Air Balloon (pub)

The Air Balloon is a public house and road junction at Birdlip, Gloucestershire, England. It lies on the A417 and is a significant traffic bottleneck. The pub is under threat of closure as part of traffic improvements.

The pub in 2007

Location

The pub is situated next to a roundabout junction with the A417, a major road between Swindon and Gloucester via Cirencester.[1] The A436 meets the A417 at this point; the two roads together form a de facto bypass of Cheltenham between Oxford and Gloucester.[2]

History
View of the pub from the A417

The pub opened in 1784 and is probably named after one of the first British balloon flights: the launching of a small hydrogen balloon by Edward Jenner on 2 September 1784, which flew from Berkeley Castle to Kingscote and then on to a field near Birdlip,[3][4] the year after the pioneering flights of the Montgolfier brothers' hot air balloon and Jacques Charles's hydrogen balloon in Paris.[1] It was known as the Balloon by 1796 and renamed the Air Balloon in 1802.[5] By 1856, the landlord was brewing beer on-site.[1] The premises were part of the Cowley Manor Estate until some time early in the twentieth century. The pub was bought by Greene King in 2004.[6]

Future

The pub has been under threat of demolition as it sits alongside a short section of single-carriageway road which is otherwise a high-quality route between the M4 and M5 motorways.[7][8] The junction is a notorious accident blackspot; from 1999 to 2014 there were an estimated 340 casualties.[9]

In March 2019, Highways England proposed improvements that would include demolition of the pub.[10][11] Highways England has ruled out a junction at the Air Balloon as the local geography and steep hills nearby would make it impossible to build a high-quality road meeting modern safety standards.[12] The road could not be routed anywhere else as it would cut through Barrow Wake, which is a Site of Special Scientific Interest.[13] Highways England stated that it would talk to landowners and assess the social impact of the pub's demolition in a further design stage.[14]

References

Citations

  1. Sandles 2012, p. 14.
  2. "A40". Hansard. 18 April 1996. Retrieved 27 October 2019.
  3. "Edward Jenner in Kingscote – Kingscote Online".
  4. "Air Balloon Heritage". 17 February 2019.
  5. Norris, Phil (30 March 2019). "Pub earmarked to be flattened says 'we're not going anywhere yet'". Gloucestershire Live. Retrieved 27 October 2019.
  6. "The Air Balloon Pub, Birdlip". Visit Gloucestershire. Retrieved 27 October 2019.
  7. Hughes, Janet (15 February 2018). "Landmark pub to be bulldozed for controversial new superhighway". Gloucestershire Live. Retrieved 27 October 2019.
  8. "A417 missing link". Improvements and major road projects. Highways England. Retrieved 27 October 2019.
  9. "Route chosen for accident blackspot road". BBC News. 14 March 2019. Retrieved 27 October 2019.
  10. Ross, Alex (14 March 2019). "Decided: This is the final plan to end the Air Balloon traffic nightmare in Gloucestershire". Gloucestershire Live. Retrieved 27 October 2019.
  11. "Have your say on final details for the A417 Missing Link scheme". Highway England. Retrieved 27 October 2019.
  12. A417 Missing Link 2019, p. 35.
  13. A417 Missing Link 2019, p. 36.
  14. A417 Missing Link 2019, p. 56.

Sources

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