A1 Road (Great Britain) - Overview and Post-First World War Developments

Overview and Post-First World War Developments

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,

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, Rutland
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) 40–51 51.14 82.29 West Yorkshire
North Yorkshire
Selby. Leeds
York,Wetherby
A1 7.67 12.34 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. 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),which opened in 1998 requiring the moving the memorial to Napoleonic prisoners buried at Norman Cross.

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.

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.

In 1999 a section of A1(M) between Bramham and Hook Moor opened to traffic along with the extension of the M1 from Leeds. Under a DBFO contract, sections from Wetherby to Walshford and Darrington to Hook Moor were opened in 2005 and 2006, taking the section to a junction.

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