B9162

Route

Sign confirming the B9162's existence in Conon Bridge

The B9162 is a short link road on the western side of the Black Isle.

Today the road is one of the shortest B roads in the area, but that is because it has been seriously truncated from its original route. It now simply consists of part of Lenaig Road in Conon Bridge, connecting the A862 with the new roundabout junction at the B9163.

History

To start at the beginning, before the A9 was extended north in 1935, everything north of Inverness was in Zone 8, so the B9162 was originally the B862. This stretched from its current starting point in Conon Bridge south eastwards to Croftnacreich, just a few miles short of the Kessock Ferry. With the renumbering, the B9162 also followed this route, with the B9161 taking over from the B861 for the final couple of miles to the ferry. However, when the Kessock Bridge was opened, the A9 was re routed across it, and cut across the Black Isle along the route of the B9161 and B9162 as far as Tore Roundabout. From there, the old B9162 route was consumed by the new A835 as it headed west to Ullapool.

Despite the construction of the new road between Maryburgh Roundabout and Tore Roundabout, and beyond, in c1980-2, the 1981 edition of the OS Landranger map still shows all of the surviving bits of the B9162 as intact, including the section of B9161 down to the ferry slip at North Kessock. This is in part probably because the Kessock Bridge itself didn't open until August 1982, so the map was showing both the current and expected situation simultaneously. It should not be taken as firm evidence that the B9162 survived the construction of the new road, as it seems more likely that the B road was downgraded soon after the opening of the new sections of what are now the A835 and A9.

Today, a lot of the old road still survives, as an unclassified local road, predominantly used for property access and as part of the NCN1 cycle route. From the roundabout, Old Lenaig Road continues ahead, now a cul-de-sac, cut off by the A835. However, beyond the new road, the former B9162 reappears, and heads south east for almost a mile to a crossroads with the B9169. The road ahead is now a dead end, as the A835 follows the line of the former B9162 almost all the way to Tore. Just before the roundabout at Tore, the old line of the B9162 forks left from the A835 to serve some houses. Across the roundabout, and a short distance down the A832, the old road turns right and for nearly 3 miles it heads south east, vaguely parallel to the new A9, as far as the B9161, which was the end of the route.