Informal names of roads/Junctions that everyone from the locality knows but isn't official name.

[renegademaster]

In the Croydon area we have a few amusing ones.
Waspses Lodge roundabout ( on A22 after Whyteleafe) - colloquial name is the Ann Summers roundabout as it's next to the Ann Summers head office .

Addington Road/Kent Gate Way , between Addington Village and West Wickham is called colloquially The Mad Mile

 

[Cambus731]

In Cambridge there is ‘Hyde Park Corner’ where Hills Road, Lensfield Road, Gonville Place and Regent Street meet. Not sure how much that name is used nowadays though

 

[A S Leib]

The Plough roundabout's known in Hemel (and probably further afield*) as the Magic Roundabout.

*Which may cause confusion with Swindon's; does that one have a different official name?

 

[Lewisham2221]

The obvious one here would surely be Birmingham's Gravelly Hill Interchange more commonly and unofficially known as, of course, Spaghetti Junction

 

[Ianigsy]

The A553 Hoylake Road/Birkenhead Road between Moreton and Meols is almost universally known as the Meols Stretch.

 

[JonathanH]

The Mad Mile

Another 'Mad Mile' was the part of the A217 Brighton Road across Banstead Common which was within Greater London. The 60mph limit has since been reduced.

The A4074 between Tokers Green and Cane End north of Reading was unfortunately known as the '13 Bends of Death'.

 

[alxndr]

The village I grew up in had a road that was known as The Gluepot, or going for the popular lap around the outskirts of the village using it was always referred to as “going round the gluepot.” The story was that the prominent farm on it was where they used to turn horses into glue. Officially it is Edward’s Lane, although I did have to look this up to check as it was so rarely used.

 

[ninja-lewis]

Edinburgh has Holy Corner, so named because there was a church on each corner.

Holy Corner - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[PG]

The Plough roundabout's known in Hemel (and probably further afield*) as the Magic Roundabout.

*Which may cause confusion with Swindon's; does that one have a different official name?

It was officially named County Islands for the first decade of its existence before the council renamed it to what everyone called it.

 

[izvor]

Waspes Lodge roundabout ( on A22 after Whyteleaf) - colloquial name is the Ann Summers roundabout as it's next to the Ann Summers head office .

Correction: Wapses Lodge. (and Whyteleafe)

 

[John Webb]

In the Sidcup area there is "Crittall's Corner" named after the 1930s window maker's factory. I don't know if the road junction had any other name, but by the 1950s it was appearing on maps with that name.

 

[bramling]

In the Croydon area we have a few amusing ones.
Waspses Lodge roundabout ( on A22 after Whyteleafe) - colloquial name is the Ann Summers roundabout as it's next to the Ann Summers head office .

Addington Road/Kent Gate Way , between Addington Village and West Wickham is called colloquially The Mad Mile

The A1(M)/M25 junction is known as Bignell’s Corner, however I’ve never heard anyone locally refer to it as anything other than “South Mimms”. Likewise the two A1(M) junctions in Stevenage are Corey’s Mill and Langley Sidings, yet everyone just says Stevenage North and Stevenage South.

A smaller one, however Hitchin town centre has a spot known as Moss or Moss’s Corner, even though the newsagents is very long gone. Only old-timers in the town still refer to it.

 

[D6130]

The intersection of the A58 and A641 - on the South-Western edge of the village of Wyke, between Bradford and Huddersfield in West Yorkshire - has been known for years as "Hell Fire Corner" or "Hell Fire Crossroads". The origins of the name are obscure, but the two most common theories are connected with the large number of fatal accidents there over the years....and the alleged incidence of paranormal phenomena in the vicinity.

 

[jfollows]

Roscoe’s Roundabout is next to J2 of the M60 in Cheadle, was J11 of the M63 and the store after which it was named is not there any more.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Roscoe’s Roundabout is next to J2 of the M60 in Cheadle, was J11 of the M63 and the store after which it was named is not there any more.

How long has the Roscoe's DIY store in Cheadle not been there? 25 years? 30 years? Longer?

 

[dosxuk]

The Mad Mile

Another 'Mad Mile' was the part of the A217 Brighton Road

I think there are mad miles across the entire country. Where I grew up there were two just outside my village, which actually met each other - but both were straight wide roads where people would take ill advised opportunities to overtake, or catch up a bit of time from being stuck behind a farm vehicle.

 

[Magdalia]

In Cambridge there is ‘Hyde Park Corner’ where Hills Road, Lensfield Road, Gonville Place and Regent Street meet. Not sure how much that name is used nowadays though

Not much, in my long experience that junction is usually known as the Catholic, named after the Church of Our Lady and the English Martyrs which is on the Hills Road/Lensfield Road corner of the junction.

The two ends of Victoria Avenue in Cambridge are the Four Lamps and Mitchams Corner.

Where the 2 paths cross in the middle of Parkers Piece is Reality Checkpoint.

Out of Cambridge there are some good names too: National Highways use Black Cat and Caxton Gibbet for the A428 dual carriageway currently under construction.

A428 Black Cat to Caxton Gibbet improvements

Creating a reliable, high quality route from Black Cat junction to Caxton Gibbet junction that will meet the future traffic needs of the region.

nationalhighways.co.uk

Others nearby are Stump Cross where the M11 and A11 diverge, and Nine Mile Hill where the A11 and A14 join near Newmarket Racecourse. In between the Cambridge-Haverhill road crosses the A11 at the Four Went Ways.

 

[John R]

Black Cat even usually has a black cat stencil adorning it (currently in safe keeping during the co structuring work).

So given the HA refers to it, I’m not sure we can say it is an unofficial name.

In and around Stoke the A500 is known as the “D Road”, and I’ve heard it referenced as such on traffic reports on Radio 2.

 

[Noddy]

The ordnance survey have a vernacular names tool and dataset. However submissions are limited to blue light services and it appears largely aimed at 999 situations.

New national vernacular mapping tool | OS

OS has been inviting blue light organisations to input colloquial nicknames into the Vernacular Names Tool

www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk

Would you know where the Eye of the Butt, the Dalek and Slippery Bottom are? Maybe not, but to emergency services on a 999 call, getting to the right place as quickly as possible could make a vital difference in a life-saving emergency.
Ordnance Survey (OS) has been inviting blue light organisations around Great Britain to input local and colloquial nicknames into a new database called the Vernacular Names Tool.
The database, hosted in the OS Data Hub, is a replacement for FINTAN, a mapping tool created more than ten years ago in response to a request from HM Coastguard. It was created in partnership with OS and was designed to allow users to upload any local name, alternative name or nickname for a coastal feature alongside the accurate location or existing geographic name in the mapping database. These include cliffs, caves, sandbanks, coastal car parks and buildings to name a few. This ensured that HM Coastguard responders could get to emergencies – however their location was described – with much greater confidence and speed. From only having a rough idea of location and needing to search the map to confirm the right place, control room staff could simply type in a location nickname and be given a precise location.
Now most of the contents of FINTAN – including nicknames such as Jabba the Hut, Stink Cove and Harry Potter Bridge – have been uploaded into the Vernacular Names Tool alongside input from new emergency service users across the country, bringing the current volume of names to over nine and a half thousand. It is hoped that highlighting the tool now will encourage even more of the blue light community to participate.

"The Vernacular Tool is an incredibly useful resource for our Maritime Rescue Coordination Centres to have access to. It has allowed local knowledge to be shared across our operational network and there are examples where its use has improved the tasking of critical rescue assets. We are very proud to have played a significant role in its development and we are pleased to see it being made available to colleagues in other emergency services today."

Chief Coastguard Peter Mizen

 

[CyrusWuff]

The stretch of Wilmslow Road that runs through Rusholme to the South of Manchester is known as The Curry Mile

 

[swt_passenger]

‘Johnson & Johnson roundabout’ as was, now a busy M275/A3/A27 junction near Cosham, named after the long moved away pharmaceutical firm. I’m sure people were even calling it the J&J roundabout after it had become a crossroads…

 

[RiverDon]

Near my brother's house is this which is universally known as the "Dolly Parton roundabout". I've only ever heard it referred to by the nickname so it's only when I looked it up on google to post here that I learned the proper name!

 

[D1511]

The A70 from Edinburgh to Ayr is known universally in south central Scotland as "the lang whang", which is auld Scots for a long thin strip of leather, used for bootlaces

 

[Bishopstone]

The main crossroads in Upminster is known unofficially to most locals as Bell Corner, after a long gone pub.

Visiting my grandparents, as a kid, we’d navigate Charlie Brown’s roundabout in South Woodford (North Circular Road). I was about 25 before I understood the Charlie Brown in question wasn’t the American cartoon character, but an east end publican. Anyway, this is a cheat as it’s officially named.

 

[PeterC]

The main crossroads in Upminster is known unofficially to most locals as Bell Corner, after a long gone pub.

Visiting my grandparents, as a kid, we’d navigate Charlie Brown’s roundabout in South Woodford (North Circular Road). I was about 25 before I understood the Charlie Brown in question wasn’t the American cartoon character, but an east end publican. Anyway, this is a cheat as it’s officially named.

I only recall Charlie Brown's being named officially when the motorway was built.

Britvic have gone from Chelmsford. I don't know if the name survives locally for the roundabout.

I think that a lot of unofficial names became adopted with the introduction of local radio traffic reports.

 

[D6130]

Turning to North Yorkshire, the perfect 90° crossroads where the B6451 Otley to Pateley Bridge road intersects the A59 Liverpool to York trunk road - at the South-Western apex of RAF Menwith Hill (aka the US government's secret communications monitoring station) - is known as "Dangerous Corner" and is marked as such on the Ordnance Survey maps.

The soubriquet is well-deserved because, although both roads are dead straight - being of Roman origin - the A59 passes through a large dip immediately to the West of the intersection, resulting in virtually zero visibility of and from vehicles travelling from the Skipton direction. This results in drivers on the B6451 taking their chances in crossing the A59 and there have been several horrendous fatal collisions over the years.

 

[izvor]

Near my brother's house is this which is universally known as the "Dolly Parton roundabout". I've only ever heard it referred to by the nickname so it's only when I looked it up on google to post here that I learned the proper name!

 

[Jimini]

There are so many of these. Charlie Brown's being one of the most notable ones as cited above (lived in E18 for 10+ years), all the way down to the Oakley Crossroads in Rushden, where quite a few of my family lived nearby in the '80s and always referred to the junction as "the Oakley", back in the day, for example:

Traffic | Rushden Museum

Some of Rushden’s problems with the amount of traffic in the town, and how it was dealt with by the council.

rushdenmuseum.co.uk

Image of the Oakley Crossroads in Rushden, Northants, way back in the day.

 

[OhNoAPacer]

Go south on the A595 past Thornhill and you come to a junction, officially I guess the junction of Morass Road with the A595.
Locals will refer to it as Iron Bridge.
Of course there isn't an iron bridge there but there used to be as this is where a bridge carried the railway from Beckermet Iron Ore mine across the A595.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Another 'Mad Mile' was the part of the A217 Brighton Road across Banstead Common which was within Greater London. The 60mph limit has since been reduced.

The A4074 between Tokers Green and Cane End north of Reading was unfortunately known as the '13 Bends of Death'.

Ossett Bypass (the A638 between Junction 40 of the M1, and Gawthorpe roundabout) is yet another "Mad Mile". It isn't quite as mad nowadays with the 50mph speed limit and regular visits from the West Yorkshire mobile speed camera vans, but the name has stuck.

The main crossroads in Upminster is known unofficially to most locals as Bell Corner, after a long gone pub.

Visiting my grandparents, as a kid, we’d navigate Charlie Brown’s roundabout in South Woodford (North Circular Road). I was about 25 before I understood the Charlie Brown in question wasn’t the American cartoon character, but an east end publican. Anyway, this is a cheat as it’s officially named.

The junctions (a staggered crossroad bisected by a bridge over the canal) on the A62 Manchester Road at Longroyd Bridge in Huddersfield (beneath Paddock viaduct on the Penistone line) are known as Charlie Brown's... because of the now-defunct auto spares store that was once located there.

Mortimer Road, an unclassified road that links Penistone with the A57 Snake Pass road via Bradfield, is known as The Strines (after the Strines Inn public house part way along). Not to be confused with the village of Strines which has a station on the Hope Valley line. It's a great driving road but not for the feint-hearted in poor weather!