The M1 motorway connects London to Leeds, where it joins the A1(M) near Aberford, to connect to Newcastle. It was the first inter-urban motorway to be completed in the UK; the first motorway in the country was the Preston Bypass, which later became part of the M6.
The motorway is 193 miles (311 km) long and was constructed in four phases. Most of the motorway was opened between 1959 and 1968. The southern end was extended in 1977 and the northern end was extended in 1999.
It is also the second longest motorway in the country with the M6 motorway being the longest at 232 miles (373 km).
There had been plans before the Second World War for a motorway network in the United Kingdom. Lord Montagu of Beaulieu formed a company to build a 'motorway-like road' from London to Birmingham in 1923, but it was a further 26 years before the Special Roads Act 1949 was passed, which allowed for the construction of roads limited to specific vehicle classifications, and in the 1950s, the country's first motorways were given the government go-ahead.
The first section of motorway was the Preston Bypass in Lancashire, now part of the M6 motorway, which opened in 1958. The M1 was Britain's first full-length motorway and opened in 1959. The early M1 had no speed limits, crash barriers, or lighting, and had soft shoulders rather than hard. As there was then little traffic, London musicians such as the Rolling Stones were known to speed up to take advantage of the Watford Gap Motorway Services Area, open 24 hours at a time when pubs closed at 11 p.m.
The first section of the motorway, between junction 5 (Watford) and junction 18 (Crick/Rugby), opened on 2 November 1959, together with the motorway's two spurs, the M10 (from junction 7 to south of St Albans originally connecting to the A1) and the M45 (from junction 17 to the A45 and Coventry). Parts of the Hertfordshire section were built using steam rollers.
The M1 was officially inaugurated from Slip End (close to Luton), celebrated by a large concrete slab on the bridge next to the village, with inscription "London-Yorkshire Motorway – This slab was sealed by the Harold Watkinson M.P. – Minister of Transport – Inauguration Day – 24th March 1958". It was relocated, during widening works in 2007–08, to the eastern side of junction 10.
This section of the M1 broadly follows the route of the A5 north-west. It started at the Watford Bypass (A41), which runs south-east to meet the A1 at Apex corner, and ended on the A5 at Crick. The M10 spur motorway connected the M1 to the North Orbital Road (A405/A414, a precursor of the M25) where it also met the A5 (now renumbered here as the A5183) and, 2 miles (3.2 km) to the east via the A414, the A6, which subsequently became part of the M25.
A £1.5 million contract was given in May 1958 for the most southerly section, from Aldenham to Beechtrees (the M10 junction), for two lanes of reinforced concrete, to open in November 1959. There was immense flooding on this section in July 1958.
Although the whole of the first section opened in 1959, it was built in two parts, with the northern part (junctions 10 to 18) being built by John Laing and the southern part (the St Albans Bypass) being built by Tarmac Construction.
The headquarters of the Laing project was on Wolverton Road in Newport Pagnell. The motorway was opened by Ernest Marples at the Pepperstock junction (junction 10), previously a motorway spur, now the A1081. The two motorway projects, the St Albans Bypass and the Pepperstock-Crick section met at Luton.
On the opening of the M1, the first person to reach the Birmingham end of the new section of motorway was anaesthetist Eric Plumpton (Dr Frederic Salkeld Plumpton, 1933–2016) in his Triumph TR2, travelling 23 miles (37 km) from Upper Heyford, Northamptonshire in 14 minutes at an average speed of 98.5 mph (158.5 km/h), at about 10.10 am. The northern end of the M1 and M45 opened at 9.56 am.
In 1956 it was announced that the proposed route, from Misterton with Walcote to Markfield, would go right through the middle of the much-loved beauty spots of Charnwood Forest in the Borough of Charnwood. 32,000 signatures of the 'Save Charnwood' petition were sent to parliament on 19 March 1958.
The proposed unpopular route, in Charnwood, was opposed by the Leicestershire Ramblers Association, but not by Leicestershire County Council. This proposed route would never have got through a public enquiry. An alternative route was go to through the Soar Valley.
The altered route, to mostly avoid Charnwood Forest, was published on Wednesday 17 September 1958. The controversial £12m motorway section opened on Friday 22 January 1965 at the Leicester Forest East services, with the Bishop of Leicester in attendance.
The continuation of the motorway from junction 18 towards Yorkshire was carried out as a series of extensions between 1965 and 1968. Diverging from the A5, the motorway takes a more northerly route through the East Midlands, via Leicester, Loughborough, Nottingham to Sheffield, where the M18 splits from the M1 at junction 32 to head to Doncaster.
In February 1964, at Lockington, Leicestershire, a 150 lb (68 kg) German bomb was found in the construction.
Originally, the M1 was planned to end at Doncaster but it was decided to make what was going to be the "Leeds and Sheffield Spur" into the primary route, with the 11-mile (18 km) section to the A1(M) south of Doncaster given the separate motorway number M18.