Secrets of The Motorway - M32 

This channel probably wins the RU-vid award for “shouldn’t be entertaining or remotely interesting but absolutely is”

7:13 Made my heart drop, the graffiti on the house in the background is DJ Derek. I lived and worked in a pub in the centre of Bristol for a number of years and DJ Derek was a regular of mine. Lovely, lovely man. I had moved away from Bristol a few months earlier and heard about him being missing in the news. RIP Derek. Had so many good chats with him, it's great to see Bristol remembering him the way he deserved.

I went to Bristol last week and was able to bore everyone on the National Express with the facts I learnt from this episode. Well timed..

Give this man a TV series!

Many of the children from Dower House went on to be politicians on Bristol City Council's transport committee. 🙂

"Before shitting you out not quite in the middle of Bristol" 😂 im dead 😂😂

Maybe I’m biased being Bristol based, but I felt this is one of the best videos you’ve done. I found it really interesting to hear the history of it and the humour around the councils was so accurate!

He actually did the M32, the mad lad. We don't talk about the Metrobus. We should have had a proper tram system instead :( Also I noticed the scortched grass by the Dower House is still there - someone thought it would be a REALLY good idea to have a BBQ on the dry grass in the crazy high summer heat. Dumb bastards.

Sunday wouldn't be Sunday without another exciting episode of Auto Shenanigans 😁

Without doubt, the progression of this series is now easily (what use to be) terrestrial T.V standard and represents why I choose my 'channel' watching on RU-vid. My actual T.V has sat in the corner, not switched on, for over a year and is now a dark flat paperweight. Boy am glad TV's got thinner and easier to push into forgotten corners.

I love Brizzle, but I hate the M32. Half assed doesn’t begin to describe it. It doesn’t have many junctions, but somehow they managed to put them as close together as possible in two groups. Also, that odd layout at the very end of the motorway/A4032 only dates from the mid 00s. Originally the route ended at a traffic light controlled T-junction on the A4044 roughly where the Superdry store is in the Cabot Circus shopping mall. The entire road was rerouted when the shopping mall was built to create extra space for the facility. While it was chaotic during its construction, it has actually improved the traffic flow in the area.

"The weed and graffiti capital of England" Did you get sorted? "It runs for a total of 4 1/2 miles, before SH*TTING you out not quite in the centre of Bristol" John I just adore your eloquence, pmsl 🤣🤣🤣

Junction 1 was a roundabout in the early 90s, only became a teardrop in the late 90’s

"The weed and graffiti capital of England" It's nice to get some recognition for all our hard work

This channel makes me feel proud to be British. Taking one of our most mundane things and making it genuinely interesting without any smirk of irony or judgement. Brilliant channel!

This is my one of my favourite channels on RU-vid doesn't dance around words I love it

I'm glad that being mentally defective means I try to learn new things every day and further my knowledge with great RU-vid channels and content such as this one

The second viaduct in your film was not part of the Clifton extension railway but part of the old LMS route to Bath green park and then on to the S&D.

That’s a lovely looking HAA battery. More please!

Worth a like for the Neighbours theme alone

The large Tesco by Junction 2 is on the sight of Bristol Rovers old ground Eastville, the car park of the said Tesco used to have a floodlight pylon still in its corner for many years after its demolition and was a focal point from the carriage ways.

Really good research as a Bristolian I tip my hat to you. Also as an editor on countyasylums I can say you covered the mental defectives angle really well. One thing you did miss maybe was the site of the old football ground (now ikea) and the river froome that runs by it - when levels rise it’s diverted through the northern storm water drain - you can see the sluice gates on the left hand side before J2 if heading out on M32. One of the biggest and longest drains in country and helps keep Bristol flood free since 1960s (mostly….)

The M32 also affected railways. When it was being built, it was on the listings as 'Parkway'. They created an out of the city station to get the workers to work. They called it "Bristol Parkway". Now, most out of town stations on the network that have large car parks are called Parkway Stations. (Didcot, Tiverton, etc...)

Bus priority at signalled junctions (I assume that's what he was referring to with buses "making a nuisance of themselves" lol) is great! Very effective and actually quite simple in practice. There's so much more going on behind the scenes at signalled junctions than people would ever realise. Would be interesting to see how Bristol have set theirs up as you can opt for varying levels of damage depending on how much you want to prioritise buses. Stuff like bus-specific infrastructure (eg the bus-only junction) is the most effective but massively expensive by comparison.

Used to see/hear that road everyday as a kid before moving to Australia. The only time you didn't hear it was when Concorde (built about 3 miles away from the M32, not too far away from the Dower House) was on a test flight and drowned it out! The 5 bucks is a bribe to never use the instrumental Neighbours theme again! Love yer work!

That's when good neighbours, become good friends.

The inner ring (circuit) road was notable for including a dual carriageway section straight through the middle of Queen Square leaving a statue marooned in the central reservation. Hard to believe when you see that area today.

As a pensioner resident of Bradley Stoke the arrival of the Metrobus was a boon. The junction that is “not a junction” was used accidentally by my other half and she is one of those caught by the camera - luckily, it was right at the beginning of this system so she just got a “slap on the wrist”. It is still quite easy to take this slip road by accident thinking it was Junction 1 since apart from signage it really looks like a normal junction.

"that was all ignored, and they cracked on with it"...absolutely brilliant!

The house was built in 1553 by Sir Richard Berkeley. Rebuilt by Norborne Berkeley, 4th Baron Botetourt circa 1760, it eventually became used as a dower house by the dukes of Beaufort at nearby Badminton House. This included Charles Somerset, 4th Duke of Beaufort (the son of Henry Somerset, 2nd Duke of Beaufort) and wife Elizabeth Somerset, Duchess of Beaufort whose daughter's obelisk can be found to this date on the hill she died on from falling off a horse. Dower House is rumoured to be haunted by the ghost of a girl named Elizabeth Somerset, who died in 1760 from injuries sustained after tumbling from her horse. Many visitors have claimed that they have heard galloping hooves as they travel through - although horses haven't been on the grounds for years. Steve England, a conservation educator and RHS horticulturist, states that “I’ve heard the sound of thumping hooves behind me on numerous occasions, once so vividly I jumped out of the way, but there was nothing there." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dower_House,_Stoke_Park

What the hell... I think you could read your shopping list and make it entertaining. You've turned the most unpromising of subject matter into must watch entertainment. Who knew our motorway network has so many fascinating hidden secrets. Great work guys.

Great video - informative, snappy, harsh on grade one soil. Thank you!

The "Grundy" at the end, is simply the cherry on the cake!

I seem to remeber the M32/M4 being a full roundabout in the 80s, can't remeber when they changed it but it might have been as late as early 90s

Another motorway I use! Once a year to go to a Tug of War competition down near Bristol airport. After 200 miles from the east coast those few miles of the M32 go a bit unnoticed, and then it just fizzles out and you're trying to decide which lane to get in to find the airport. I normally get it wrong.

Funny as ever John...how anyone can make a laugh on a motorway is a legend

Here we go again! Another motorway used quite extensively back in the mid noughties when working in Bristol rationalising and reorganising property/accommodation for the company I worked for. Always wondered about the ‘house’ (Dower) overlooking the motorway near J2 - thought the owner might have been a tad miffed at a motorway being built in his front garden … maybe even becoming mentally defective - and deciding to downsize into a very reasonably priced 3 bed terrace house in Napier Road … to get away from it all …

Thanks for finally covering this stretch that I have to find a way of traversing over (or under at junction 2) almost every day. The route cuts large parts of the city in half as efficiently as a giant wall, and underpasses or pedestrian bridges are all too infrequent. Bonus fun fact: Purdown tower is also known to us Bristolians as the UFO spaceport. You missed the fact it also runs over the River Frome for quite a long distance.

We have a similar guided bus system that serves Cambridge that some wag renamed the misguided busway! I love your delivery style. Just wonderful. Your humour is not dry, its arid!

Haha Grundy... now there is a name from the past. In the early 90's, as a tape op, I used to see that logo every day at the end of transmitting episodes of Neighbours on BBC1. The main thing I recall about those Grundy re-editted neighbours tapes was that the tech standards were always all over the place... so on the whole I think you might be doing yourself down! Your video was fascinating as always. Every week I look forward to seeing the next installment.

That outro was a cinematic masterpiece

Thanks for another wonderful video. Regular user of the M32 over the last 20 years. Often wondered what that big building on the hill was.

The roundabout at the M4 was still there for a long time after opening, it was made into a tear-drop in the 90s/00s when the lights were added to aid flow off the M4.

these video's make me want to finally fix my traffic problems in cities skylines. Honestly a brilliant way to showcase these otherwise mundane series of automobile infrastructures. Greetings from the netherlands!

very interesting, my grand parents lived in napier road in eastville and i remember them knocking down the houses up the road, also the only compensation my nan got was double glazing to keep the noise out of the m32 only yards away, both my grand parent were nurses at the hospital and it may have been a grim place, i did go there for xmas parties in the mid 60's. the aa guns on purdown hill were called purdown percy and the houses shook when they fired.

You didn't mention that the name Parkway Comes from Bristol Parkway however it was called that not because it was a park and ride station, but because the first section of the M32 was called The Parkway because it went through park land and they name just stuck. Also surprised you didn't mention the River Frome and the Stormwater Interceptor.

Your content is fast paced, informative, humorous and interesting to people who probably dont normally care about this stuff. 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👌👌👌👌👌

Auto Shenanigans: The gift that keeps on giving.

0:38Has to be the best phrase I've heard yet in this series 😻

Thank you for describing the dystopian graffiti covered motorway approach to the City of Bristol. The road and town “planners” have succeeded is destroying this and many other parts of Bristol and its surrounding countryside where Hitler failed.

1:12-1:20 The old part of the M4 Junc 19 roundabout only got removed a few years ago, and has only been a teardrop junction for about a decade. I remember it used to be s full roundabout but during the early-mid 2010s they took out the extra bits and made it the teardrop junction it is today.

Pudown Tower. You needed a B&W photo when it was covered in microwave dishes to give it justice. Just past J2 used to be the home to Bristol Rovers where my dad would drag my in the early 70's. Now IKEA. Whilst the gasworks have gone, (Rover's fans weren't gasheads for nothing, the 6 high pressure gas bullets are still there. And did you notice the barbed wire fencing on the bridge (Heath House Lane). Believe it was installed to stop mentally unstable locals jumping onto the M32 and coming through your windscreen. At 8m44s, you get it all wrong. The outer circuit road you then call the outer ring road, doesn't help the scales fo your maps change. Well the outer on the B&W map was built as the A4074(R). I remember being taken there for a school trip to watch the tractors in the early 70's,. What a trip! 🙂They have recently added to it since in a fashion, and you can get all the way around to the A370. Still laughed and learnt some stuff I didn't know. I know it is 2022, but along the lane that passes over the M32 with the barbed wire fence... there is a building on Google Maps titlted, Bristol North Learnnig Difficulties Team. Maybe the fence is still needed. And don't mention the Metrobus to people who still live there. Could have mentioned Noel Edmunds used to drive a black cab in the bus lanes with a mannequin called Candice in the back to get to work on time - untol he got caught.

Great bit of Grundy at the end there.

Great video John , no F*&KING WASPS this week lol . Keep up the fantastic content

You certainly found a lot of interesting content to make up for the lack of length of the motorway! Perhaps one day, you'll do the madness of Birmingham's little motorway spur: the A38(M) - trenches, viaducts, pasta and a now disused vinegar pipeline - plus the continuation of the madness as the A38(not M) weaves its way through and under the city before dumping you unceremoniously at a giant traffic light crossroads on the Southern edge of the centre.

Your timing is incredible me and my family was just talking about that stretch of road on Sunday. I love the "if you didn't like you kids back then, you could just fuck'um away!"

M4 Junction 19 used to have a full roundabout until surprising recently I think. I couldn't say exactly when, but I remember it being there maybe around 2010. Don't quote me on that though. I was born in '99 so it has only definitely changed in the last 20 years.

I know this grotty little motorway well as have a friend who lives barely a mile off jct 1. Hardly the most pleasant introduction to what is a fine city..

That bus junction has ZERO signage. I’ve been caught by it. Now they send you a warning but if you do it again they slap you with a fine. But the thing is, if you take the wrong exit at the previous roundabout (which is common because it seems everyone in Bristol got their license in a McDonald’s happy meal) you instinctively take that exit to come back since the next one is literally miles away.

3:07 *PLEASE GOD, NOT THE SOIL. TAKE ANYTHING BUT MY PRECIOUS GRADE 1 SOIL!* 😭😭😭😭

I always wish these were longer & went into even more detail. I’m like, wait wait what!!??

Missed that in the drone shots around 4:32 you can see there is plenty of burnt vegetation. This was done thanks to a group of numpties leaving a disposable BBQ to burn away whilst the country was in the grips of a drought. Genius.

Ikea, Home of Bristol Speedway. My Grandfather used to race his motorcycle there. Also the average speedcheck from Fishponds into town, the highest profit speed cameras in the country.

I think you do very well to be heard above the traffic noise 👍

In the old days, you were able to watch league footy from the motorway at junction 2. Sadly the Eastville Stadium (former home of Bristol Rovers) is now an IKEA. Also, if you're travelling northbound at junction 1, you can see an American football field to your left. This is the home of the UWE Bullets, who won the national championship earlier this year.

3:05. That was a genuine “fuck off” 😂😂😂

Great video. This inner ring road caused the demolition a suburb called Totterdown. It was a close knit community and to add insult to injury the ring road was never built just leaving a short section of duel carriageway along the A4.

Bloody criminal seeing that brick viaduct being blown up 💥🤯🥺🧱👍🏼

Thank you for this episode. I especially enjoyed seeing those graffiti images at Purdowns Camp, where it looked like they had enough time to paint some good portraits. I also had a feeling that your style of presenting this series of motorway shenanigans can be comparable to The Tim Traveller's way of presenting his videos, only with a more gritty feeling to it, which fits well in with the subject of motorway oddities. Nice work. Thank you again for giving us this sense of being there with you.

Love this video John, great work!

That's when good neighbours become good friends

Cheers John, some classic script this week - bravo

Hey 'My name is John' (I've salutated that so much, I just gotta keep it going lol) hands down, I think this is one of your finest works to date! Seriously, the legwork and research alone deserves some sort of YT Channel Of The Year award. Loved the witty humour (grade-A soil 🤣) tinged with a double-edged tounge-lashing of how society treated mental illnesses back in the day, local authority ANPR shenanigans, war stuff, bus routes - yo, my parsnips were well and truly buttered! And all this in a 3.5 junction motorway! Had to comment even before the outro finished, so going back in to complete. Keep up the good work fellas 👍🏿

Some minor points/corrections re: the bus junction: 1. The m3x "M32 express route" you've highlighted on the map is not the one that uses the junction. This joins at J1 and goes all the way into the centre of Bristol. The bus-only junction is actually called "Begbrook", and is used by the m1 and m3 bus routes, as shown on the map. 2. Contrary to a lot of the naysayers, it has actually made a significant difference. Before the Metrobus system, a bus ride in to the centre of Bristol from my house was a minimum of 55 minutes, and that's both (a) off-peak, and (b) assuming that the bus actually sticks to the timetable. With Metrobus, an off-peak journey is now typically 25 minutes. An hour saving for a return journey. 3. The opposition to the junction was not just down to "a few smallholders". If you look at the layout at 3:00, you can see that the slip roads for the junction start underneath Stoke Lane, then curve over the motorway on a huge bridge, only to end up coming out on to Stoke Lane itself. A much better design would have been to start the junction a few hundred metres further South, and have the slip roads just come up to T-junctions on Stoke Lane. After all, the junction is only used by a few tens of buses every hour (at most), so a simple T-junction (perhaps with bus-activated lights) would suffice. This would have resulted in a much simpler and cheaper junction, and a vastly smaller land footprint. However, the problem was that, South of Stoke Lane, Bristol City Council doesn't own the land either side of the M32, so it would have to go through the Compulsory Purchase Order process which might have delayed the project if the landowner objected. North of Stoke Lane were the allotments which Bristol City Council /did/ own. Therefore, rather than going through the CPO process to procure a small amount of land, they shafted a load of allotment holders to take a much larger amount of land and build a much more expensive junction. 4. Another reason for controversy over the bus junction was that there were also talks of a Park&Ride. If implemented at the bus junction, this would naturally end up taking over all of the rest of the allotment site for car parking. There was a lot of push for the bus access point to be built close to J1 instead, where it would be easier to find land for the P&R.

Nice one John. I've been down the M32 a few times recently, on my way to St Phillips Marsh train maintenance depot for work. It always seems to coincide with rail closures from Shrewsbury so I don't get to arrive by train.

Nice one, a lot of detail for such a short motorway. I had alays wondered what Dower House was all about, such a prominent building when leaving Bristol. You hva answered the question thanks

Your best one yet, nearly spat my lunch out twice over the hospital comments “different times” 😂😂

I loved the title card intro a la Route 66. Brilliant.

There was a hot minute, just after you'd started diving into these shorter motorways, where I can't have been the only one worried that there just wouldn't be as much to say. Yet you're cramming even more highly entertaining information in - certainly I am enjoying these videos even more although whether that's a product of the content, the razor sharp, shrink wrapped script and video editing or your sense of humour really getting into a groove, I can't tell. Regardless, this is almost as impressive as your refusal to drive north and do Scotland. The place names are easier here, what's stopping you?!

Here's me thinking how are these large trees growing out of a viaduct made from bricks? The soil must be only 4 inches at best.. Bravo on another gem @Auto Shenanigans 🤩

Best one yet but I am a biased Bristolian who is old enough to have used that now blocked section of the roundabout!!

Fab video as always John and I howled with the Neighbours outro and the Grundy logo 🤣 I grew up watching Neighbours ❤

Welcome to the city I call home, it's gert lush.

Avoid watching this channel while drinking tea

By the way, how did you get hold of that old footage? Well done John. Yes you are a star, keep gunning for it

Fun fact. The bus junction on the M32 is too narrow for gritters. So when it iced up in winter, gritters couldn't spread and so the buses couldn't use it. Whole metrobus system is an absolute joke.

5:50 Purdown Tower is known loccaly as "The Cups and Saucers"

Great nod to Neighbours such a travesty it ended ❤

hi john l always found your episodes informative and fun to watch 🙂

Always wondered what that yellow house was on the hill on the way back from Ikea. Now I know, cheers John. :)

They lowered the speed limit on the Eastville flyover to 40mph because it’s not structurally sound, the perils of having something built by the lowest bidder. The motorway had been finished for at least 20 years before they changed the layout of junction 1, I think it was to speed up traffic joining the M4

Great video as usual, but we should think more about the soil: it grows our food and they’re not making more very fast.

How times have changed Mentaly Defective Children.... Ah a guided bus way, Edinburgh tried that and that failed, so much so the trams now use it, another fantastic video mate as always.

4:00 ... and Bristol Council are still at it, entrapping motorists with poor signage, check out the Brisligton Park and Ride entrance. The sign for it points at a 90 degree angle for the motorist, and once you've seen it you're already trapped into the bus lane. Of course, the road is clearly marked, right before the traffic lights, and nothing ever covers up the road just in front of traffic lights does it. Very anti-car council.

Great video - reminds me of my days using the M32 as a student at UWE Bristol.

Will watch this weeks episode, once back from my existing visit to asda 🤔

Thanks for the deluge of interesting information!

It shits you out into the centre right where all the road works ever dreamed of are happening I was down there last week

My hometown.. fantastic once again John 👍

Great video as always, I look forward to them all! Keep up the great work:)