A1074 (Norwich Ring Road)

This article is about the A1074 Norwich Outer Ring Road.
For the original A1074 in west Norwich, see A1074 (Hellesdon).
For the current A1074 west of Norwich, see A1074.

Route

The A140 (former A1074) Sweet Briar Road

The second incarnation of the A1074 was its use as the Norwich Outer Ring Road.

Starting on the A140 (former A147) in Old Catton, to the north of the city, the road headed clockwise along (amongst other roads) Mile Cross Lane, George Hill (this section was later bypassed by Chartwell Road), Mousehold Lane, Harvey Lane, Thorpe Road, Carrow Road, Martineau Lane, Barrett Road, Daniels Road, Colman Road, Sweet Briar Road and Boundary Road to return to its starting point.

History

The short A1074 in 1932

This incarnation of the A1074 came into being in the late 1920s or early 1930s as shown in the map on the left: as a short section of road to the southwest of Norwich city centre. Its exact route is unclear owing to the scale of the map but it appears to start on the A11 Newmarket Road and head north along Mile End Road and Colman Road before bearing right into Bowthorpe Road to end on the A47 (now A1074) Dereham Road.

By 1939 the road had been extended to form an entire loop of the city, with Bowthorpe Road having been downgraded, although the section to the southeast was constricted by the River Yare as it still is today. The road survived until the 1970s when the entire road was renumbered A47 as that road was removed from the city centre. This move gave A47 drivers the choice of which side of Norwich to pass on. The A1074 number was reused as the number of the bypassed section of the A47.

The ex-A1074 remained the A47 until that road was rerouted again in the 1990s onto the present southern bypass and the old road renumbered variously. The northeastern section of road is the A1042. Harvey Lane is unclassified, then the southeastern section is the A1242, the southern section the A146 and the western section the A140.