Memories of start of one-way traffic system in Watford

Serious proposals and plans that would dramatically transform the town were drawn up in 1956 and six years later the Central Redevelopment Scheme started.

Writing in Vol. 3 of Watford in the 20th Century, our late assistant editor Oliver Phillips said: “One weekend in the spring of 1962 a number of barricades, railway sleepers and painted oil drums (that rusted steadily over the years) appeared on the streets – the barriers looking as if they were ‘protecting us from unexploded bombs’, as one resident observed.

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“There was ‘no parking in central Watford as the town became a maze of one-way streets’.

“So began the eight-month trial ‘which, if successful, means that no vehicle will ever again travel the length of the High Street’.

Pedestrians cross Exchange Road at its junction with Market Street (Image: Watford Observer)

“There was a ban on traffic between Market Street and Clarendon Road.

“Coming up the High Street, you journeyed left into Market Street and then right into the newly-built Exchange Road, into Upton Road, turned right (or left) into the High Street opposite what was Clements, left into Clarendon Road, right into Beechen Grove and right into Water Lane.”

A Sketchley cleaners' van turns left into Vicarage Road by the subway (Image: Watford Observer)

These pictures from our archive were taken in October 1966 and show some of the ‘barricades’ alongside the carriageway as motorists use the one-system in Exchange Road.