A6144

This article is about the route from Lymm to Sale.
For the former route in Bolton, see A6144 (Bolton).

Route

The A6144 connects the M60 (at two junctions since May 2006) to the A56. You wouldn't usually head this way unless you were planning on visiting either the Carrington training ground of Manchester United FC, or the massive number of chemical and electrical plants along the road.

We shall start at the original eastern end of the road, M60 Junction 6. This was originally a standard roundabout, but was changed to a dumbbell in 2006 when the M60 was widened. The first length of the road heads through the urban areas of Sale, passing to the south of the town centre, where it crosses the A56. Actually running through the centre is the B5166, which we meet at either side (at a double roundabout to the east). The next length of the road takes us across to the start of the Carrington Spur. This road was better known as the A6144(M), but this ended in May 2006. As a result the A6144 now meets the M60 twice.... The spur heads off to the right at traffic lights to J8 whilst the mainline of the A6144 TOTSOs left.

Carrington Training Centre - not many players come by bus

We now head west towards Carrington and Partington, through less than inspiring scenery (flat, a few fields and some heavy industry), and with a 40mph speed limit. The urban areas are even less inspiring, but passage through is quicker than one would expect.

Eventually we reach open country on the far side of Partington and soon the B5159, the turn for the Warburton Bridge is reached - this forms a quick (outside of peak hours!) link north to the A57. However, you can guarantee that if the Barton High Level Bridge is busy, this will be equally as busy as a toll of 12 pence is levied.

Anyway, the A6144 continues, rather twistily and urban once more, and eventually returns to the A56 at Lymm. However, there is no access to the M6 here, so a detour down the B5158 from Lymm is required. If this was also numbered A6144 there would be a hugely inadequate rat-run into Manchester signed. No wonder the planners came up with a motorway bypass for this road (you may know it better as the original M60!).

History

This road was originally a series of B roads; the B5166 from Sale to Carrington (although the Sale bypass was numbered B5311) and the B5158 from Carrington to Lymm (explaining the lengthy multiplex for that road). The motorway links were original to this road.

Editions of the Manchester A-Z from the 1970s up to the late 1980s label the Chorlton Road spur of the A5067 in Hulme as an isolated section of the A6144 (see this map extract from Pathetic Motorways). This, if correct, would appear to have been in anticipation of construction of a new crossing of the River Mersey near Jackson's Bridge, which would have connected Hardy Lane, the continuation of Mauldeth Road West, with what is now M60 J6, creating a new link between Whalley Range and Sale, presumably all to be given the new number. This has never gone ahead. The date that the isolated A6144 section was renumbered to be the spur of the A5067 is not known, but A-Z mapping from the late 1990s carries the current number.