also love to improve the minor footbridge across the heart of the station, where tourists fresh off the Heathrow Express meet their luggage nemesis. So many trains now terminate at Edgware Road that unwary visitors are forced to trek up and over to non-adjacent platforms, and any hope of step-free access remains a distant dream.

Yes, this great myth continues to be propagated. They are not forced to do anything of the sort. The problem is that unwary Heathrow Express passengers make a beeline for the Praed Street platforms at Paddington rather than use the H&C ones. What is needed is appropriate announcements and leaflets on Heathrow Express and suitable signage at Paddington rather than a wider footbridge at Edgware Road.

Pedantic of Purley | 04.01.13 - 9:24 a.m. | #

I think the horse and cart sign is directed at the travellers. Westway would make a great track for trotting. West Sussex county council put up some of these signs on dual carriageways. The travellers would block the traffic on one lane of a level dual carriagway, by having two vans side by side. The trotters would be in front having a race.It causes a lot of congestion.

coffin dodger | 04.01.13 - 9:39 a.m. | #

There waw a 'no totters' sign on the Ripple Road flyover at Barking near Upney station 25 years ago. Don't know if it's still there.

David | 04.01.13 - 9:40 a.m. | #

Totters are traders with a horse and cart, think Steptoe and son and their horse Hercules. Trotting is a single horse pulling a lightweight carriage with a bench seat for one ot two people. The trotting is so called because the horses are trained to move the front and back legs on each side at the same time.

coffin dodger | 04.01.13 - 9:54 a.m. | #

I noticed such a sign on the A3 approaching the Devils Punch Bowl tunnel a few days ago.

timbo | 04.01.13 - 10:01 a.m. | #

The sign is because they're expecting an invasion of Amish.

Blue Witch | Homepage | 04.01.13 - 10:07 a.m. | #

You walked near the site of the old "Metropolitan Music Hall" which was quite famous in it time, particalarrly for the comedian Max Miller.
http://www.arthurlloyd.co.uk/Metropolitan.htm
Also near the Metropole Hotel once stood the Regal (ABC) cinema, Edgware Road.
In Praed Street there was a Classic cinema, and a good book shop called Modern books.
Almost opposite Edgware Road Bakerloo line station once stood the Odeon Edgware Road. All now just memories for us old enough to have been around in those days.

John | 04.01.13 - 10:29 a.m. | #

So the signs (or absence of one) would suggest that it's OK to RIDE a horse on the flyover?

timbo | 04.01.13 - 12:28 p.m. | #

Does anyone remember the cricket playing garden gnomes at Edgware Road in the mid 1990's?

HoosierSands | Homepage | 04.01.13 - 12:30 p.m. | #

The horse and cart sign is one of a number you often see on some major A roads. Pedestrians, cyclists and horses and carts are legally allowed to use most roads with the exception of all motorways. However there are a small number of A roads which are subject to the same restrictions (no non-motorised vehicles) either over their entire length or part of the length as in this case. The three signs are normally shown together. For example see another case here on the new bridge over to the Isle of Sheppey : link

In this case non motorised traffic is not permitted on the new bridge but the old bridge still exists and can be used by pedestrians and cyclists.

Sometimes you see similar signs when a A-road becomes a motorway.

Jon Combe | 04.01.13 - 12:55 p.m. | #

Jon - thanks for that. It still looks very peculiar, and let's face it, exceptionally rare. I bet there's not one of the horse and cart signs anywhere north of Marylebone!

I note from that line btw that there's a sign obscured by a grey fence.

DoktorbW | Homepage | 04.01.13 - 3:42 p.m. | #

Of course LU's modern dot-matrix train describers (TDs) work off the existing signalling system and thus cannot 'cope' with locations where trains converge from different lines. So older designs of TD often live on at such places as Edgware Road. They still do too at Earl's Court (District) and High St Ken (District outer rail) and formerly at Aldgate East. Sometimes a new design one is put it, but provides no more advance warning than the older type it replaced (e.g. Bow Road westbound).

Kim | 04.01.13 - 4:23 p.m. | #

Actually the next train describers above the platforms at Edgware Road (the red ones DG describes) are directly controlled by the signaller in Edgware road signal cabin. The cabin is midway along the Marylebone road side of the station (the side away from the new 'wrapped' substation)and is still a lever frame and the oldest on the network. So if the Train describer changes at short notice it's because of a last min train reform requested by the controller or a train arriving out of turn unannounced!

Fobert | 06.01.13 - 11:06 p.m. | #

David - I remember it being there more recently than 25 years ago. Maybe 7 or 8 years ago.

Google Streetview shows one (on what looks like a new sign) on the eastern approach to the flyover https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Renwick+Road,+Barking&hl=en&ll=51.532722,0.113704&spn=0.005313,0.033023&sll=51.587254,-1.424888&sspn=0.046876,0.132093&oq=renwick+road&hnear=Renwick+Rd,+Barking,+Greater+London+IG11,+United+Kingdom&t=m&z=16&layer=c&cbll=51.532725,0.113712&panoid=A3h38mCdBf22Ql6WYP2umQ&cbp=12,271.03,,0,3.51

I think the one I remember was just a stand alone sign, by the Ship and Shovel pub...

Dominic H | 07.01.13 - 8:14 p.m. | #

The reason for the horse and cart sign is a particularly silly piece of bureaucracy. Before 2000, the flyover was part of the A40(M). On creating the Greater London Authority, the roads (except for trunk motorways out of London) were transferred to TfL. Unfortunately it was discovered that the law didn't allow TfL to manage motorways so they were all downgraded to plain A roads.

Motorways are 'special roads' - there is no public right of way. Removing the motorway status also lost special status (or perhaps vice versa), so the original restrictions had to be recreated through bylaws and indicated with specific signs. There is a 'no pedestrians' sign to the left of your picture.

Mike Dimmick | 10.01.13 - 1:52 a.m. | #











TridentScan v2.10.0 | Privacy Policy