Just something that occurred to me today -
Next to the M45 near Rugby there's a fairly tall (4 storeys?) circular brick building with a castellated top. Nearby there's what appears to be a small brick ledge on the ground with a chimney on top of it.
Next to the A41 towards Watford, just off M25 J19 by the Leavesden aerodrome sliproad, there's a HUGE chimney sticking out of the grass verge. And I'm sure there's another one somewhere, but it escapes me right now.
My question is, what are they and why are they there?
Any other weird structures you've come across?
And I know what the gibbets next to the M1 in Yorkshire are for. :-)
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Haven't a clue really but your descriptions remind me of vents for canal tunnels near St Quentin in N France
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Good point PhilW, there *is* a canal round those parts somewhere, now I come to think of it...
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They might also be vents for railway tunnels (steam locos), there's a couple of those by the road between Watford and Hatfield, or as in the M40 near Beaconsfield, it's a flare stack for burning off methane gas from the adjacent sealed landfill site.
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I've often wondered about those chimneys myself!
Hew is right about the steam train vents.
I did a Streetmap.co.uk search on the areas. On the OS Landranger style maps, you will see the railway tunnel under the road and circles named 'airshafts' at intervals along the length of the tunnels.
James
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That would make sense, yes! I can remember going past the Leavesden one in my dad's car as a nipper before they built the M25. There was another one, possibly at Maple Cross IIRC.
What about the circular castle near the M45 though?
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And the gibbets next to the M1 are to warn roadworkers of overhead cables (which might not be seen at night).
There was a case a few years back where a guy went to set up cones for night-time barrier repairs, parked his lighting tower trailer on the hard shoulder after dark, and elevated the mast straight into a 25kV power cable - instantly electrocuted him.
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Is this what your on about (on the m45) www.multimap.co.uk/map/photo.cgi?
client=public&x=457384&y=270270&gride=&gridn=&scale
=5000&coordsys=&mapsize=big&rt=overlay.htm
(hopefully the link will work)[it did, but I split it up, you\'ll need to cut and paste it to your browser\'s address line. M.]
I\'ve always assumed it was a vent for the tunnel, looking at the location of the building and the railway line on the overlap map they look close enough (I\'m assuming a perfect lineup would be fairly hard to sort out)
The ones in watford are the train tunnells as well (the one between the a405 and a41 is)
Saw something really strange around their once on the way home, there was a windmill set against a spooky sky and burning away nicely. Bit of a strange site when driving down the m25 exit slip. Then i remembered it was the film studios, filming the end of spooky hollow
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(hopefully the link will work)
It does, but has screwed up the page width. For long URL's use either www.makeashorterlink.com or tinyurl.com
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What about the circular castle near the M45 though?
Probably Kilsby tunnel on the West Coast Main Line, there is another fitting the same description on the left just after you exit Kilsby village on the A5 towards Weedon and Milton keynes.
Those near Leavesden are for Watford Tunnels on the same line, however here 4 tracks use two tunnels so the vents double up as well?.
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