just behind the camera there is Swindon's famous
magic roundabout now the concept of how the magic roundabout works is a fascination in itself
but what we're here to do today is tell you about what was on the exact
spot over 200 years ago the exact exact spot the dead centre of Swindon's magic roundabout
now i'm going to tell the lovely viewers all about that in that hedge just over there
something else this video is sponsored by the kind people at blinkist
which is quite epic so um we'll tell you about that in a little while
you may wonder why i'm climbing through the undergrowth about half a mile east of Swindon town
centre rather than being stood next to the magic roundabout itself we'll come to at the moment
but in the first instance let's hit the roundabout head on now the roundabout itself has five feeder
roads so it soon became apparent in the 1970s that this mass junction needed a completely different
solution now as we approach the roundabout and we we pick our desired exit it soon becomes apparent
that there's more than one route I can take to get to my desired destination so this is crazy but it
feels fine it feels kind of safe it feels like all I've got to do is just obey the normal rules of
traffic i don't have to um I don't have to panic as long as i just check to my right each time i
hit a roundabout it doesn't really matter and that really is the beauty of this junction this magic
roundabout that i can avoid traffic if i see it the beauty is there's so many different routes
i can take to get from a to b roundabout itself comprises of five small roundabouts all centred
around one central roundabout so you in effect could travel clockwise on the outer circle of the
mini roundabouts or anti-clockwise if i go around the centre roundabout so that's all good but it
doesn't really fit with this channel's remit quirky transport history so for that we need to
head back to the undergrowth just down there which is about 100 yards away from the magic roundabout
so take yourself back 230 years ago before the coming of the railway at least in its
mass transit form and of course moving goods about heavy goods was the order of the day now
to do that on the roads of the time it was close to impossible because they were in such a state
for years navigable waterways and rivers have been used for moving such heavy goods
but come the late 1700s a new transportation method was sweeping the nation the canal
The Wiltshire and Berkshire canal was up and running in sections by around about 1810 and here
is one surviving remnant of that canal still stood here 211 years on just a few hundred yards from
the magic roundabout there now the wheelchair and Berkshire canal were set to form part a network of
of canals here in the south of England largely transporting goods such as agricultural goods
and of course coal now if you're local to Swindon you'll note that the old town
sits to the south of the magic roundabout looking at a few old maps the drove road
that went north there was always an important junction subsequently the wharf was placed here
so for the townsfolk of Swindon this was perfect the majority of the population
at the time were up on Swindon's old town just to the south of the canal
so to move your goods from the canal wharf up to Swindon's old town it just
meant that was the last leg of the journey and of course they did that by Swindon's drove road
so come the slow demise of the canal not least because of the coming of the railways but many
bits of the canal including the bit i was just in there in fact you can still see the the undulation
of the canal in there many parts of that we just used rubbish dumps they were just filled in
and left to waste and of course there was still a need though
for a junction at the magic roundabout because road usage was now back in play
so roll on 1972 and frank blackmore of the Roads research lab came up with an ingenious idea on
how to deal with this junction it's still used today 49 years on on the exact spot 211
years ago that this townsfolk of Swindon were given their first taste of modern transport you
could say that's full circle rebecca full circle full full circle for roundabout sir
That was terrible
i thought it was genius full circle roundabout full circle no awful awful awful awful
now tell the good people about blinkist so in a previous life do you remember we used
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to counteract that lack of time we started to use blinkist so blinkist is a tool which comes
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blinks personally I'll use my phone because it means i can listen to it while i'm on the
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okay so this is the bookmark section that you can see so we can save all our favourite blinks
and we can either read them all or listen to them later now in the context of our videos
you notice that we've done a lot of canal videos lately and my social history is pretty rubbish
so I've been looking at the biography section in particular a one on napoleon so we've been
talking about the Napoleonic wars and how they affected canal building but now I've been able
to pick up this 15-minute blink and learn all about napoleon which is fantastic because it
means i don't need to do a huge amount of reading on the subject but just haven't got time for
so where you're going to put this screen recording rebecca
yeah yeah okay so this is essentially the best sellers section now it's got loads of titles and
I'd have never considered looking at before but because they're in short blinks it's perfect for
if you're on the move or you've got a spare 15 minutes this is the courage to be disliked and
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same as what you've already lived in your past but it helps you tackle that notion and helps
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so if like us you think that they could be there i need to head back to the undergrowth
which turns out it's just a hundred yards around this corner from the magic roundabout
yeah i can't see it now because you went up