- A414 road
UK road routebox
road= A414
direction =West-East
start =Hemel Hempstead
destinations=St AlbansWatford Hatfield Hertford Harlow Stanstead Airport Chelmsford
end= Maldon
junctions=The A414 is a major
road inEngland . It runs from the A41 at a junction west ofHemel Hempstead inHertfordshire , through the town to the M1 atBuncefield , disappearing for a short while, before re-emerging at the eastern end of the M10 motorway, south ofSt Albans , east through Hatfield,Hertford , then across the A10 and intoEssex throughHarlow ,Chipping Ongar andChelmsford before terminating at Maldon.With the current widening works between J6a and J10 of the M1, new parallel roads are being built to accommodate the A414 where it disappears from junction 8 of the
M1 Motorway , to connect to the M10 Motorway (currently junction 7) [cite web | title = Highways Agency M1 J6a to J10 widening project details | url = http://www.highways.gov.uk/roads/projects/4478.aspx] , which will be downgraded from amotorway , to anA road , which will connect the A414 fromHemel Hempstead toSt Albans .Between the M10 junction at Park Street, and the A1 junction, the A414 is named the North Orbital Road, which reflects the planners' intent to build an outer orbital road around
London .The North Orbital Road route was never completed, the planners opting in the end to build the M25 orbital motorway instead. Indeed, the section of the M25 between the Hunton Bridge Interchange,
Watford (J19) andMaple Cross ,Rickmansworth (J17) originally opened as the A405 North Orbital Road.This route has always connected Hemel Hempstead and Maldon, but over the years it has changed so much that it is almost completely new. The original route from Hemel Hempstead to St Albans followed the course of what is now the A4147, then from St Albans to Hatfield on the course of the now A1057 and B6426. The villages of
Cole Green ,Birch Green , andStaines Green were bypassed in the 1990s by a new dual carriageway that linked into the 1970s Hertingfordbury bypass. On the other side of Hertford, the A414 took what is now the A119 Ware Road, and then diverged along the course of the current B1502 and B181 from Hertford toStanstead Abbotts .The section through Essex is even more interesting. Most of it (between the Talbot at Tylers Green and Writtle) was originally the
A122 . The original A414 road bypassed Harlow to the north, travelling throughHigh Wych on what is now an unclassified road, and travelling throughSawbridgeworth to meet what is now the A1060 atHatfield Heath , which it followed through to Chelmsford. In Chelmsford itself, the road numbers have been subject to change several times over the last three or four decades, with the A12, A130 and A414 having been rerouted many times over that period.External links
* [http://www.road-to-nowhere.co.uk/route-guides/A414/ Road to Nowhere: A414]
References
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