A1 road (Great Britain)

The A1 near Long Bennington, Lincolnshire

The A1 is the latest in a series of routes north from London to York and beyond. It was designated in 1921 by the Ministry of Transport under the Great Britain road numbering scheme.[4][5] The earliest documented northern routes are the roads created by the Romans during the period from AD 43 to AD 410, which consisted of several itinera (plural of iter) recorded in the Antonine Itinerary.[6] A combination of these were used by the Anglo-Saxons as the route from London to York, and together became known as Ermine Street.[7] Ermine Street later became known as the Old North Road.[8] Part of this route in London is followed by the current A10.[9] 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.[8][9] 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.[10] 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.[11]

Bypasses were built around Barnet and Hatfield in 1927, but it was not until c.1954 that they were renumbered A1. In the 1930s bypasses were added around Chester-le-Street and Durham and the Ferryhill Cut was dug. In 1960 Stamford, Biggleswade and Doncaster were bypassed, as were Retford in 1961 and St Neots in 1971. Baldock was bypassed in July 1967. During the early 1970s plans to widen the A1 along Archway Road in London were abandoned after considerable opposition and four public inquiries during which road protesters disrupted proceedings.[12] The scheme was finally dropped in 1990.[13] The Hatfield cut-and-cover was opened in 1986.[14]

A proposal to upgrade the whole of the A1 to motorway status was investigated by the government in 1989[15] but was dropped in 1995, along with many other schemes, in response to road protests against other road schemes (including the Newbury Bypass and the M3 extension through Twyford Down).[16]

The Angel Inn at Wetherby is a coaching inn on the former A1, bypassed since the 1950s.

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.[11] Few 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 New Change in the City of London at St. Paul's Cathedral to the centre of Edinburgh. It shares its London terminus with the A40, in the City area of Central London. It runs out of London via St. Martin's Le Grand and Aldersgate Street, through Islington (where Goswell Road and Upper Street form 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 at Marshall Meadows, 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 before the M6 was built the traffic for Glasgow and the west of Scotland diverged from that for Edinburgh. As well as a hotel there have been a variety of sites 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 primary route, 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 summarises the road as motorway and non-motorway sections.[17] The non-motorway sections do not have junction numbers.

A single carriageway section of the A1 skirting the Scottish coastline just across the border from Northumberland.

A 13-mile (21 km) section of the road in North Yorkshire, from Walshford to Dishforth, was upgraded to motorway standard in 1995.[18] 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 (£227 million as of 2021),[19] which opened in 1998[20] requiring moving the memorial to Napoleonic prisoners buried at Norman Cross.[21]

A number of sections between Newcastle and Edinburgh were dualled 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.[22]

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.[23]

In 1999 a section of A1(M) between Bramham and Hook Moor opened to traffic along with the extension of the M1 from Leeds.[24] Under a DBFO contract,[25] sections from Wetherby to Walshford and Darrington to Hook Moor were opened in 2005 and 2006.

There are currently no ongoing developments, though a number of proposed developments listed following are scheduled to begin in the near future. As a result of rerouting the A14, for which construction works have been underway since November 2016, the current junction of A1(M) and A14 at Brampton Hut will be completely redesigned and moved south of the service station.[36]

A1(M) looking southwards from junction 2 at Hatfield

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:

M25 to Stotfold

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.

Alconbury to Peterborough

The Alconbury to Peterborough section is 14 miles (23 km), and opened in 1998.

Doncaster By-pass

The Doncaster By-pass opened in 1961 and is one of the oldest sections of motorway in Britain.[47] It is 15 miles (24 km) long, and runs from Blyth to Carcroft.

Darrington to Gateshead

The Darrington to Gateshead section was constructed between 1965 and 2018. It is 93 miles (150 km), and opened in sections:

• Junctions 56 to 59 in 1965
• Junctions 59 to 63 in 1969
• Junctions 63 to 65 in 1970
• Walshford to 49 in 1995
• Junctions 43 to 44 in 1999

When this section opened it ended at a temporary terminus south of the M1. There was a final exit into Micklefield Village for non-motorway traffic onto what is now the access road. During the first week of June 2009, Junctions 44 and 45 were renumbered 43 and 44. At the same time the A1/A659 Grange Moor junction became A1(M) Junction 45.[48] As a result many atlases show incorrect junction numbering for this stretch of motorway.

• Junction 46 to temporary junction at Walshford opened in 2005[49]
• Junction 40 to south of 43 opened in 2005 & 2006

The northern section of the upgrade, bypassing Fairburn village opened in April 2005 with a temporary connection with the A1 between Fairburn and Brotherton. The southern section, with a free-flow interchange with the M62 motorway opened on 13 January 2006.

• Junctions 44 to 46 opened in 2009[50]
• Junctions 49 to 51 opened as of 31 March 2012. 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.[51] This work was completed on 31 March 2012.
• Junctions 51 to 56 opened in 2017 & 2018.

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.[52][53] The A1(M) is mentioned in the song "Gabadon" by Sheffield band, Haze. Andrew Blackman's 2009 novel "On the Holloway Road", inspired by Jack Kerouac's On the Road, centres on a road trip along the A1.[54]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to A1 road (Great Britain).

• BiffVernon: A1-The Great North Road
• A1 at Roader's Digest (SABRE)
• roadsUK: A1