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

[davews]

The Met Office Roundabout in Bracknell, still called that by the locals despite the Met Office moving to Exeter in 2003 and the old building replaced by blocks of flats.

 

[Springs Branch]

Switch Island, near Aintree, is where the M57, M58, A59 and the busy A5036 from Liverpool Docks all converge.

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

The end of the M67 in Denton, Gtr. Manchester, is referred to as the 'Ski Jump' - originally it was to continue on an overbridge but only the slip roads down to the A57 / M60 roundabout were ever built.

 

[Magdalia]

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

There is an article about the Black Cat on the BBC website this morning:

Half of £1bn work is on Black Cat roundabout alone

National Highways the Black Cat section is "the most significant and complex part of the project".

www.bbc.co.uk

Half of the work on a £1bn road improvement project is being taken up with improving one busy roundabout, National Highways has said.

Work on a 10-mile (16km) dual carriageway, between the Black Cat roundabout in Bedfordshire and Caxton Gibbet in Cambridgeshire, began in December 2023 and is expected to be completed in the spring of 2027.

The article includes a picture of the Black Cat and says this:

Image source,Tony Fisher/BBC
Image caption,
Mr Salmon said the Black Cat signage had been repainted and was being looked after at the National Highways compound in Wintringham near St Neots
Mr Salmon said the original Black Cat roundabout statue would be returned, adding: "We will more than likely make a second one which will be put in another location so everyone can see from every direction there is a black cat there."
He said one of the most asked questions at events was where the Black Cat had gone - and where it would appear after the works.

By the way, the Caxton Gibbet is a thing too.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Sometimes these unofficial names become official and go onto signage. In Milton Keynes, at the south end of the A5 dual carriageway, we have "Kelly's Kitchen Roundabout", named informally after the catering establishment that was there something like 30 years ago (later a Little Chef, now demolished and replaced with a McDonald's) - once just what people called it (no doubt many of them being too young to know what Kelly's Kitchen even was) but now official.

 

[renegademaster]

Sometimes these unofficial names become official and go onto signage. In Milton Keynes, at the south end of the A5 dual carriageway, we have "Kelly's Kitchen Roundabout", named informally after the catering establishment that was there something like 30 years ago (later a Little Chef, now demolished and replaced with a McDonald's) - once just what people called it (no doubt many of them being too young to know what Kelly's Kitchen even was) but now official.

The A21 has this with Blue Boys (a former pub) roundabout. The pub itself has been a burger king for a while now

 

[D1511]

Bottle dump roundabout is another similar example

 

[Acey]

" Chicken Farm Bends " Located at Keston (Greater London) on the A233,favourite speed test for bikers from the old Salt Box Hill club at Biggin Hill !

 

[Shimbleshanks]

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

I often cycle that road, on my way to and from the micropub in Hayes. Wasn't aware of the name, but until a few years it was a national speed limit road (60mph) in what was otherwise a 30/40mph area, so I assume that's where it got its name. The limit is now reduced to 40mph - sensibly, in my view. Late one night just before Covid, on the way back from the pub I found the road closed off by the Police. A young guy had wrapped his Audi round a tree and was killed. There's still a little roadside shrine to his memory where it happened.

 

[MotCO]

Further examples of junctions named after long-closed buildings (not sure if it is still referred to as such):

Shannon's Corner - now flyover/roundabout at junction of A3 and Burlington Road, New Malden.
Carter's Bridge - just further up towards London from Shannon's Corner, on the London-bound Bushey Road A238
Lombard Roundabout - roundabout at junction of A23 and A236 in Croydon

 

[Ken H]

Roundabouts in Leeds are often called 'Circus' so on Scott Hall Road there is King Lane Circus. Not on any maps.
Many are bus stops too with the same name.

 

[Jon_jpwh]

The Bermondsey Beer Mile is the name given to the bars and bottle shops which are in railway arches and is actually nearer to two miles. https://bermondsey-beer-mile.co.uk/2021/02/21/the-bermondsey-beer-mile-an-unofficial-introduction/

For those of you who don’t know: the Bermondsey Beer Mile is a loose amalgamation of brewery bars and bottle shops, located along a stretch of railway arch that’s closer to two miles long nowadays. The one thing they have in common is that they’re all open at roughly the same time on a Saturday afternoon, giving those of you who fancy some exercise the chance to indulge in a rather fine pub crawl. As long as you can find your way between all the bars, of course.


And this is the problem: because the Mile is something that’s grown organically over a period of years, and there’s no definitive central resource you can consult in order to find out where all the bars are....

 

[W-on-Sea]

Dagenham has Andrew's Corner (junction of Becontree Avenue and Valence Avenue) and Martin's Corner (Valence Avenue/Wood Lane/Porters Avenue) in close succession. Not sure what Martin's Corner was named after, but Andrew's was a furniture store, I think. Not far away "The Fiddlers" (after the now demolished Merry Fiddlers pub) refers to the main junction (originally a roundabout , now a crossroads) at Beacontree Heath of Wood Lane/Green Lane/Whalebone Lane South.

 

[Fenchurch SP]

The road between Althorne and Burnham-on-Crouch in Essex is known as the Ten Bends or Burnham Bends, for obvious reasons.
Also Petticoat Lane, site of the famous market in East London is officially Middlesex Street.

 

[Henffordd]

When I moved to the Midlands in 1974, I asked people in Birmingham how to get from there to Dudley, and they said "go down the Hagley Road, and turn right at the Warley Odeon." Younger folk said "Warley Bowl". Odeon closed in 1961 and became Bowl, which was demolished in 1973.

Dunno if that junction - Hagley Road/Birmingham New Road - still has that name, though.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The most common one is probably where a junction was known as being named after a pub, but that that pub is sadly no longer there. The pub is still there (to my amazement given how badly local pubs in residential areas do at present) but a classic is the Black Bull in Aintree, a well known bus terminus (though I don't think it's usually a terminus these days) which will probably still be called that long after the pub is eventually gone.

 

[OhNoAPacer]

Still get people in Northampton referring to Round Spinney roundabout as theToby Carvery roundabout, hasn't been a Toby Carvery there for a long time, it is a Miller and Carter.

 

[Jimini]

Still get people in Northampton referring to Round Spinney roundabout as theToby Carvery roundabout, hasn't been a Toby Carvery there for a long time, it is a Miller and Carter.

I used to sledge down there with my Granddad in the snow back in the '80s when I was a nipper (my grandparents lived on Thorpeville, just up the road). He used to call it "the rice bowl" for some reason

 

[Recessio]

Beeching Way in East Grinstead is known as Beeching's Cut - the road goes through a very deep cutting, on the route of a line that didn't survive Beeching's cuts! (and Dr Beeching was a resident of the town)

 

[PeterC]

Also Petticoat Lane, site of the famous market in East London is officially Middlesex Street.

The road was originally named Petticoat Lane. The name seems to have been changed around 1830.

 

[Southsider]

Any Glaswegian will recognise ‘Dizzy Corner’. The junction of Union Street and Argyle Street sometimes known as Boots Corner although the chemist moved from there some years ago.

 

[alxndr]

Any Glaswegian will recognise ‘Dizzy Corner’. The junction of Union Street and Argyle Street sometimes known as Boots Corner although the chemist moved from there some years ago.

It’s mostly called the “four corners” now

 

[BrandanM]

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

There's also 'Adkins Corner' where Cherry Hinton Road, Perne Road and Mowbray Road meet. So called after a long gone mini supermarket I believe.

 

[matchmaker]

The A82 Great Western Road in Glasgow is pretty universally referred to as "The Boulevard". As opposed to "Mosspark Boulevard" which is actually called "Mosspark Boulevard"!

 

[david1212]

Birmingham just north of M6 Jn5 where the A452 and A47 meet is known as Spitfire Island. There is a large sculpture in the middle of the roundabout as the Castle Bromwich factory where Spifires were built was nearby.

 

[Ashley Hill]

The old Fiddlers Elbow on the A380 between Newton Abbot and Exeter which was a notoriously sharp bend. It was eventually abandoned in the 1990s by the creation of a new route.

 

[Dr_Paul]

The roundabout on the A316 in Richmond that is officially called Manor Circus was always called the Gasworks Bridge when I lived there back in the 1960s, and people of around my age from that area still call it that, although the Richmond gasworks site has been for some time a Sainsbury's supermarket. I have no idea when the official name came into being, but it was never called that back then. A year or so ago, I boarded a bus in Richmond without checking the route number and asked the driver, a fairly young bloke, if he was going to the Gasworks Bridge, and then realised why he was baffled.

 

[BeijingDave]

Walton Drag - the A56 between the edge of the named Warrington suburb and the Daresbury junction of the M56, so called because of the speeds one could reach on the long straights.

 

[gg1]

In the centre of Brum, Pagoda Island, officially Holloway Circus, named after the aforementioned structure in the centre of it which was built in the 90s.
There's also Spitfire Island in Castle Bromwich which was originally just a nickname but is now the junction's official name.
Dudley also has Pegasus Island, a nickname which like Spitfire Island derives from a large sculpture in the centre

 

[pokemonsuper9]

There are several "the new road" I know of in various towns, often "new" is now several years old but the name remains.