A68 road

UK road routebox
road= A68
length-mi=
length-km=
direction= North - South
start= Darlington
destinations= Bishop Auckland
Consett
Corbridge
Jedburgh
end= Dalkeith
construction-date=
completion-date=
junctions=
ukroadsmall|7
ukroadsmall|720|

The A68 is a major road in the United Kingdom, running from Darlington in England to Edinburgh in Scotland.

From Darlington, it runs north. It bypasses Bishop Auckland, running through West Auckland, Toft Hill and Tow Law, past Consett and Corbridge. The road used to run through the centre of Corbridge but now runs on a new single carriageway alignment to the East of the town. To bring the road back to the previous route of the A68 it now overlaps the A69 for just under three miles, before turning off north again.

It then runs into Scotland through Redesdale at Carter Bar, through Jedburgh, St Boswells, Earlston, Lauder, up by Soutra Hill and into Dalkeith where the B6373 leaves and rejoins it in the town.

The A68 then ends just north of Dalkeith on the Edinburgh City Bypass (A720) at Sheriffhall Roundabout. It used to run all the way into Edinburgh, but the section within Edinburgh became part of the A7 several years ago. After many years of wrangling work has finally begun on the Dalkeith Northern Bypass which will remove large volumes of traffic from the centre of the town. The new road will leave the existing line of the A68 a couple of miles to the east of Dalkeith at Fordel Mains and join the Edinburgh City Bypass at a new junction close to the A720's eastern terminus on the A1 at Old Craighall Junction. When completed it will take the A68 designation and the old route through Dalkeith will be renumbered and downgraded to non-primary status.

It is the only major road to cross the England/Scotland border for a long distance either way (the next crossing being the A697 road near Coldstream/Cornhill-on-Tweed in the east, and the A7 near Canonbie.

Apart from the A69 concurrency the road is entirely single carriageway apart from a short section before it crosses the A1(M) into Darlington.

The A68 is part of Euroroute E15 (Inverness-Algeciras) between its northern terminus on the A720, and its junction with the A696 just on the English side of the border. The E15 continues northwards and southwards on the A720 and A696 respectively.

ee also

*British road numbering scheme
*Dere Street

External links

* [http://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/roadlists/f99/68.shtml Sabre-Roads.org: A68: Edinburgh-Darlington]