For Joan Goldsmith, everything in the garden is lovely – the water feature, her barbecue, an ornamental duck and the giant pillar that holds up one of Britain’s busiest stretches of motorway.
Every day, thousands of people travel along the M4 that stretches from west London to south west Wales.
Perhaps many of us will just trundle along the motorway to get to wherever we need to be without giving the road much thought.
Mother-of-four Joan lives in Port Talbot, South Wales, where a 45ft high fly-over on the M4 goes right above her back garden.
Joan, in her sixties, said: ‘I call it my canopy, I’ve got used to it over the years. It’s not ugly, it’s just part of the garden.
‘It’s also great for drying clothes on the washing line because if it comes on to rain they don’t get wet.’
Retired social services worker Joan bought the end-of-terrace three-bedroomed house in Glyndwr Street 20 years ago.
She said: ‘It was a bit of a shock when I was being shown around when I bought the house and was taken into the garden.
Every day, thousands of people travel along the M4 that stretches from west London to south west Wales
Perhaps many of us will just trundle along the motorway to get to wherever we need to be without giving the road much thought
Mother-of-four Joan lives in Port Talbot, South Wales, where a 45ft high fly-over on the M4 goes right above her back garden
Retired social services worker Joan bought the end-of-terrace three-bedroomed house in Glyndwr Street 20 years ago
Three doors along the terrace is the Care family where mum Joanna has spent all her life with a concrete motorway pillar in her garden. Pictured: Joanna Care and Ritchie Care with daughter Evelyn
‘But I bought it and I love the house but I used to look out of the window at the pillar and think: ‘What a shame’.
‘But if you don’t look up it’s like a normal garden, you get used to the noise from the traffic.
‘There’s a river at the end of the garden and sometimes I can hear that more than the lorries and cars above.’
Joan is looking forward to having her grandchildren around to play in the garden in the summer, oblivious to the thousands of vehicles purring along above their heads.
She said: ‘It’s lovely here in the evenings, we can see the sun going down over the rooftops of the terrace opposite. It can be really nice and warm here under the canopy.’
In 1953, it was announced that the Port Talbot bypass would be built, which would be Wales’ first motorway and the first part of what would become the M4. It wasn’t until 1966 that the 4.5 mile-long stretch opened.
It helped cut the journey time between Swansea and Cardiff by 20 minutes, but the futuristic-looking project came at a cost to the town itself as it saw the destruction of three chapels and more than 200 houses. It was known locally as ‘the road on top of a town’.
The M4 is known locally as the road on top of a town
The huge structure divides the town of Port Talbot down the middle
Ritchie Care says the family has noticed greater pollution since the speed limit on the stretch of the M4 above their heads was reduced from 70mph to 50mph.Pictured: Ritchie Care (left), Mrs Care (right), and their four-month old daughter Evelyn (centre)
Three doors along the terrace is the Care family where mum Joanna has spent all her life with a concrete motorway pillar in her garden.
Her husband, microbiologist Ritchie Care, 41, said: ‘I used to live by the beach so it was a bit of a culture shock moving here 11 years ago.
‘Jo has been here all her life so she’s never known any different but it took me a long time to get used to the noise.’
Ritchie says the family has noticed greater pollution since the speed limit on the stretch of the M4 above their heads was reduced from 70mph to 50mph.
He said: ‘We have to wash the patio down more often and if you leave clothes on the line for too long they can get a black layer of dust on them.
‘It’s definitely got worse since they cut the speed limit.
‘But the upside is that you can hang your washing out when it’s raining and it doesn’t get wet.’
More than half of Glyndwr Street was demolished along with 200 houses and three chapels
Sixty years later motorists are oblivious to the fact they are driving over people’s gardens
More than half of Glyndwr Street was demolished along with 200 houses and three chapels when the 4.5mile overhead by-pass was built in the 1960s.
It became known locally as ‘the road on top of a town’ but sixty years later motorists are oblivious to the fact they are driving over people’s gardens.
New resident Rebecca Knight, 29, uses the giant pillar in her garden to hang her washing line from.
Rebecca, who rents one of the terraced houses under the motorway with her lorry-driver partner Aden Parker-White, 26, said: ‘We’ve been here for two years and we just got used to it.
‘We have friends around for barbecues in the summer and one of the neighbours has planted a palm tree – you could be anywhere.’
