A51

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A51
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From:	Chester
To:	Kingsbury
Grid References
Start: SJ412661 End: SP217956
Route outline (key)
A51 Chester-Nantwich A51 Nantwich-Stone A51 Stone-Lichfield A51 Lichfield-Kingsbury

Contents 1 Route 1.1 Section 1: Chester - Tarvin 1.2 Section 2: Tarvin - Nantwich 1.3 Section 3: Nantwich - Stone 1.4 Section 4: Stone - Lichfield 1.5 Section 5: Lichfield - Kingsbury 2 History 3 Future 4 Pictures 4.1 Chester-Tarvin 4.2 Tarvin-Nantwich 4.3 Nantwich-Stone 4.4 Stone-Lichfield 4.5 Lichfield-Kingsberry

Route

Section 1: Chester - Tarvin

The A51 used to begin at Boughton, where it joined the A41 at a fork, but since the A41 was bypassed around the city (before the War?) - the Christleton Road becoming the A5115 - the A51 has continued further into the city. For a few years the start point was the Eastgate Street spoke of the city's route hub, but since its completion in the 1980s no A roads go beyond the A5268 inner ring road. The A51 hits the A5268 (and ends) at a gyratory at The Bars.

Chester is of course a Roman city, and the initial course of the A51 is a Roman road (one of the many "Watling Streets" of Cheshire and Lancashire) which goes slightly north of east towards Northwich. After the Boughton junction (which is also a junction with the B5130 Dee Valley road) we cross the Shropshire Union Canal and the Crewe railway and meet the A41 Ring Road at traffic lights. There used to be a roundabout here but that was replaced when the Ring Road was duplicated by the A55 300 yards to the east. The A51 (here dualled for a short section) meets this at a grade-separated junction. Now primary and free of the city, the A51 passes straight (literally) through the church-less village of Littleton before a mile later crossing the River Gowy at Stamford Bridge (not the famous one). The old bridge and road through the hamlet are still visible. There is a junction here with the B5132. The road now curves away from its Roman course along Holme Street towards Tarvin, where the Roman road becomes the A54 and the A51 turns south-eastwards. The junction has moved twice: first when the A54 bypass was built in 1932, and again in the mid 80s when the A51 bypass was built. The two roads now meet at a roundabout at a milepost (Chester 5 miles), about half a mile west of the village centre.

Section 2: Tarvin - Nantwich

The A51 is an important route between Chester and Crewe which also takes a lot of longer-distance traffic cutting between the A55/M56 and the A500/M6, so this country lane wending its way through the milch-cow-filled fields of the Cheshire Plain is taking a bit of a pounding. We pass through Duddon and Clotton and reach Tarporley, where there is a two-mile duplex with the A49. This is the most important settlement in the area, and the blight of its trunk-road duplex was finally relieved about ten years ago with the building of a bypass west of the village. The northern A49/A51 junction is a roundabout, the southern junction is a signalled crossroads. More hamlets: Tilstone Fearnall, Alpraham, Calveley (where we re-meet the canal and railway), Wardle, Barbridge, before the cannon crossroads at Burford. Here the A534 comes in from the west and leaves to the south, while the A51 turns east onto the Nantwich bypass (c. 1990). The A51 used to carry straight on here, through Acton (the former junction with the A534) into Nantwich.

After a mile or so we reach Reaseheath, home to Cheshire Agricultural College, and a roundabout where the B5074 goes north to Winsford, the bypass carries on . This section includes a duplex with the A530 Middlewich road. The A51 (London Road) continues as primary as it heads out of town. On the right are the A5301 and Stapeley Water Gardens.

Section 3: Nantwich - Stone

I'd say this is the quietest section of the road - most of its job is now done by the M6. We pass through more hamlets: Butt Green, Stapeley, Walgherton (B5071 crossroads), then about five miles of almost nothing (except Bridgemere Garden World) till Woore. Now, Woore is an odd place. It's kind of an isthmus or exclave of Shropshire - you can't get to the rest of the county without driving through Staffordshire. It's also the junction of two primary routes: the A51 and the A525, so it's not the most peaceful village. After the B5026 and Pipe Gate we've already finished our brief trip to Shropshire and we enter Staffordshire, which the road crosses from NW to SE.

Popular with (and dangerous to) bikers, Staffordshire County Council have (confusingly) designated this road a "Red Route" and produced a leaflet which has been distributed to the pubs along the way. At Blackbrook, in the shadow of the Maer Hills, we meet the A53 for a 300-yard east-west duplex. I wonder whether the "Swan with Two Necks" pub is named after the form of the junction? Although we seem to be in the middle of nowhere, this is an ancient meeting point: another mile along the road we pass the ancient fort of Berth Hill. The road now zigzags east, reaching a high point of 472 feet (142 m) at Hill Chorlton. A couple of bad bends were taken out many moons ago but plenty are left, like the wicked right-hander after Stableford Bridge. Two miles further on there's traffic lights at the Swynnerton Heath crossroads with the A519. There's another hilltop (587ft/179m) before we enter the Trent Valley. Passing under the M6, the road flattens out for a while before the killer drop down Bury Bank to the Meaford island (with the Darlaston Inn in the middle). Here we meet the A34 and duplex with it for about three miles. (Have you noticed that we've met the A41, A55, A54, A49, A53 and [[A34[[? Not bad, eh. On the other half of the journey we don't meet any 2-digit A roads at all!)

The A34 has bypassed Stone (one of my favourite Staffordshire towns) for a long, long time, but it was much more recently that a new bridge was built over the Trent at Aston to connect the A51 to the A34 south of the town. Traditionally the 51 went through the centre of the town (since renumbered as part of the B5027), the A34 having swung away at a fork (now a roundabout) just a mile south of Meaford. (The milepost here read(s) "Preston Brook 43; Shardlow 49", the termini of the Trent & Mersey Canal.) The A51 now follows the A34 dual carriageway through Walton, meeting the A520/B5026 at a roundabout before splitting at another roundabout at the aforementioned Aston.

Section 4: Stone - Lichfield

The Trent Valley road: very busy and very irritating. It's been relieved a little bit by the building of the A50, but it's still an important alternative to the M6 and the A34. What we get instead are lots of 40 mph zones. We're never very far away from the river, or from the railway or the canal, and just after Sandon (junctions with B5066) all four are squeezed into a narrow channel. At this point the road is dual carriageway for two miles, as far as, and through, the village of Weston. There's a staggered junction here where the A518 crosses on its way from Stafford to the A50. Two miles further south there's a postwar bypass round the villages of Great Haywood, Little Haywood and Colwich, the scene of a fatal train crash in 1986.

The road crosses the Trent at Wolseley Bridge and briefly enters Cannock Chase, joining the A513. For some reason this requires two roundabouts. After a mile we reach the town of Rugeley. The duplex used to pass through the centre, but a mile-long bypass, Western Springs Road, creates some diversion. Not enough though, and a proper (£17m) bypass is on the way. Western Springs Road ends at a roundabout junction with the A460 and B5013; judging by the lorry I once saw toppled over there, this roundabout might be a tad too tight. Under the railway bridge the A513 leaves us to the left at a fork in the road and we get a mile of dual carriageway through Brereton. As we leave the town there's a short spur road (numbered A51) north to the A513. This will be part of the bypass.

Up the hill to Longdon and out of the Trent valley. The section from Longdon to Lichfield was considerably improved in the postwar years: bends removed, hilltops shaved off, roundabout at the junction with the A515... and Lichfield western bypass, which cuts staight across Leamonsley Fields (after the junction with the A5192 northern bypass, called "Eastern Avenue") to a big island junction with the A461. Here the A51 went left into downtown Lichfield, back onto it old course along St John Street. The latest OS map shows it carrying straight on at the island and then duplexing with the A5127 to the station. Neither route is ideal. The road goes up past the King Edward VI School and curves to the left where the A5206 arrives with traffic from the A38.

Section 5: Lichfield - Kingsbury

The road leaves Lichfield on a bridge over the A38 - if you want to get from one of these primary routes to the other without using non-primary routes you've got quite a circuitous journey - before passing Whittington Barracks and the Staffordshire Regimental museum, the Lichfield TV mast and crossing the River Tame at Hopwas. At a roundabout the road goes right, alongside the new estate at Coton, and would go into the centre of Tamworth were it not for two new bridges which have been built to take the road south, back over the river, to meet the A453 and A5. The road ends here but it reappears at the Ankerdrive island half a mile to the north-east. From there (now non-primary) it goes south (this is the Kettlebrook bypass), under the A5 to meet the old A5 (the B5404) at Two Gates.

This is where the A51 used to end and the A423 began, but since that has been downgraded between Coventry and here in 1971, the A51 continues as far as Kingsbury, the southern end feels like just that: the end. In Warwickshire. On a maudlin roundabout at a junction with the A4097 and B4098.

History

The A51 originally started on the A5 just south of Tamworth (SK215016), with the A423 continuing south on the other side of the crossroads. This was the position until about 1971 - with changes probably triggered by the opening of the M6 motorway.

By 1972, the A51 had been extended south of the A5 and down the A423 route, but only as far as the A47 (SP248913). The A4097 had been extended east to meet the A51 at Kingsbury (SP217956), and the A423 between the A47 and the outskirts of Coventry was reclassified as the B4098. The A423 on the NW side of Coventry was retained as the A4170.

The A47 was itself reclassified, and the A51 shortened back to the junction with the A4097 at Kingsbury. The A51 never did reach Coventry.

The "(A51)" signs around the west side of Coventry probably were originally "(A423)" - the brackets can be seen sticking out underneath some of the change plates.

Future

Pictures

Chester-Tarvin

Tarvin-Nantwich

Nantwich-Stone

Stone-Lichfield

Lichfield-Kingsberry

Original Author(s): Adrian Bailey