A1 road

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This page is about the A1 road, in the United Kingdom. For other A1 roads, see A1 (disambiguation).

Image:A1mroad.400px.jpg The A1, at 409 miles (658 km) long, is the longest numbered road in the UK. It joins London, the capital city of England, to Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. However, where there arises a need to distinguish between the modern road, on its bypasses and some former part of the road, where it passed through the various towns, the name "A1" is sometimes reserved for the modern road, while "the Great North Road" refers to its original course.

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Origins and History

For the numbering rationale see: Great Britain road numbering scheme

The original A1 route was designated by the Ministry of Transport in 1921, following the medieval Great North Road. This ran from St Paul's Cathedral in Central London through Barnet, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, to Alconbury, where it joined the route of a Roman road, Ermine Street, as far as Colsterworth, where it is joined by the A151. The route was modified in 1927 when bypasses were built around Barnet and Hatfield, the latter being rebuilt in a tunnel during the 1980s. In 1960 Stamford was bypassed, as was St Neots in 1971.

The Great North Road includes stretches of Roman Road including Dere Street, and is mentioned in much English literature, for example Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens.

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Route

The A1 runs from the heart of the City of London at St. Pauls Cathedral to the centre of Scotland's capital, Edinburgh.

The A1 runs out of London through Islington (where Upper Street forms part of its route), up the Holloway Road, through Barnet, Potters Bar, Hatfield, Welwyn, Stevenage, Baldock, Biggleswade, Sandy, and St Neots. Continuing north, the A1 runs on modern bypasses around Grantham, Newark-on-Trent, Retford, Bawtry, Doncaster, Knottingley, Garforth, Wetherby, Knaresborough, Boroughbridge, Darlington, Scotch Corner, Durham, Chester-le-Street, past the Angel of the North sculpture in Gateshead, around Newcastle upon Tyne, Morpeth, Alnwick, Berwick-upon-Tweed, into Scotland, past Dunbar, Haddington and Musselburgh before finally arriving in Edinburgh at the East End of Princes Street near Waverley Station at the junction of the A7, A8 and A900 roads.

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A1(M)

Some sections of the A1 have been upgraded to motorway standard. These are known as the A1(M). These include:

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Future improvements

A motorway section has recently been built between Darrington and Hook Moor to join the existing section at the M1 junction. The scheme is a dual 3-lane motorway to replace the existing two-lane dual carriageway, much of which was on a substandard alignment. The northern section of the upgrade, bypassing Fairburn village opened to traffic in April 2005 with a temporary connection with the existing A1 between Fairburn and Brotherton. The southern section, with a free-flow interchange with the M62 motorway opened to traffic on 13 January 2006, although there are several minor things to finish. The scheme is expected to be fully complete by spring 2006.

Further sections of motorway upgrades are planned, which would ultimately create a single motorway running from Doncaster to Newcastle upon Tyne.

The next two sections of motorway likely to be built are from Bramham (the A1(M)/A64 junction) to Wetherby, and from Dishforth (A1(M)/A168 to Barton (end of northernmost section of A1(M)). The Bramham to Wetherby scheme goes to a public inquiry on 31st January 2006. Designed by James Poyner, construction of the Dishforth to Barton scheme is scheduled to start in April 2008.

Once these two schemes are complete, which is currently scheduled for 2011, then Newcastle upon Tyne will be connected to the rest of the national motorway network. There will be a short section of normal dual-carriageway remaining on the A1 between Doncaster and the M62 motorway.

Image:Scotland a1 trunk road01 2006-01-29.jpg Improvements to the road north of Newcastle upon Tyne are also being undertaken where the road consists mostly of single carriageway sections as opposed to a combination of dual carriageway and motorway to the south. This should ultimately lead to the road being dual carriageway throughout its entire length.

A scheme is in place to replace all junctions between Orton Southgate and Gonerby Moor with grade separated junctions, remove all crossings and breaks in the central reservation, and reduce or eliminate minor turnings.

An upgrade of the Black Cat Roundabout at the junction with the A421 (Bedford Road) is underway (as of 2005) [1].

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Trivia

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Road signs

The A1 is the closest thing Britain has to a cult road, and so some of its road signs achieved some sort of mythical status.

  • Near the southern end are signs saying "Hatfield and the North"; one could turn off for Hatfield easily enough, but as for "the North", it just keeps receding. These signs gave their name to a 70s rock band.
  • At the Northern end, signs say the opposite "London and the South" - equally vague, equally uninformative.
  • Leeds is exactly 198 miles on the A1 from both capital cities.
  • At the northern end of the Doncaster bypass is a clearway sign with attached plate prohibiting stopping for no less than 62 miles.
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Other

The A1(M) is mentioned in the song Gabadon by Sheffield band Haze.

  • The East Coast Main Line runs alongside the A1 for most of its length, and passes through most of the same principal towns as the road along the way. The railway also terminates at exactly the same places as the road either end - Waverley station in Edinburgh is immediately adjacent to the A1's northern terminus on Princes Street, equally the southern terminus of the ECML, King's Cross station, is next to York Way - the beginning of the A1.
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See also

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External links

sv:A1 (väg i Storbritannien)

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