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A109

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A109
Location Map ( geo)
Cameraicon.png View gallery (2)
From:  Tottenham (TQ338906)
To:  Whetstone (TQ264939)
Distance:  5.8 miles (9.3 km)
Meets:  A1010, A10, A1080, B155, A105, B106, A406, A1003, A1110, B1453, A1000
Primary Destinations
Highway Authorities

Barnet • Enfield • Haringey

Traditional Counties

Middlesex

Route outline (key)
A109 Tottenham – Bruce Castle
(A10) Bruce Castle
A109 Bruce Castle – Wood Green
(A105) Wood Green
A109 Wood Green – New Southgate
(A1003) New Southgate
A109 New Southgate – Whetstone
Lordship Lane

The A109 is a winding A-road in north London.

It begins as Lordship Lane (not to be confused with the road of similar name in Dulwich, which is the A2216!) at a set of traffic lights on the A1010 (former A10) Tottenham High Road. The fourth branch of the crossroads was at one time the B137 but it is now unclassified.

Diving under the old Eastern Counties Railway line to Liverpool Street, it almost immediately seems to end again at an annoying little mini-roundabout at the junction with Bruce Grove, the A10; but go straight on and this proves to be a multiplex, with the A10 heading off again at a second mini-roundabout (of equal annoyance) and the A109 resumes its career towards Wood Green. It goes past a long string of Peabody Trust houses on the right and up to the light-controlled junction with the A1080 and B155. Queue to get past these and you almost instantly hit the left fork for the A1080 to Turnpike Lane, more queues and annoyance. (In fact pretty much every major interchange on this road can be relied on to be clogged and irksome).

Once past that it's finally a pretty clear run along the remainder of Lordship Lane to Wood Green, past a strange kink in the road at the junction with Perth Road that I suspect might even once have been a TOTSO for eastbound traffic before reconstruction, and the amazing structure of Wood Green County Court which looks like a cross between a cathedral and a spaceship. The traffic lights at Wood Green tube station are, again, inadequate and confusing; take the right turn up the hill on the A105 for another multiplex, and shortly one comes to a left fork where the A109 resumes as Bounds Green Road by a big church (beware car boot sales and on-road parking on Sunday mornings). There's at least a filter arrow at these lights going north/west and we can put our foot down a little at last as the road broadens to two lanes each way (but don't get too enthusiastic, as traffic calming has installed lights by the Truro Road junction where they narrow to one again just because). Over the Moorgate to Hertford North line at a scarcely visible railway bridge, past another set of annoying lights at the B106 junction (a road actually numbered on the ground in some directions, though not all) and grind to yet another halt by Middlesex University on your left as the light-controlled junction with the A406 North Circular heaves into sight down the hill.

Fight your way through these and up past New Southgate station on the far side and yet again the A109 seems to end at what was once a mini-roundabout with the A1003 (replaced with more traffic lights for some reason). A right turn along the A1003 reveals... yes, another multiplex, as the oddly named Betstyle Circus roundabout forms the jumping-off point for the A109 again down Oakleigh Road South and its final resting point. Past a scrapyard, over an awkward railway bridge (this is the East Coast Main Line), and thread your way through parked cars in this mainly residential area. You then come to an actual roundabout again at the junction of the B1453 Russell Lane, and then yet more traffic lights in Oakleigh Park itself before coming into Whetstone and the last set of traffic lights for this road at the A1000, which as we all know well is the old A1. Just off to the right is the fourth arm of this set of staggered crossroads (sufficiently staggered to require two sets of traffic lights) which is tellingly labelled the A5109, which makes one suspect that the old A1 still forms the zonal boundary in the minds of some road numberers; either that or the pleasant drive through posh Totteridge village and down towards Mill Hill and the new A1 was seen as out of keeping with the grim progress on the rest of the A109 and the nice part was given a different number (it's never been part of the A109 but it was once the B553) to separate it from the main bit... But for whatever reason the A109 ends here, and the motorist who's followed it all the way is probably not mourning the fact.

An amended OpenStreetMap trace for this route awaits uploading to the SABRE Wiki.




A109
Junctions
Roads
Places
Related Pictures
View gallery (2)
A109, Lordship Lane - Geograph - 1281755.jpgA406 Bounds Green 1989 proposal.png
Other nearby roads
Wood Green
A10 • A105 • A108 (North London) • A504 • A1010 • A1080 • A5109 • B106 • B138 • B151 • B152 • B153 • B155 • B155 (Westbury Avenue) • B550 • B1462 • B5362 • Ringway 2
Tottenham
A10 • A503 • A504 • A1001 (Tottenham) • A1002 • A1010 • A1055 • B137 • B152 • B153 • CS1 • Ermine Street • T31 (Britain)
A100-A199
A100 • A101 • A102 • A103 • A104 • A105 • A106 • A107 • A108 • A109 • A110 • A111 • A112 • A113 • A114 • A115 • A116 • A117 • A118 • A119
A120 • A121 • A122 • A123 • A124 • A125 • A126 • A127 • A128 • A129 • A130 • A131 • A132 • A133 • A134 • A135 • A136 • A137 • A138 • A139
A140 • A141 • A142 • A143 • A144 • A145 • A146 • A147 • A148 • A149 • A150 • A151 • A152 • A153 • A154 • A155 • A156 • A157 • A158 • A159
A160 • A161 • A162 • A163 • A164 • A165 • A166 • A167 • A168 • A169 • A170 • A171 • A172 • A173 • A174 • A175 • A176 • A177 • A178 • A179
A180 • A181 • A182 • A183 • A184 • A185 • A186 • A187 • A188 • A189 • A190 • A191 • A192 • A193 • A194 • A195 • A196 • A197 • A198 • A199
Defunct Itineraries & Motorways: A102(M) East Cross Route • A102(M) Southern Approach • A106(E) • A108(N) • A108(S) • A115 • A118
A132 • A122 • A135 • A138 • A139 • A147 • A154 • A160 • A167(M) • A168(M) • A176 • A180(W) • A180(E) • A194(M) • A194 • A195(M) • A195

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