Road Transport Gallery

Ice cream van JLP01_08_071642

Hornchurch Court, Bonsall Street, Hulme, Manchester. A recently completed multi-storey block of Sectra flats in Hulme, probably Hornchurch Court, with a family in the foreground buying from an ice cream van.
Sectra was a French prefabricated steel formwork design for flats which John Laing and Son Ltd acquired the British rights to in 1962. It was a method of using precision made
steel formwork for the placing of structural concrete in tunnel sections in room unit widths and ceiling heights. The units were bolted together in rows on special tracks, with the concrete poured to form the walls and floors in one operation. The formwork was internally heated to accelerate the hardening of the concrete in the mould and the sections were then lifted into position by a tower crane on the construction site.
Hornchurch Court was the first of three multi-storey blocks that Laing built in Hulme for the City of Manchester to replace 5,000 slum houses. The company started working on the site in October 1964 and finished 18 weeks later with the opening taking place on 10th May 1965. The other two blocks were due for completion at seven-week intervals

© Historic England Archive

Minories Car Park JLP01_08_082403

Minories Car Park, 1 Shorter Street, City of London. The entrance to the staircase of the City Engineer's Highways Depot, built as part of the contract for Minories Car Park.
The building was connected to the basement of the car park. It housed workshops, a canteen and rest room, offices and a caretaker's flat. The surface treatment of the exterior walls is visible in this photograph. Hemlock boards were used on the shuttering to leave an impression of the timber in the concrete surfaces. The architect E G Chandler took inspiration from Queen Elizabeth Hall on the Southbank for this surface treatment. The complicated shape of the building meant its construction was difficult. No two sections of shuttering were the same so they could not be reused for a different part of the building

© Historic England Archive

White Gates Level Crossing MOT01_01_19

White Gates Level Crossing, Canning Town, Newham, Greater London. Vans and horse-drawn carts on the White Gates Level Crossing, and traffic queuing on Victoria Dock Road alongside the North Woolwich Railway, 1920s.
The White Gates Level Crossing provided vehicular access from Victoria Dock Road to the Royal Victoria Dock and Silvertown, crossing the North Woolwich Railway. In 1922 the average number of vehicles crossing White Gates in 24 hours was 2,852, an increase from 2,173 in 1904 and 2,496 in 1913. Due to closure of the gates for trains, road traffic was stopped for over 9 hours each day. The level crossing was therefore one of a number of bottle necks on the approach to the docks, which also included the narrow swing bridge at the west entrance of Royal Victoria Dock. It was not until the Royal Victoria and other Dock Approaches (Improvement) Act was passed in 1929 that work began on a new road scheme in the area

© Historic England Archive