A951 Peterhead

[rileyrob]

The MOT map fails to detail the original A951 (Peterhead), the 1922 Road lists says this:
Link at Peterhead
The document detailing the demise of the route in 1935 says this:
Renumbered as A952 (Kirk Street spur). and about the A952: Extended from Peterhead (Junc of Queen Street (A952) and King Street (A949)) to...
The MOT map very strongly suggests that all of Kirk Street MUST be part of the A950, and the 1935 document supports this, as Marischal Street is stated to be part of the A950.

This very old thread viewtopic.php?p=122028&hilit=Peterhead+A951#p122028 says the following:
A951. The number is understood to have been used previously for Queen Street (east) and Chapel Street in Peterhead: about 500 metres of road linking the northern arm of A982 (then A952) with the then A950 near Peterhead Harbour. It is now unclassified. This stretch is shown as class A on a 1948 OS 4 miles to 1 inch map, and is almost certainly A951, though the scale is too small for a number to be shown.
This is now clearly incorrect as all of the other documents and maps identify Chapel Street as being the original line, and later a spur of the A952.

The OS Six Inch map from c1950 is here: https://maps.nls.uk/view/75258937 for the street layout at that time, which seems unchanged from the late 20s edition of the map.

It is very clear from the above, that despite the apparent break between Manse Street and Kirk Street that seems to be shown on the MOT Map, that King Street was always part of the A949.

Can anyone piece this together, because I am struggling with it.

[Ritchie333]

Okay, this is guesswork / intuition, but based on all the information we have, if you take a look at the current A950 / A982 roundabout, the two carriageways to the east have actually been there far longer than the roundabout, and were originally a triangle of roads, both seemingly and confusingly named Kirk Street. The 1935 renumbering that documents this as "Kirk Street spur" sort of backs this up.

Is it therefore possible that the A951 was the southern edge of this triangle, with the northern being the A950 and the western being the A949? That would have made it all of around 300 feet long, which we already have documented precedence for with the A3039 (Axminster).

[rileyrob]

I like your thinking Ritchie, and I want to agree with you, but the west side of the triangle is consistently shown as unclassified on the One Inch Maps, both the 1959 edition here on Sabre Maps, and all of the other editions on NLS up to 1965. The MOT Map also appears to show that the A949 followed Manse Street (not called Kirk Street on earlier maps) to meet the A950 to the east of the King Street Junction, although it is very difficult to be certain at that scale. There is only one Six Inch sheet with numbers on it available online, and the later 1:2500 / 1:10,000 sheets mark the former Manse Street as the A952, without putting a number on the western arm of the roundabout bit. Coupled with the lack of colouring on the one inch sheets, I take this to imply that it is not part of the A952 at that time.
The only outlier here is the 1957 1:25,000 sheet which colours the road in orange (the 1950 sheet has it white). Whether this means it is an A road, or whether it was just the way that the orange-white dashes landed I wouldn't like to say.

[Ritchie333]

I don't think one inch maps are going to be of much help. Until road numbers were standardised on them after WWII, they would only show you the standard of road, not necessarily the MOT classification. (For example, the B2068, which has never been an A-road, is shown in red on the Popular Edition sheet for that area). As I understand it, part of the 1935/6 renumbering exercise was to get rid of this discrepancy, and it's perfectly possible that a "link" that became defunct in 1935 could be obliterated into uselessness ten years later. In fact, I don't think there are any other road maps within the appropriate time frame (1922-1936) with numbers on them. Perhaps a 1920s Popular Edition map of the era would help to identify the appropriateness of the road at that point, but that's about it.

I still think that "Kirk Street spur" might mean a spur off Kirk Street, rather than the street itself.

[Steven]

I don't think one inch maps are going to be of much help. Until road numbers were standardised on them after WWII, they would only show you the standard of road, not necessarily the MOT classification. (For example, the B2068, which has never been an A-road, is shown in red on the Popular Edition sheet for that area).

Indeed - Popular Edition sheets across the whole of GB showed road width as their primary characteristic until 1935, when A-class roads (though unnumbered) started being marked.

Hence you just can't rely on Populars prior to that date for any classification queries.

[SteelCamel]

Looking at the 1963 1:2500 map on NLS - hopefully at this link - it marks A952 on South Road, King St, and also on the south side of the Kirk St triangle at the eastern point. (This map shows all three sides as Kirk St, but earlier maps say the south side is Manse St). I would think that one side of the triangle must be the "Kirk St Spur" but which one? It could be the south side, which is clearly a spur in 1963, but if the A952 did not originally cross the A950 then the west side could also be a spur.