A11 road

A11 road
Direction	South-North-east
Start	London
Primary destinations	Aldgate Tower Hamlets Harlow Bishops Stortford Cambridge Newmarket Thetford Wymondham
End	Norwich
Roads joined

The A11 is a major road in England. It runs roughly north east from London to Norwich, Norfolk, although after the M11 opened in the 1970s and then the A12 extension in 1999, a lengthy section has been downgraded between the suburbs of east London and the north-west corner of the county of Essex. It also multiplexes/overlaps with the A14 on the Newmarket bypass.

Route

City of London

Originally, the A11 started at the Bank of England in the City of London, next to Bank tube station, and went eastwards along Cornhill and Leadenhall Street, past Aldgate Pump and along Aldgate. All this part has been declassified and is now a minor road. Thus the A11 now starts at Aldgate, just inside the eastern boundary of the City of London. The first stretch is Aldgate High Street, passing south of Aldgate tube station. Traffic is one way round the Aldgate one-way system.

Tower Hamlets

East of Aldgate station, the A11 enters the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and the East End of London. It becomes Whitechapel High Street (containing Aldgate East tube station), again part of the Aldgate one-way system. The A11 becomes Whitechapel Road, famous from the British version of the Monopoly board. It passes through Whitechapel, past Whitechapel tube station and the Royal London Hospital. It becomes Mile End Road, passing Stepney Green tube station and Mile End tube station. Next, it becomes Bow Road, passing Bow Road tube station and Bow Church DLR station.

There is a dual carriageway flyover over the Bow Interchange roundabout, a junction with the A12. However, at the end of the flyover, the A11 crosses into the London Borough of Newham and becomes a western extension to the A118. Following the opening of the A12 extension in 1999, the A11 was re-numbered to make it seem a less important road and encourage traffic to use the new dual carriageway between here and Leytonstone. This is the western limit of the downgraded section. The A11 number won't reappear until Stump Cross in deepest Essex (see below).

Newham (former A11 section)

The A118 now briefly becomes a dual carriageway as it crosses the valley of the River Lea. (Originally, there was a strait or narrow ford here, which gave its name to Stratford.) This dual carriageway section ends in a one-way system marking Stratford town centre. The eastbound road, Great Eastern Road, passes Stratford station. The westbound road is called Broadway and The Grove; the latter road runs north-south. At the end of the one-way system, The Grove becomes two-way, still going north. The old A11 then becomes Leytonstone High Road; Maryland railway station is on the corner where the name change occurs. Meanwhile, the A118 heads eastward along its historic route towards Ilford and Romford. The A112 also joins the one-way system, heading north-south.

Waltham Forest (former A11 section)

The old A11 crosses from the London Borough of Newham into the London Borough of Waltham Forest and becomes High Road Leytonstone. If you doubt the complete downgrading of the A11 through Leytonstone, consider the fact that southbound traffic now has to use part of the A106 and then a residential side street to head past Leytonstone tube station. Past the set of traffic lights with the A106, at the northern end of this stretch is the Green Man Roundabout, where it crosses the A12 again. On some maps it appears that the A106 has taken over the short section between the traffic lights and the roundabout as well as the old A12 east of the roundabout as far as Wanstead.

Redbridge (former A11 section)

Once past the Green Man Interchange, the former A11 route enters the London Borough of Redbridge and briefly becomes a southern extension to the A113 before turning into the A1199 (a duplicate designation, given that there is another A1199 in Islington!), and is called Hollybush Hill, Woodford Road and High Road Woodford Green. It crosses over the A406 at Gates Corner, but since the A406 was widened when the M11 was constructed there are no slip roads for interchange and the old A11 passes over the top. It merges with the A104 Woodford New Road by the Statue of Winston Churchill and becomes the A104 High Road Woodford Green. North of here the road was A11 until the M11 opened in the 1970s, triggering the downgrading of the whole A11 between Woodford and Stump Cross (see below). Just before leaving London for Essex, the A104 becomes Epping New Road.

Essex (former A11 section)

Shortly after entering Essex, the A104 enters Epping Forest. After a while, it reaches the Wake Arms Roundabout and becomes the B1393. Just after leaving the forest, it crosses the M25 motorway (which is in a tunnel at that point), then goes through Epping. The B1393 ends at junction 7 of the M11, and the route of the A11 goes along the A414 through the eastern suburbs of Harlow. The road then becomes the A1184 and goes through Sawbridgeworth.

Just south of Bishop's Stortford, the A1184 turns sharp left to become part of the Bishop's Stortford bypass, but the route of the A11 becomes the B1383 and goes through the town and through Stansted Mountfitchet and Quendon. It crosses the M11 and passes Audley End. The B1383 ends at 9A (Stump Cross), the end of a spur that comes off the M11 at Junction 9, near Great Chesterford.

Cambridgeshire and Suffolk

Passing south underneath the A1307 Junction near to Babraham, Cambridgeshire.

The road enters Cambridgeshire, with the road number A11 finally re-appearing at M11 Junction 9A, and the A11 is now a trunk road. It roughly follows the route of a Roman road for the remainder of its length.

The A11 formerly went through Newmarket; that stretch is now the A1304. The Newmarket bypass is a dual carriageway. The western end is the A11, but most of its length is a multiplex/overlap with the A14. The A11 re-appears north-east of Newmarket, and remains a dual carriageway until Mildenhall. The road bypasses Mildenhall before entering Norfolk in the Thetford Forest.

Norfolk

The A11 is then single carriageway to Thetford. The road continues, bypassing Thetford, Attleborough and Wymondham, although up until recently it ran through the centre of Thetford, causing heavy traffic on the route. It also passes the Snetterton Motor Racing Circuit. On entering Norwich, it becomes single carriageway again and is called Newmarket Road. It terminates at the St Stephens Street roundabout near the city centre.

Thickthorn Interchange between the A47 and A11.

Recently, various sections of the A11 between Norwich and the junction with the M11 in Cambridgeshire have been upgrated to dual carriageway in an ongoing effort by the Highways Agency to modernise the City's primary road connection with London. On 17 August 2005, it was announced that works to dual a 3.3 mile section of the Attleborough bypass will soon be underway.^[1] This move is strongly criticized by Transport 2000 for the effects it couldhave on some notified sites, such as Rex Graham nature reserve and other parts of the Breckland Special Area of Conservation.^[2]

Norwich is currently the largest population centre in the UK not to be connected to any other centre by an unbroken dual carriageway.

References

1. ^ Highways Agency: Newsroom
2. ^ Eastern Region, Roads to Ruin: The environmental impact of Labour’s new roads programme. Transport 2000, 2001. ISBN 0-907347-59-2

External links

• Society for All British Road Enthusiasts entry for the A11
• Highways Agency - A11 Strategy: Cambridge to Norwich
• Roads to Ruin - Critique of planned Regional road improvements

Donate to Wikimedia