What has happened to Oakmount Road in Chandler’s Ford? It was closed for a week recently while a number of random strips of tarmac have been pasted in the roadway.
In some places they look quite reasonable – uniform straight lines, joined at right-angles:
But some start and stop for no apparent reason – and look as if the tar layer spent a bit too long in the pub at lunchtime.
Maybe it is an enactment of The Rolling English Road.
The Rolling English Road
Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,
The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.
A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire,
And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire;
A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread
The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.I knew no harm of Bonaparte and plenty of the Squire,
And for to fight the Frenchman I did not much desire;
But I did bash their baggonets because they came arrayed
To straighten out the crooked road an English drunkard made,
Where you and I went down the lane with ale-mugs in our hands,
The night we went to Glastonbury by way of Goodwin Sands.His sins they were forgiven him; or why do flowers run
Behind him; and the hedges all strengthening in the sun?
The wild thing went from left to right and knew not which was which,
But the wild rose was above him when they found him in the ditch.
God pardon us, nor harden us; we did not see so clear
The night we went to Bannockburn by way of Brighton Pier.My friends, we will not go again or ape an ancient rage,
Or stretch the folly of our youth to be the shame of age,
But walk with clearer eyes and ears this path that wandereth,
And see undrugged in evening light the decent inn of death;
For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen,
Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.The Rolling English Road, by G K Chesterton
This one looks like a poor attempt to replicate the British Rail logo:
And the Leigh Road end is a complete mess.
What is it all about? Is it a modern art installation? Is it a new (and yet to be understood) traffic calming measure? Or just someone having a laugh? I think we should be told.
The Rolling English Road by G K Chesterton (read by Tom O’Bedlam)
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Are you sure Top Gear have not been filming there and burning rubber?
My advice is to try to follow the white lines, not the others!
Liked the poem.
There was a great sequence in the 1967 film of ‘Far from the Madding Crown’ of a drunk carter trying to follow a rolling road. Luckily the horse knows the way.
I remember the poem from Year 9 (3rd form in old money) English classes. It does seem to be a very odd arrangement of tarmac.
Eastleigh Borough Council has just replied via Tweeter. Excellent response time.
Two more tweets came from Eastleigh Borough Council and Hampshire County Council this morning regarding the distinct and baffling tarmac strips on Oakmount Road and Leigh Road.
More tweet from Hampshire County Council this evening:
Thank you Chippy Minton for highlighting the perplexing tarmac art in Chandler’s Ford and Eastleigh.
I think these tweets from EBC and HCC are helpful. Blog post inspirations are everywhere, even when you’re walking and counting tarmac strips on the ground. Are you now an official tarmac strip spotter?
I think my suggestions are far better than the proper explanation!
If you start a series called “What has happened to…?”, it will become a hit. Come on, Chippy.
I think there’s a danger that that would become a general moan about the old days. Nostalgia is never as good as it used to be 🙂