A5 road
From Freepedia
The A5 is a major road in the United Kingdom. It runs from London to Holyhead, on Anglesey in Wales, following in part the route of the Roman Watling Street. It was constructed by Thomas Telford and large stretches of the road in Wales remain much as it was originally built with many of the toll houses still present. It was designed to allow stage coaches to post between London and Holyhead, and thence to Ireland, and throughout its length the gradient never exceeds 5%.Starting at Marble Arch, the A5 runs north-west up the Edgware Road. The A5 as numbered disappears near Edgware, but re-emerges south of Luton. However, the road itself continues as the A5183 from Edgware to Elstree, Borehamwood, Radlett, St Albans and Redbourn, to junction 9 of the M1, where it becomes numbered as the A5 again. There is a large Shell petrol station here, close to Flamstead, with a reasonable roadside cafe. The road passes through the village of Markyate, then travels through the main shopping precinct of Dunstable, of which there were desperate plans for a four-mile bypass, which may now be a link road from the M1 instead.
The £24m ten mile dual carriageway Milton Keynes Diversion opened in October 1980, and is mostly concrete and landscaped, taking a route east of the former road. The old A5 is part of the Milton Keynes Grid network, with ubiquitous roundabouts. Further north is Towcester where it passes alongside a Shell petrol station and Towcester Race Course , and then it passes close to Watford Gap service station on the M1, as well as the West Coast Main Line, which it follows for many miles. This section of road has three lane suicide lane sections or very wide two lane sections (previously three lanes in the 1960s), and carries considerable numbers of trucks heading between the A43 and distribution centres near Rugby. Weedon is where there are traffic lights at the crossroads with the A45 and a BP petrol station. Near to Kilsby (where the A361 joins), there is a diversion to the west of Watling Street, returning to the course of the Roman road between an Eddie Stobart depot and the M1. The road passes to the east of Rugby where there is a large BP petrol station and roadside cafe (open 24 hours) as well as a well-known landmark at the series of masts of the Rugby VLF transmitter, which have reduced in number since June 2004, though still distinctive at night with the numerous aircraft warning lights.
The road passes close to Lutterworth on the A426 and the immense Magna Park distribution centre, built on the old Bitteswell airfield. Near Hinckley at High Cross it crosses the Roman road Fosse Way, now the B4455, though once the A46. In Roman times this intersection was one of the most important in Britain, being almost the dead centre of the country. Today it is a very open rural area. The road alternates every few miles between single and dual carriageway, though it does allow plenty of opportunities for overtaking which is not possible south of Rugby. The road intersects with the M69 at Junction 1. There is a Shell petrol station close to Caldecote and the A444 junction. It bypasses Atherstone, then meets the M42 at Junction 10 and the Tamworth service area. There are plenty of excellent pubs and reasonable petrol stations along the route without resorting to motorway service station extortion. The next section, an excellent dual-carriageway, the £26m five mile Fazeley, Two Gates and Wilnecote Bypass opened in July 1995. The road used to go straight through Tamworth. From this section to the A38, a new dual carriageway section is being built - the Weeford to Fazeley Improvement, which should open in 2005.
Passing through urban Brownhills, the road is intersected by roundabouts and slip roads for the M6 Toll motorway before it continues via Cannock to Telford. From the A449 roundabout there is a JET garage. The road passes Weston Park to the south, home of the annual V Festival, at which point the road is heading due west. The road enters Shropshire at the A41 roundabout. At Telford, it deviates from the old route and meets the A442 and the M54 at junction 5. This is very close to the shopping area of Telford. From Telford, it forms part of the M54 for a short stretch. The old route is now B5061 and towards Shrewsbury, B4380. At junction 7 of the M54, the A5 resumes. The A5/A49 seventeen-mile £79m dual-carriageway Telford-Shrewsbury Bypass opened in August 1992.
Here the road passes close to The Wrekin. Nesscliffe has been bypassed at long last by a dual-carriageway[1]. The A5/A483 ten-mile £18m Oswestry Bypass opened in December 1986. After this Shropshire section, it enters Wales just west of Chirk and a Shell garage and leaves the A483 section. It continues through the middle of the towns of Llangollen, Corwen, and Betws-y-Coed and then ascends through Capel Curig and reaches its maximum height at 312 metres shortly before passing Llyn Ogwen. The road then descends between some of Snowdonia's greatest peaks before passing through Bethesda and through Bangor before crossing the Menai Strait on the Menai Suspension Bridge near Bangor.
Between May and October 2005, this section of the A5 has been reduced to single lane working with traffic flowing from Anglesey to the mainland between 06.00hrs and 14.00hrs and then from the main-mland to Anglesey between 14.10hrs and 05.50hrs. This is to allow the suspension bridge to be re-painted. This is causing considerable traffic congestion at busy periods especially on the Britannia Bridge which provides the only other crossing point to and from the island.
The A5 then crosses Anglesey in parallel to the A55 before arriving at the port of Holyhead, where it has traditionally ended at Admiralty Arch (1821, designed by Thomas Harrison to commemorate a visit by King George IV en route to Ireland).
Parts of the A5 have been replaced by sections of the M1 north of London, the M54 through Telford, the M6, and the M6 Toll. The A55 route in North Wales is now the conventional way to get from Chirk to Holyhead, avoiding the mountainous A5 route through Snowdonia and instead going via the much gentler Cheshire Gap and then along the coast.
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There is also an A5 road in Northern Ireland. It runs from Derry south, via Strabane and Omagh, to join the N2 road at the border with the Republic of Ireland.
The Isle of Man has a further A5 road that runs from Douglas, through Castletown to Port Erin.
