51°31′30″N0°16′16″W / 51.525°N 0.271°W /51.525; -0.271
Western Avenue is part of theA40, a major road running in a north-westerly direction out of London. Western Avenue is approximately 10 miles (16 km) long from its junction with Old Oak Common Lane inEast Acton.
A notable landmark on Western Avenue atPerivale, near Greenford, is theArt DecoHoover Building,[1] now aTesco supermarket and 66 homes.[2]
The road was first proposed in 1912 as a bypass of Uxbridge Road, part of the historic coaching road from London to Oxford. Construction began in 1921 and continued throughout the 1920s and 30s. It was completed to Denham in 1943.[3] When first constructed, allintersections with other roads were flat junctions withroundabouts, resulting in significantcongestion atbusy periods.
In the early 1960s, the Hanger Lane junction was improved, with an underpass built to take Western Avenue under the A406.[4] Then, during the 1980s and early 1990s, the road was expanded, and all the junctions west of Hanger Lane were improved. Aflyover was built at the Greenford Roundabout to take Western Avenue over the A4127; the other junctions take Western Avenue under the crossing road.
The last junction to be improved was Hillingdon Circus. Here, the work diverted Western Avenue to the north of the old line of the road, taking it under both the A437 and theUxbridge branch of theMetropolitan line;Hillingdon London Underground Station was rebuilt as part of the work.
Further expansion plans in the late 1990s resulted in the demolition of more than 100 houses along the eastern part of the road. However, these plans were ultimately never realised.
Originally a roundabout, Western Circus[5] became known as Savoy Circus, when the Savoy cinema opened at the junction in 1931.[6] East of this point is theWestway, part of the A40 Central London link toPaddington. After Savoy Circus, the dual carriageway takes a bend towardsNorth Acton, crossing theNorth London line and theGreat Western Main Line. The first major junction isGypsy Corner (with the A4000, 0.8 miles (1.3 km)), connecting northwards toPark Royal andHarlesden and southwards toActon town centre. Starting with theHanger Lane Gyratory System (with theA406 andA4005, 2 miles (3.2 km)); this is followed by a junction with the (B452) atPerivale (4 miles (6.4 km)), connecting southwards toWest Ealing and theRiver Thames atKew Bridge; theGreenford Roundabout (with the A4127, 5 miles (8.0 km)), connecting northwards toHarrow and southwards toSouthall; the Target Roundabout (with theA312, 6.5 miles (10.5 km)), a junction forHeathrow Airport; and thePolish War Memorial junction (with the A4180, 7.5 miles (12.1 km)) forRAF Northolt.
In the final few miles of the road, there are minor junctions with the A437 (Hillingdon Circus) toRuislip andHillingdon, and with the B467 (Swakeleys Roundabout) toUxbridge, before the road ends at the junction with theM40 at theDenham Roundabout, northwest of Uxbridge.
Western Avenue bordersRAF Northolt inSouth Ruislip. On Tuesday 13 August 1996, in a very unusual accident, aLear Jet landing at the airfield overshot therunway and ended up crashing into a van that just happened to be passing on the A40. The van driver was not seriously injured, despite being trapped for 40 minutes. It was later determined that the crash may have been caused when the Spanish pilot and co-pilot were having a disagreement over who should handle the landing. There was only one passenger on the Lear Jet, an actress named Lisa Hogan, who was slightly injured.[7]
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