A186

Route

The A186 is an urban A-road in south Northumberland.

The road starts at the Denton Burn Interchange on the A1, which also marks the eastern end of the A69. The road heads east along West Road and Westgate Road through the western suburbs of Newcastle upon Tyne. This road is more-or-less straight and runs parallel to Hadrian's Wall, although none of that remains in this area.

A set of traffic lights on the A189 marks the edge of the city centre and the start of a one-way loop. Eastbound traffic continues ahead along Westgate Road then bears left onto Collingwood Street to a set of traffic lights by the Anglican cathedral, where it meets the opposite carriageway and continues ahead onto Mosley Street. Westbound traffic on Mosley Street turns left at the cathedral traffic lights onto St Nicholas Street. It bears right by the Black Gate of the castle to run along part of Westgate Road then Neville Street past the station to reach traffic lights on the A189. There is then a short multiplex north to rejoin the A186.

Continuing east, Mosley Street reaches a roundabout which provides access to the A167(M) to the north and A167 to the south to cross the Tyne Bridge. Another one-way loop follows and the road bears left onto City Road to run along the left bank of the River Tyne, although it is never the closest road to the river, which indeed is rarely visible.

After crossing the Ouseburn the A186 runs to the south of Byker before looping along with the river and heading north through Walker to reach the edge of Wallsend. A roundabout is met on the A187 and the road multiplexes along it to a set of traffic lights, where it regains its number and heads north through the centre of town. It goes under the metro and crosses the A193 at traffic lights before reaching a GSJ on the A1058, the main road to the coast. There are only west-facing slip roads here; going east requires following the service road to join the A1058 half a mile to the east.

Earsdon

The A186 continues north and reaches open country after about a mile. However, a short distance later it reaches a roundabout on the A191 and multiplexes along that for a couple of miles to the east. It regains its number at a GSJ on the A19 and, now dual, bypasses Shiremoor to end at a roundabout on the A192 at Earsdon.

History

The A186 is described in the 1922 Road Lists as Newcastle - Walker - Wallsend. It started to the east of the city centre on the A695 Pilgrim Street and continued east along the remainder of Pilgrim Street and onto City Road as it does now. The road then followed its current route until Walker, where it ran along Fisher Street and onto Neptune Road to go through Wallsend to end back on the A695 (now A193). The road now runs to the west of this route; Neptune Road is now largely the A187.

The A186 was quickly extended north from Wallsend to reach the A188 at East Benton. The A188 was diverted after World War II and the A191 extended along this section of it. This left the ex-A188 through Shiremoor, which became an extension of the A186. Shiremoor was bypassed in the 2000s.

The western end of the A186 did not move for some years. When the A1 was diverted onto the western bypass in the 1990s this brought about a major renumbering in the area. The A186 was therefore extended west along what was the A6115 (although for many years it was the A69) as far as the new bypass.