Building the M25 Gade Valley Viaduct, Kings Langley c1984

This striking mid-1980s view shows the M25’s Gade Valley Viaduct under construction at Kings Langley, with the unfinished concrete support piers rising above the roadside and a blue Vauxhall Chevette passing in the foreground. The scene captures a moment when one of the most ambitious road projects in modern Britain was still visibly taking shape, the raw concrete columns, crane jib and rough roadside verges giving the area a temporary, work-in-progress character very different from the finished motorway landscape that followed. The Chevette adds a useful period anchor, its compact hatchback shape and 1970s styling contrasting with the monumental civil engineering behind it. More than a simple roadworks photograph, the image records a rare stage in the building of the M25, when ordinary local traffic was still moving past the huge new structures that would soon carry London’s outer orbital motorway across the valley.