From giant gyratories to miniscule mini-islands, there’s more to roundabouts than meets the eye, writes Ben Bentley.

They drive us round the bend and make our offside tyres as bald as Kojak’s pate.

What is there to love about traffic islands?

Well, there must be something because the British road traffic island is 100 years old and is still going strong – particularly in parts of Shropshire. If half the world’s roundabouts are in France, then the other half must be in Telford.

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One hundred years ago, of course, the traffic island was a different story. When the first British roundabout was built in Letchworth Garden City in 1909, white van man would have been dashing around it in a horse and cart.

But things change, and so do roundabouts. As I discover on my circular voyage of discovery, island-hopping around the town, today they are sites for works of art and havens for flora and fauna. Parks have been built on them. Makeshift football pitches even. And people have lived on them, disproving at a stroke that no man is an island.

I’m watching the world go round by standing in the middle of the Ketley Brook roundabout. Accessed by an underpass, it is the calm at the centre of a motoring storm as the air of tranquility is pierced by the sound of car horns around me.

Lined by trees and plants and berry bushes, there’s every reason to believe you could survive here. Indeed there is evidence of human life, in the form of burnt grass and, nearby, a pair of rather charred knickers.

With increased levels of traffic have come modifications to help the hapless motorist negotiate the common island. Lights have been fitted on many – including, controversially, here at Ketley Brook and at Emstrey in Shrewsbury.

Kevin Beresford, president of the Roundabout Appreciation Society, is also driven to distraction by them.

“The one thing that infuriates committee members of the UK Roundabout Appreciation Society are those blinking traffic lights,” he says. “Surely there is just no need for them.

“A roundabout filters traffic perfectly well without those tedious things holding you up. Although it has to be stated they do allow you a longer, loving look as you drift slowly around your glorious gyratory.”

And then there is the island you don’t even know you’ve visited until you’ve probably caused a road traffic offence.

All hail the mini-roundabout, the one that looks like a blob of paint on the road that no one actually drives around but goes straight over. It is, I conclude, wholly appropriate that the painted mini traffic island has become known as the PMT.

“One thing that winds our committee up, are people driving over PMTs,” says Kevin. “They should be observed and navigated accordingly.”

Near the Beveley Road junction with Holyhead Road in Ketley I watch as an average of one out of every five drivers goes straight over the painted pimple or, worse still, goes round it the wrong way, continental style.

Further on, the Greyhound Roundabout is island paradise. While cars zoom around it, the woodland within it provides the perfect habitat for birds and an abandoned shopping trolley.

Trench Lock is a monster and, in an ornamental arrangement of rocks, even appears to have its own mini Stonehenge, while high trees provide a meeting point for magpies – Telford branch.

Islands do, of course, provide prime advertising space. Passed by endless streams of circling motorists, they are used to sell everything from coffins to air-con units.

Passers-by prone to influence here are encouraged to buy workwear. Those positioned near entrances to hospitals are prone to being sponsored by legal eagles touting for business by putting up little signs on them, asking: “Had an accident recently?”

Trench Lock is a reminder that roundabouts are not all round. Teardrops, oval, square and egg are just some islands that send us tootling around in fancy shapes.

This one is more magic roundabout, judging by some of the driving on display.

The perfectly formed rail freight island at Hortonwood is another wildlife heaven, while Garrison Roundabout is a landmark for its twin cannons.

Off Wrekin Drive in Donnington is a roundabout that is also a walled monumental garden with benches and a tribute to the fallen in the Great War.

Perhaps motorists can judge an island on its sponsor. Priorslee Roundabout is sponsored by M&S. With its pretty flower beds and manicured grass, this isn’t just a roundabout – it’s an M&S roundabout.

So yes, there’s plenty to like about roundabouts. Kevin Beresford, aka ‘Lord of the Rings’, says one of his favourite ’bouts is in Shropshire and gets pride of place in the organisation’s book Roundabouts of Great Britain.

“The very first picture in that book is one of my all time favourites, a delightful gyratory from Ironbridge.

“The ’bout is made up of beautiful brick work, wrought iron and a towering tree, a cracking combination representing a town that heralded the Industrial Revolution.

“The one thing that makes traffic islands great are their infinite variety. They are so expressive, you can put anything on a roundabout – statues, sculptures, laser shows, cinemas, gardens in full bloom, you name it.”

“I’m sure if Andy Warhol was still alive we would see giant soup cans adorning our islands.”

At Telford’s Forge Retail Park I find a roundabout with a sense of humour. Passing motorists concentrating on the road ahead may not have even noticed, but it features giant metal sculptures of a three-pin plug, a carrot, the key to a sardine tin, an armchair and, as chance would have it, some great big cans of food.

Andy Warhol might be dead, but at this Telford road junction his memory is very much alive. In a roundabout kind of way.