A10 road (England)

UK road routebox
road= A10
length-mi=
length-km=
direction= South - North
start= City of London
destinations= Enfield
Hertford
Cambridge
Newmarket
Ely
Downham Market
end= King's Lynn
construction-date=
completion-date=
junctions= ukmotorwaysmall|11
ukmotorwaysmall|25
ukroadsmall|14
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ukroadsmall|120
ukroadsmall|121
ukroadsmall|134
ukroadsmall|142
ukroadsmall|149
ukroadsmall|1010
ukroadsmall|1055
ukroadsmall|1080
ukroadsmall|1101
ukroadsmall|1170
ukroadsmall|1202
ukroadsmall|1209
ukroadsmall|1211
ukroadsmall|1122
ukroadsmall|1123
ukroadsmall|1309
ukroadsmall|3211
ukroadsmall|47
ukroadsmall|406
ukroadsmall|414
ukroadsmall|503
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ukroadsmall|602

:"Cambridge Road redirects here. For other roads with the same name, see Cambridge Road (disambiguation)"

The A10 (in certain sections known as "Great Cambridge Road" or Old North Road) is a major road in England. Its southern end is at London Bridge in the City of London, and its northern end is the Norfolk port town of King's Lynn. From London to Royston it mostly follows the line of Roman Ermine Street.

Route

Within the City of London, the route of the A10 comprises King William Street, Gracechurch Street, Bishopsgate and Norton Folgate. It then becomes Shoreditch High Street, Kingsland Road and Kingsland High Street and runs through Stoke Newington as Stoke Newington High Street until Tottenham, where a gyratory system is in place.

North of Tottenham, the A10 leaves its historical route of "Tottenham High Road"/"Hertford Road" (now A1010) to join the Great Cambridge Road via "Bruce Grove" and "The Roundway". The Roundway is the southern end of a long dual carriageway section of the A10, which extends to just south of Buntingford. This dual carriageway section passes through the fringes of Enfield before crossing the M25 motorway (junction 25) at Waltham Cross.

Until the late 1970s, the Great Cambridge Road passed through the towns of Broxbourne, Hoddesdon and Ware (along what is now the A1170 road). Since then, an all-purpose road [An all-purpose road is a highway built to Motorway specifications, but without the same vehicle restrictions in place] – which diverges off the original dual carriageway at Cheshunt – bypasses these towns. The Kingsmead Viaduct takes the A10 over the Lea Valley between Hertford and Ware and the Hertford East Branch Line railway.

North of Ware, a further by-pass scheme was opened in late 2004, taking the A10 around the Hertfordshire villages of Wadesmill, Thundridge, High Cross, and Collier's End.Fact|date=May 2008 The bypass would have opened sooner, but the lime-stabilised subsoil heaved and cracks opened up in the road surface. A substantial portion of the road surface had to be relaid.Fact|date=May 2008

Further north, there is another section of 1970s dual carriageway road between Puckeridge and Buntingford. Buntingford was by-passed in the 1980s, however this is only single carriageway.

From Buntingford, the road runs through the villages of Chipping, Buckland, and Reed, before reaching the edge of Hertfordshire in the market town of Royston.

Once in Cambridgeshire, the topography changes from undulating hills to flat agricultural and fenlands, round the villages of Melbourn and Foxton (the road going over a level crossing adjacent to Foxton railway station), through Harston and up to the M11 motorway (J11) at Cambridge. A10 traffic is signposted to travel north on the M11, skirting round the top of Cambridge on the A14; however, the former course of the A10 turns into the A1309 and heads for the city centre.

The A10 reappears to the north of Cambridge at the Milton Interchange of the A14 and heads north, bypassing Ely and Downham Market before reaching the coast at King's Lynn in Norfolk. Its northern section runs up the valley of the River Great Ouse.

Parts of the section from London to Royston follow the route of the Roman Ermine Street.

Abandoned schemes

Where the A10 bisects Cheshunt as an urban dual carriageway, it is prone to traffic congestion, in particular because of the many junctions with local roads. In the early 1990s properties beside the road were compulsorily purchased for a relief scheme that involved sinking the road below ground level through Cheshunt and converting the original alignment to single carriageway for local access.Fact|date=July 2007 However, in the wake of protests against a similar scheme in Wanstead, this was dropped and the road remains a dual carriageway, with surrounding houses having been sold back to private buyers.

External links

* [http://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/roadlists/f99/10.shtml Society for All British Road Enthusiasts entry for the A10]
* [http://www.road-to-nowhere.co.uk/route-guides/A10/ Road to Nowhere - A10]