A5121, Luton

[Steven]

Another one from the 1950s RAC road list.

They have the A5121 listed as "Luton (Victoria Street, Chapel Street)". This seems fairly unlikely as the two streets are at right angles to one another. I also can't find any evidence of either Victoria Street being a classified road, or of Chapel Street being anything other than B4540.

Can anyone else find anything?

[rileyrob]

I'm not clear if the list is trying to say 'from-to' or 'follows' when it gives two street names for short urban routes. For instance the A925 is listed as Commerce Street - Terminus Street, both of which exist immediately north of the Tesco store today. Obviously this is an error, because the A925 has always followed Gas Brae and Wellmeadow, but were they suggesting that the A925 followed or connected the two streets? If the latter, then a badly drawn town plan might have suggested that Terminus Street connected to the south end of Gas Brae, and Commerce Street vaguely meets the north end of Wellmeadow.

Not sure if this helps your inquiry at all though.

[owen b]

My feel is that most likely the RAC list is mistaken. I'm not aware of any A roads in Luton in the 1950s except the A6 and A505, and the OS One Inch maps on SABRE maps appear to confirm this. I haven't done any digging around any other sources, however in my over 30 years in Luton I've always taken an interest in local roads and I'm sure that if I'd ever stumbled across anything about an A5121 in Luton I'd have mentioned it on SABRE. On top of that, as has already been stated, there doesn't seem any logical reason why there might have been such a separately numbered A road in that part of Luton in those days.

[baroudeur]

Another one from the 1950s RAC road list.

They have the A5121 listed as "Luton (Victoria Street, Chapel Street)". This seems fairly unlikely as the two streets are at right angles to one another. I also can't find any evidence of either Victoria Street being a classified road, or of Chapel Street being anything other than B4540.

Can anyone else find anything?

Victoria Street is a cul-de-sac running from Chapel Street and, originally, connecting to Castle Street - the A6.

I bought my first new Lambretta scooter in 1960 from Dunham & Haynes at that junction.

[rileyrob]

On top of that, as has already been stated, there doesn't seem any logical reason why there might have been such a separately numbered A road in that part of Luton in those days.

I'm not saying this is the case for Luton, and with the construction of the ring road it is impossible for me to know one way or the other, but I have come across numerous short urban routes which were introduced (albeit not always with separate numbers*), effectively as stop gaps, to help spread traffic around. Therefore, if the A6 was a relatively narrow route heading into the centre of Luton (old maps suggest it may have been), or the next junction relatively cramped, the possible A5121 route may have been created to split turning traffic in advance of the next junction, and therefore limit turning traffic. This would work equally for the B4540 traffic. I appreciate that the total lack of any mapping evidence makes it unlikely in this particular instance, but there are several long running errors and omissions on OS mapping, so it's not impossible.

*My theory here is that normally if a one-way system was introduced, all parts had the same number, but if a two-way route was introduced it was more likely to be numbered separately, as always there will be exceptions to prove the rule.

[Chris Bertram]

We have a Wiki page for A6138(M) based on pretty flimsy evidence of its existence. Does this warrant a similar page?

[Steven]

We have a Wiki page for A6138(M) based on pretty flimsy evidence of its existence. Does this warrant a similar page?

Yes, it should have - that way people who then come across its presence in the list will have the information about it - i.e., probably never used "on the ground".