Castlethorpe was a temporary terminus east of present junction 4.
Road scheme and chronology data is courtesy SABRE (where much of it was gathered by member Ross Spur), with additional data from the UK Motorway Archive, the Scottish Roads Archive and the Northern Ireland Roads Site.
What might it have been like to stand in one spot and witness the arrival, and the uncertainty, of plans for an urban motorway in West London?
It was the UK's only single-carriageway motorway, and twenty years ago it ceased to exist. This is the story of the strange fascination it held, and of my place in history.
Pictures taken as the first section of the M1 was being built in 1958-9, with all its unique architecture still under construction.
