| A1 road | |
|---|---|
| Route information | |
| Part of E15 | |
| Length: | 410 mi (660 km) |
| Major junctions | |
| South end: | City of London[1] |
|
M1 motorway |
|
| North end: | Edinburgh |
| Location | |
| Primary destinations: |
Hatfield, Hertford, Stevenage, Huntingdon, Peterborough, Stamford, Grantham, Newark-on-Trent, Doncaster, Pontefract, Leeds, Wetherby, Harrogate, Scotch Corner, Darlington, Durham, Gateshead, Newcastle upon Tyne, Morpeth, Alnwick, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Haddington, Edinburgh |
| Road network | |
The A1 is the longest numbered road in the UK, at 410 miles (660 km). It connects London, the capital of England and the United Kingdom, with Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. It passes through and near Highgate and North London, Hatfield, Stevenage, Letchworth, Peterborough, Grantham, Doncaster, Leeds, York, Gateshead, Newcastle upon Tyne and Berwick-upon-Tweed.[2]
It was designated by the Ministry of Transport in 1921, and for much of its route it followed various branches of the Great North Road, the main deviation being between Boroughbridge and Darlington. The course of the A1 has changed where towns or villages have been bypassed, or where new alignments take a slightly different route. Several sections of the route have been upgraded to motorway standard and designated A1(M). Between the M25 (near London) and A696 (near Newcastle upon Tyne) the road is part of the unsigned Euroroute E15.
Contents |
The A1 is the latest in a series of routes north from London to York and beyond, and was formed in 1921 by the Ministry of Transport as part of the Great Britain road numbering scheme.[3] The earliest documented northern routes are the roads created by the Romans during the period 43 to 410 AD, which consisted of a variety of "Iters" on the Antonine Itinerary,[4] a combination of which were used by the Anglo-Saxons as the route from London to York, and which became known as Ermine Street.[5] Ermine Street later became known as the Old North Road,[6] and is used within London by the current A10.[7] By the 12th century, because of flooding and damage by traffic, an alternative route out of London was found through Muswell Hill, and became part of the Great North Road.[6][7] A turnpike road, New North Road and Canonbury Road (A1200 road), was constructed in 1812 linking the start of the Old North Road around Shoreditch with the Great North Road at Highbury Corner.[8] While the route of the A1 outside London mainly follows the Great North Road route used by mail coaches between London and Edinburgh, within London the coaching route is only followed through Islington.[9]
The A1 route was modified in 1927 when bypasses were built around Barnet and Hatfield. In the 1930s by-passes where added round Chester-le-Street and Durham, and the Ferryhill Cut was dug. In 1960 Stamford and Doncaster were bypassed, as were Retford in 1961 and St Neots in 1971. During the early 1970s plans to widen the A1 along the Archway Road section were abandoned after considerable opposition and four public inquiries during which road protesters disrupted proceedings.[10] The scheme was finally dropped in 1990.[11] The Hatfield tunnel was opened in 1986.[12]
A proposal to upgrade the whole of the A1 to motorway status was investigated by the government in 1989[13] but was dropped in 1995 along with many other schemes in response to road protests associated with other road schemes (including the Newbury Bypass and the M3 extension through Twyford Down).[14]
The inns on the road, many of which still survive, were staging posts on the coach routes, providing accommodation, stabling for the horses and replacement mounts.[15] Virtually none of the surviving coaching inns can be seen while driving on the A1, because the modern route now bypasses the towns with the inns.
The A1 runs from the City of London at St. Paul's Cathedral to the centre of Edinburgh. The road skirts the remains of Sherwood Forest, and passes Catterick Garrison. It shares its London terminus with the A40, in the City area of Central London. It runs out of London through Islington (where Upper Street forms part of its route), up Holloway Road, through Highgate, Barnet, Potters Bar, Hatfield, Welwyn, Stevenage, Baldock, Biggleswade, Sandy and St Neots.
Continuing north, the A1 runs on modern bypasses around Stamford, Grantham, Newark-on-Trent, Retford, Bawtry, Doncaster, Knottingley, Garforth, Wetherby, Knaresborough, Boroughbridge, Scotch Corner, Darlington, Newton Aycliffe, Durham and Chester-le-Street, past the Angel of the North sculpture and the Metrocentre in Gateshead, through the western suburbs of Newcastle upon Tyne, Morpeth, Alnwick, Berwick-upon-Tweed, into Scotland, past Haddington and Musselburgh before arriving in Edinburgh at the East End of Princes Street near Waverley Station, at the junction of the A7, A8 and A900 roads.
Scotch Corner, in North Yorkshire, marks the point where the traffic for Glasgow and the west of Scotland divides from that for Edinburgh. As well as a hotel there have been a variety of homes for the transport café, now subsumed as a motorway services.
Most of the English section of the A1 is a series of alternating sections of dual carriageway and motorway. From Newcastle-upon-Tyne to Edinburgh it is a trunk road with alternating sections of dual and single carriageway. The table below summaries the road as motorways and non-motorways sections,[16]
| Road Name | Junctions | Length | Ceremonial Counties/ Lieutenancies |
Primary Destinations | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| miles | km | ||||
| A1 | 16.58 | 26.68 | London Hertfordshire |
London | |
| A1(M) | 1–10 | 24.14 | 38.84 | Hertfordshire | Hertford Stevenage |
| A1 | 26.25 | 42.24 | Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire Cambridgeshire |
Bedford Cambridge |
|
| A1(M) | 13–17 | 12.84 | 20.66 | Cambridgeshire | Peterborough |
| A1 | 72.99 | 117.44 | Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire Nottinghamshire |
Stamford, Grantham Newark on Trent |
|
| A1(M) | 34–38 | 15.13 | 24.34 | South Yorkshire | Doncaster, Rotherham Barnsley |
| A1 | 7.51 | 12.08 | South Yorkshire West Yorkshire |
Pontefract Wakefield |
|
| A1(M) | 40–49 | 35.79 | 57.59 | West Yorkshire North Yorkshire |
Selby. Leeds York,Wetherby |
| A1 | 23.02 | 37.04 | North Yorkshire | Thirsk Scotch Corner |
|
| A1(M) | 56–65 | 34.46 | 55.45 | North Yorkshire, County Durham Northumberland |
Darlington, Bishop Auckland Teesside, Durham Sunderland |
| A1 | 128.29 | 206.42 | Northumberland, Berwickshire East Lothian, Edinburgh |
Gateshead, Newcastle-upon-Tyne Morpeth, Alnwick Berwick-upon-Tweed, Haddington Edinburgh |
|
| Total | 397.00 | 638.78 | |||
A 13-mile (21 km) section of the road in North Yorkshire, from Walshford to Dishforth, was upgraded to motorway standard in 1995.[17] Neolithic remains and a Roman fort were discovered.
A 13-mile (21 km) section of the road from Alconbury to Peterborough was upgraded to motorway standard at a cost of £128 million (£168 million as of 2012),[18]which opened in 1998[19] requiring the moving the memorial to Napoleonic prisoners buried at Norman Cross.[20]
A number of sections from the Scottish border to Edinburgh were dualed between 1999 and 2004, including a 1.9-mile (3 km) section from Spott Wood to Oswald Dean in 1999, 1.2-mile (2 km) sections from Bowerhouse to Spott Road and from Howburn to Houndwood in 2002–2003 and the 8.5-mile (13.7 km) "A1 Expressway", from Haddington and Dunbar in 2004. The total cost of these works was some £50 million.[21]
Plans to dual the single carriageway section of road north of Newcastle upon Tyne were shelved in 2006 as they were not considered a regional priority by central government. The intention was to dual the road between Morpeth and Felton and between Adderstone and Belford.[22]
In 1999 a section of A1(M) between Bramham and Hook Moor opened to traffic along with the extension of the M1 from Leeds. The southern terminus was at an arbitrary point near Micklefield as opposed to a junction.[23] Under a DBFO contract,[24] sections from Wetherby to Walshford and Darrington to Hook Moor were opened in 2005 and 2006, taking the section to a junction.
Between August 2006 and September 2009 there were six roundabouts on the A1 and the A1(M) to Alconbury were replaced with grade-separated junctions. These provide a fully grade-separated route between the Buckden roundabout (just north of St Neots and approximately 4 miles (6.4 km) north of the Black Cat roundabout) and just north of Morpeth.[25] This project cost £96 million.[26]
| Blyth (A614) | Fully operational May 2008 |
| Apleyhead (A614/A57) | Fully operational January 2008 |
| Markham Moor (A57) | Fully operational April 2009 |
| Gonerby Moor (B1174) | Fully operational March 2008 |
| Colsterworth (A151) and the junction with the B6403 | Fully operational September 2009 |
| Carpenters Lodge (Stamford) (B1081) | Fully operational December 2008 |
Upgrading the 6.2 miles (10 km) of road to dual three-lane motorway standard between the Bramham/A64 junction to north of Wetherby to meet the section of motorway at a cost of £70 million began in 2006, including a road alongside for non-motorway traffic. The scheme's public inquiry began on 18 October 2006 and the project was designed by James Poyner. Work began in May 2007, the motorway section opened in July 2009 and remaining work on side roads was still ongoing in late August and was expected to be completed by the end of 2009.[27]
Upgrading of the existing dual carriageway to dual three-lane motorway standard, with a local road alongside for non-motorway traffic, between Dishforth (A1(M)/A168 junction) and Leeming Bar, began in March 2009 and is expected to be completed by Summer 2012.[28] It had originally been proposed that the motorway would be upgraded as far as Barton (between Scotch Corner and Darlington), which is the start of current northernmost section of A1(M). However this second phase was cancelled as part of government spending cuts.[29] If this second stage had been implemented, it would have provided a continuous motorway-standard road between Darrington (south of M62 junction) and Washington, and would have provided the North East and North Yorkshire with full motorway access to London (via M62, M18 and M1).
The planned A14 Ellington to Fen Ditton scheme would require a new junction at Brampton, north of which the A1 will be widened to a three-lane dual carriageway from Brampton to the Brampton Hut interchange. The new two-lane dual carriageway section of the A14 would run parallel with the A1 on this section.[30]
| Location | Bedfordshire |
|---|---|
| Proposer | Highways Agency |
| cost estimate | £67 million |
| start date | 2016 |
In 2003 a proposal for a bypass of Sandy and Beeston, Bedfordshire, was put forward as a green-lighted scheme as part of a government multi-modal study, with a cost of £67 million.[31] However, the Highways Agency was unwilling to confirm the information as the study was preliminary and intended for future publication.[32] In 2008 the proposal was submitted for consideration in the pre-2013/14 Regional Funding Advice 2 Programme of the East of England Development Agency.[33]
The Highways Agency has been investigating an upgrade of the A1 Newcastle/Gateshead Western By-Pass to dual three-lane motorway standard to alleviate heavy congestion which in recent years has become a recurrent problem.[34]
Improvements to junctions near the village of Elkesley, Nottinghamshire are planned: the village's only access to the rest of the road network is via the A1.[35]
Consideration is being given to widening the Brampton Hut interchange to Alconbury sections to a three-lane dual carriageway.[36]
Some sections of the A1 have been upgraded to motorway standard. These are known as the A1(M) and are part of European route E15. These include:
The M25 to Stotfold section is 23 miles (37 km), and was constructed between 1962 and 1986. The main destinations are Hatfield, Welwyn Garden City, Stevenage, and Letchworth It opened in five stages: junctions 1 to 2 in 1979; 2 to 4 in 1986; 4 to 6 in 1973; 6 to 8 in 1962; and 8 to 10 in 1967.
The Alconbury to Peterborough section is 14 miles (23 km), and opened in 1998.
The Doncaster bypass opened in 1961 and is one of the oldest sections of motorway in Britain.[37] It is 15 miles (24.1 km) long, and runs from Blyth to Carcroft.
The Darrington to Dishforth section was constructed between 1995 and 2009. It is 34 miles (55 km), and opened in sections:
Work began in March 2009 to upgrade the Dishforth to Leeming section to dual three-lane motorway standard with existing connections being replaced by two new junctions. As of July 2010, work was in progress on the Dishforth to Leeming section (J49 to J51) with an estimated completion date in 2012.[41]
The Scotch Corner to Gateshead section is 30 miles (48 km), and opened in stages:
The A1 is celebrated in song. It is mentioned by Jethro Tull on the title track of the album Too Old to Rock 'n' Roll: Too Young to Die! "Up on the A1 by Scotch Corner". "Scotch Corner," by the Welsh band Man, on the album Rhinos, Winos, and Lunatics is about an encounter there. Near the southern end, signs saying "Hatfield and the North" inspired the eponymous 1970s rock band Hatfield and the North. The A1 is mentioned in The Long Blondes' song, "Separated By Motorways", along with the A14. The A1(M) is mentioned in the song "Gabadon" by Sheffield band, Haze.
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