The Magic Roundabout: a guide book entry

I wrote this in the final year of my English/Eng Lang studies at UWE when one of my literature modules was on travel writing. For my coursework portfolio I wrote, amongst other things, some stuff about Swindon: a travelogue on the West Swindon Sculpture walk, when I did it with a friend in the summer of 2014, and this guide-book entry for the Magic Roundabout. I also wrote a guide-book entry for the West Swindon sculpture walk – but it was this one that I submitted for my portfolio and for which I got a 1st. Indeed a 1st for the degree as a whole. 🙂

I’ve written about the Magic Roundabout elsewhere on this blog. However this piece is written from the viewpoint of a dispassionate observer producing something as if for a guide-book – something in the style of Fodors.  And why not? Is that such a fanciful idea? I don’t know about you but I think it’s something of a shame we don’t have such a guide-book. Or do we and I don’t know about it?

With thanks to Swindon Web for letting me use material from their website.

‘English Roundabout’ is a track from the XTC album ‘English Settlement’ published by Virgin Music (Publishers) Ltd and recorded at The Manor. Copyright © – Virgin Records Ltd. Written and composed by Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding.

The Magic Roundabout 

Dare you navigate yourself across the infamous & world-famous counter-flow ‘Magic-Roundabout’ – the ‘white-knuckle’ ride of traffic?

The Magic Roundabout

You’d be forgiven for being perplexed at the notion of a traffic roundabout being of any interest to anyone other than traffic-system aficionados. But you couldn’t be more wrong. This fabled entity is known the world over.

Created in 1972, Swindon’s Magic Roundabout was originally named the County Islands roundabout due to its location in close proximity to the town’s County Ground football stadium, home of Swindon Town FC. But the locals were not long in bestowing upon it the nickname ‘The Magic Roundabout’ after the TV programme of that name. Eventually the local authority submitted to the popular consensus and officially re-named the roundabout and gave it appropriate signage.

Swindon is famous, even infamous, for its roundabouts. But this legendary one surely has to be the jewel in the town’s roundabout crown? Situated on a junction where five roads meet, the traffic-consuming monster vexes native visitors and utterly baffles those from across the pond. For all this though Swindonians love it and generally find their passage across it to be smooth and fluid, even at peak times.

The roundabout was created by the Road Research Laboratory (RRL) to deal with an area that was a motorist’s nightmare, being routinely unable to handle the sheer volume of traffic converging on it from five directions. Like many of the best ideas their solution was stunning in its simplicity. They simply combined two roundabouts in one. The first being of the conventional clockwise type and the second, revolving inside the first, sending traffic anti-clockwise.  This counter-flow roundabout solved the congestion problems back in the 1970s and is still, despite the ensuing increase in traffic volume over the last 40 years, processing it all as quickly and as smoothly as a giant Magimix.

Traffic keeps moving almost all the time, waiting only a few seconds to join each mini-roundabout and thus steadily travelling at low speed across the junction. A normal roundabout would involve long waits to join; signals would involve bursts of movement and long enforced stoppages. As a result, it has been calculated that the Magic Roundabout has a greater throughput of traffic than anything else that it would be possible to install in the same space. Magic indeed! Moreover, it has an excellent safety record.

Although voted the seventh worst junction in the UK, the roundabout’s bark is worse than its bite. Though appearing difficult to negotiate, all it asks of the driver is to be observant and to always give priority to traffic coming from the right.

One approach to the roundabout is to drive down Drove Road from Swindon’s Old Town. If you don’t fancy manoeuvring it in a car it’s possible to stand and observe the carefully controlled mayhem from the safety of the pavement – you can even consume fish and chips from the chippy on the corner while you do.

Swindonians are very proud of their Magic Roundabout and the tourist information desk, situated in the town’s central library on Regent Circus, sells a wide range of Magic Roundabout memorabilia that runs the range from key-rings to mugs to tea-towels and even T-shirts. So, if you’ve braved this colossal contraption of a road system you can celebrate your feat of derring-do with a suitable souvenir or two.

Whether you love it, hate it or are indifferent to it one thing is for sure: visit Swindon and you can’t ignore it.  Swindon-grown band XTC effectively and poetically capture the dizzying assault on the senses this behemoth can induce in their 1981 song: ‘English Roundabout’:

‘ … all the horns go ‘beep! beep!’

All the people follow like sheep,

I’m full of light and sound,

Making my head go round, round.’

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