Avoiding Steep Hills where possible

A recent Twitter post by Paul Whitewick about an early road atlas reminded me that on my map shelf (What? Don't you have one?) are some AA "prepared routes" made for my parents in the early 1960s.

AA Prepared Route Maps

While not as old as the one Paul's looking at they do provide a reminder of road travel in a time before sat-nav, largely before motorways, and when the performance of cars required careful route planning to help ensure a trouble-free journey.

The earliest from 1960 goes from Kingston-upon-Thames to Sidmouth in Devon, a journey of 158¼ miles according to the front cover, Google maps suggests 154 miles today. A year later they were off to another favourite holiday haunt, Hayle in Cornwall - probably to join Mum's parents who rarely went elsewhere - a much longer 267¼ miles. Although the AA route starts at Harrow & Wealdstone Station and they lived at Heston so you can knock about 7 miles off that.

This route has on the cover the endorsement "(Avoiding Steep Hills where possible)". This isn't some thing that we often need to think about now with most modern cars having ample power to tackle any hill in this country excepting the few exceptional steep mountain passes.

It was a factor in 1961 however, particularly if your "sports car" only had a 328cc motorcycle engine (and only three wheels). Failure to plan ahead might result in your passenger having to get out and carry the suitcases!

Having said which the photo here was taken in Wales where nothing is flat except sometimes the beer.
The prepared route maps are a little odd to look at at first.

 The list of instructions on the left of the page run from top to bottom.

The strip map on the right of the page runs from bottom to top so that you are looking at the map in the direction of travel, which is logical once you've thought about it but a little confusing at first.

A North-pointing arrow is included in the map for orientation purposes and at the top of the page a brief description of the terrain through which you;ll be travelling is given.

The return trip is printed on the reverse of the pages so when you want to come home you simply open the booklet at the back cover and follow the instructions and maps as you did on the outward trip.

For 1963 the destination was Skegness, the Berkeley had been replaced by a Ford Popular 100E and the passenger count was increased by one. For 1965 it was Skeggy again though by then an Austin A35 Countryman (like Wallace and Gromit's van but with side windows) had replaced the Ford. Steep hills were less of a concern and something else had appeared on the maps.

Section Mill Hill to Baldock

North of Hatfield was  Welwyn "The Clock" Motorway Terminal. The southern end of the A1(M) motorway section between Welwyn and Stevenage had opened in 1962. (This is now Junctions 6 to 8.)

If you didn't fancy driving on this new-fangled invention a footnote gave an alternative:

"If all purpose roads are preferred take 3rd exit B197 & proceed via Knebworth, Broadwater & Stevenage where bear rt to rejoin old road at Graveley".

I like the distinction between Motorways and "all purpose roads". If you had been letting rip on the new motorway, which you might well have been doing given that until just before Christmas 1965 there was no speed limit, you are cautioned in the route notes to "watch your speed" on rejoining the A1 at Graveley. Even if the 70mph limit had been in force I'm not sure either of Dad's cars could have broken it though I'm sure he'd have tried to find out 😀



Images: Route to Hayle and route to Sidmouth:

Scans of the outward trips to Hayle and to Sidmouth, 1960 and 1961.

If you wanted to try and follow the 1961 route to Hayle and back avoiding steep hills where possible (and once the COVID-19 lockdown has been lifted obviously) there's a PDF of the document here although I rather think 59 years of changes in the road system might turn that into a bigger challenge than the original trip regardless of how many cc your car's engine has 😃