From: hayesstw@telkomsa.net   
      
   On Sun, 31 Aug 2025 19:20:36 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver"   
    wrote:   
      
   >(AUE/AEU removed from followups as this is OT for them.)   
   >   
   >On 2025/8/31 15:54:10, HVS wrote:   
   >> On 30 Aug 2025, Peter Moylan wrote   
   >>   
   >> -snip-   
   >>>   
   >>> The "big town" in the area is Rushworth, population a little over   
   >>> 1,000. ( went to school there for a short while. A single room,   
   >>> six grades and one teacher. We didn't have books, only slates and   
   >>> slate pencils.) It has the widest main street I've ever seen. You   
   >>> need a packed lunch to cross it. The town was founded in the gold   
   >>> rush era, and they allowed for growth. These days there's a centre   
   >>> divider with trees, separating two wide one-way streets, but I   
   >>> remember when it was just a huge expanse of road, big enough to   
   >>> contain a football oval.   
   >>>   
   >> Many prairie towns in Canada have unnaturally wide streets, which we   
   >> were told were surveyed to allow a standard farm wagon hauled by four   
   >> horses to make a U-turn in the street.   
   >>   
   >> I don't know whether that's true or a popular myth, but it seemed a   
   >> reasonable metric for laying out rural towns in the 19th and early   
   >> 20th centuries.   
   >>   
   >My grandmother's town (was really a large village not too long ago),   
   >Bedlington, has a very wide street:   
   >https://maps.app.goo.gl/Y4fsnrbHWDizKaNT7 - so wide they used to hold   
   >the annual miners' gala there (may still do if it exists). I often   
   >wondered why such a small place has such a wide main street, though I've   
   >never actually tried to find out.   
      
   It was said that when Cecil Rhodes sent his British South Africa   
   Company to conquer Mashonaland (now part of Zimbabwe) he insisted that   
   the main streets of the capital, Salisbury (now known as Harare)   
   should be wide enough to turn an ox wagon with a full team of oxen   
   (usually 10 or 12).   
   --   
   Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa   
   Web:  http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm   
   Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com   
   E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)