EAW021557 ENGLAND (1949). Houses along Old Marsh Lane before the construction of the M4, Dorney Reach, from the north-east, 1949. This image was marked by Aerofilms Ltd for photo editing.

The first British motorway was the Preston By-Pass which was opened in December 1958. I would have thought that it was unlikely that government would have invested money in a bridge for a motorway many years before it opened. This might be worthy of further investigation.

It is true that a start was made on a river crossing at this point many years before the M4 was actually completed. The Royal Windsor Website reports that ‘In 1938 a start had been made on a new Thames crossing near the present M4 bridge at Bray but the Second World War caused the project to be abandoned.’ This is a valuable visual record of just how far they had progressed before the war brought the project to a halt. See http://www.thamesweb.co.uk/windsor/windsorbridges/winbridge.html

It is true that a start was made on a river crossing at this point many years before the M4 was actually completed. The Royal Windsor Website reports that ‘In 1938 a start had been made on a new Thames crossing near the present M4 bridge at Bray but the Second World War caused the project to be abandoned.’ This is a valuable visual record of just how far they had progressed before the war brought the project to a halt. See http://www.thamesweb.co.uk/windsor/windsorbridges/winbridge.html