UK Man Has Lived In A Roundabout For 40 Years And Has No Plans On Leaving

Some people are really tetchy about where they live. And they wouldn’t want to move out of that place in any situation. This brings us to a family in Wales that has been living in the middle of a roundabout for the last four decades. Now, the only problem that they face is delivery drivers. That’s because they simply can’t find their house- but apart from that, everything seems perfect.

The 64-year-old owner of the place, Clwyd Howatson, and his 60-year-old wife Anwen have been living in a bungalow which is situated right in the middle of a road on the Denbigh A525 bypass in Denbighshire. For close to three decades, their home has been covered on all sides by five junctions. The situation has been the same ever since the bypass in the Vale of Clwyd in North Wales was built. 

The Howatson’s Live in the Middle Of the Roundabout and Are Perfectly Happy

The owner of this roundabout house, Mr. Howatson has been a builder and an electrician for most of his life. He has been living here for 40 years. He states that this is all he knows and that his main goal in life would be to ensure that future generations in his family live in this particular location as well. Despite, the fact that they might face issues with deliveries. The family is quite big, which has led to this area being referred to as the ‘Howatson Corner’. The neighbors on the other side of the road are also their family members.

With incessant insistence, the Howatson family has stated that they are not going to move from this place. In fact, the couple has also joked, “We will never get Clwyd out of here unless in his coffin.” Recently, Mr. Howatson stated, “62 years I have lived here and there are many happy memories. Before, we had lived across the road. We get the odd accident and loads of drivers went the wrong way when the roundabout first opened but it happens rarely now. We love the view of the mountains and we have no neighbors encroaching on us.”

The Roundabout Is Not As Inconvenient As It May Seem

The large bungalow is situated in the middle of this roundabout, with a driveway that leads directly onto the road. Until the 1960s, there was also a railway station nearby. But now, the four-bedroom bungalow hears the sounds made by thousands of motorists who use the scenic A525 route. The route leads directly toward the coast.

Mrs. Howatson, a cleaner, also stated, “You get used to the noise. I don’t hear the cars anymore. The two main questions we get asked are ‘How do you get off the roundabout and is it noisy?’ But the traffic is only going one way so it’s not that difficult to get out.” The grandfather of the household, who tends to hens and ponies, also dropped in with, “The only disadvantage is we have to cross the road to our field to reach them.” Nevertheless, he also added, “It’s like living anywhere else on the side of a busy road. It’s just it’s all the way around us. But it’s a lot noisier next to the A55 dual carriageway. At least here motorists have to slow.”

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Four Decades In A Bungalow, And the Entire Area Feels Like Family 

Mr. Howatson’s parents had moved into this palatial household back in the 1960s. It was long before there was any form of a roundabout or bypass through this area. He also went on to boast about the aesthetic views that could be witnessed from the middle of the road. However, there was a chance that his wife and he had started taking that for granted. He also spoke about his relatives, Eirian Howatson and David John Howatson, who had moved into the bungalow in 1960 which was located in a small holding.

In the late 1970s, they came to know that the local government was planning on building a bypass. Further, they were informed that they will not be able to build another bungalow on their small holding. The family then decided to not move at all. When the roundabout was completed in 1980, David John passed away.

In 2022, 40 years down the line, the bungalow is the property of the Howatson family and is filled with seven children and 12 grandchildren who are frequent visitors. Mr. Howatson joked that living on the roundabout definitely led to an interesting conversation, which always began with “‘How do you get to your house?’ which is fairly self-explanatory with the drive at the bottom.” 

One Gets Used To Everything With Time

Mr. Howatson further commented that the noise from the roundabout had stopped impacting their family life by now. “We have double glazing so it’s not something that bothers us and the road only gets really busy at peak times which is only a few times a day. Getting off the roundabout on the other hand can be a bit of a challenge. When people are on a roundabout they don’t expect someone to come out of the roundabout itself so we do get a few double-takes. It can be a bit awkward as well if someone lets you go because someone could be coming up on the other lane, but we don’t really have any issues with it, we just tend to wait until it’s a bit quieter.”

A major issue that the Howatsons face is getting delivery on the roundabout. “We share the same postcode as the houses around us so it can take a while for drivers to realize the house is on the roundabout if they’ve not been before.”

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