'The North' Road Signs in London

[brombeer]

There's one at The Angel, Islington on the A1

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5308726 ... 312!8i6656

Is this also the earliest point along the route of the A1 where "A1" actually appears on a sign?

Yes, this intersection is the first place where unbracketed references to the A1 appear. On the remainder between Angel and St Martin's Le Grand directional signs are pretty rare anyway, but none of them features the A1 road number. In the City of London, road numbers are hardly being signposted and generally road numbers are rather scarce in most other boroughs within the innermost London ring road. It's not unlike Paris, Madrid and some other capitals.

I always thought the problem was the A1 did not pass through any significant centres of population...

I’ve always found this strange. You would have thought that such a historically important road would have had plenty of major settlements popping up round about it.

This is probably something that others can comment upon in a much more detailed way, but in many respects the Great North Road only came into being a few hundred years ago. It would rather have been conceived as a route running from London to Yorkshire via the market towns that had come into being rather than have created the markets themselves - see
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=34418. The GNR must have boosted some towns at the expense of others not along the route, but in the end bigger cities in the U.K. only came into being on the basis of further factors. Ability to build a port or an industry, for one, which are areas where the regions along the A1 clearly lost out against the Midlands, Lancashire and Yorkshire.

This probably explains, rather than questions, why towns along the Southern parts of the A1 aren't any bigger. Post-WW2 New Towns aside, none couldn't really make it over "historic market town" size. Often enough to justify primary destination status, but nothing really that could describe the GNR really well for longer distance traffic.

[KeithW]

This probably explains, rather than questions, why towns along the Southern parts of the A1 aren't any bigger. Post-WW2 New Towns aside, none couldn't really make it over "historic market town" size. Often enough to justify primary destination status, but nothing really that could describe the GNR really well for longer distance traffic.

The modern Great North Road was largely a product of the stage coach and the turnpikes but it was important long before that because it was the main route north to strategically important cities such as York, Durham Newcastle and Edinburgh. Scotch Corner was traditionally the point at which you chose the all weather winter route to Scotland (the A1) or the summer road (the A66). You really didnt want to get caught in a Blizzard on Bowes Moor or Shap Fell .

Towns such as Welwyn, Hatfield, Peterborough, Stamford and Grantham were important waypoints as early as the 12th century while Catterick seems to have been an important military garrison since before the Roman era. In fact the name Catterick is believed to be derived from the Celtic Catu-rātis or battle ramparts. These towns really grew to be significant settlements with the turnpikes and coaching inns as they permitted rapid travel north without the risk of drowning. The importance of the road was more military and strategic than to do with transportation. Long distance movement of cargo in that era was done by ship not overland. Very few ordinary people ever travelled farther than the nearest market town.

When the Roman Army marched south from Anglesey to fight its final battle against Boudicca it joined up with elements of the IXth legion which had marched NW from the legionary fortress at Peterborough. When the Scots invaded while Henry VIII was busy with the French the English Army marched up the Great North Road to defeat them at Flodden Field. Berwick had been fortified by Elizabeth I and the Scots found to their dismay the English had outflanked them by marching up the Great North Road and blocked them off from resupply or retreat, the result was catastrophic with most of the nobility of Scotland including the king being slaughtered .

The same sort of thing happened on the western side of the pennines. Chester, Preston, Lancaster and Carlisle were the main settlements of the era, The culminating battle between Cromwell and the Scots supporters of Charles II happened near Preston. Earlier attempts to invade along the east coast via Berwick and Newcastle had failed miserably and ended up with Cromwell taking Edinburgh. A second try along the western route ended with catastrophic defeat at Preston.

A thousand years before the turnpikes the Romans maintained garrisons at Peterborough, York, Catterick and Corbridge. When they built the Leeming Barton upgrade one thing excavated was a Roman Mansio at Catterick - their equivalent of a Service Station complete with Inn, Stables and Bathhouse. A Roman Premier Inn in fact.

Most of the 18th/19th century growth on either side of the pennines was influenced by the canals and railways which finally made overland mass transportation economic. Even there the first public railway line from Darlington to Stockton (really Shildon to Port Stockton - aka Middlesbrough) was about getting coal to a port on which it could be loaded on to a ship. Road was not a serious player economically until the 1920's.

[thatapanydude]

Came across this road video where the turn off for Canary Wharf (from the city) on the A13 had this beauty of a sign back in the 90s - now its this.

Why was this and many older signs in London removed? Granted the route to the North isn't via blackwall and up on the A13 to the A1 or A41 but still these older signs like the one (removed) at Blackwall "The North A1 (M1)" would still be useful - even more so as the "The North M11". On a wider note with the A1 in London - its seems to have lost its significant and importance in lets say the last 20/30 years with the building of the M11 link road and M25. Just from these old pictures I got a sense the A1 was the main road in London certainly from the E and SE of London, Kent northwards.

I would love to find the old road signs of the North Circular and Inner Ring Road where you had destinations listed out with road numbers like the one on Baker Street etc they are so much nicer - I am far too young to have seen any of these older signs - so can only go on historic pictures.