A5087

The A5087 links the A590 to itself in the south of the Furness area of Lancashire. The road was originally unclassified, except for the section west of Roose which was numbered B5282, becoming the A5087 in the mid-1920s.

We start on the A590 at Craven Park Roundabout, outside Tesco and the Craven Park rugby league ground in Barrow. The road runs south, parallel to the docks of Barrow Shipyard, passing under the High Level Bridge which crosses the dock, and then taking a sharp left to head east, again running parallel to the docks and coast. After passing St George's Church, the junction with the now-unclassified Rawlinson Street marks the point where we join the route that was originally designated the A5087, and the B5282 prior to that (see changes below). The roadside buildings slowly change from industrial to residential in shape and more noticeably in size. The railway line passes overhead, marking the beginning of Salthouse, and slowly the buildings change from Victorian terraces, hastily erected during Barrow's boom, to more modern, spread-out town planning of later generations. We re-cross the railway and reach the roundabout at Roose where the road turns sharply right, soon leaving Barrow behind.

A5087 towards Roosecote Farm

As we head south east once more, the large structures of the Power Station loom over us to the right, while the road passes through more rural undulating scenery. After a little over two miles, another roundabout is reached, practically on the shore of Morecambe Bay. However, before we continue on the A5087 perhaps a little detour to the right is in order. This short unclassified road leads along the shore and then out on a causeway to Roa Island, a small community on a rocky outcrop between Morecambe Bay and the Piel Channel. At the end of the road, a bench allows a view across to Piel Island, whose pub is reached by ferry, as well as Walney Island. It is a pleasant spot! The causeway was built by the Furness Railway and did not become a road until the 1930s; surprisingly it is still Network Rail property!

Back to our road, however, and we find ourselves heading north east once more, with little between us and the huge sandy expanse of Morecambe Bay. At high tide it looks like any other piece of the sea, but at low tide the sand stretches away into the distance, seemingly all the way to Morecambe on the Horizon. It is, however, very treacherous.

Just past Newbiggin, there is a brief detour inland, followed by a slightly longer one past Aldingham and Baycliff where the road climbs substantially up the hill, offering some good views across the bay. We drop down to the shore once more at Bardsea, before finally turning inland and heading for Ulverston. It is not a big town, however, and before too long we have passed under the railway bridge and reached journey's end with a split where the mainline follows Quebec Street to a traffic-light-controlled junction with the A590, while the spur heads westwards along The Ellers to a roundabout terminus on the A590.

Changes

On initial classification in 1922, the B5282 ran south from the A590 at the crossroads outside Barrow railway station, along Rawlinson Street south to its terminus on Salthouse Road. It then turned left along Salthouse Road, joining what is now the route of the A5087 (terminating in the village of Roose on unlcassified roads). When the A5087 replaced the B5282, and extended along the Coast Road to Ulverston, its route through Barrow initially followed that of the B5282, that is, starting at Barrow station and heading south along Rawlinson Street.

OS Maps suggest the A5087 was rerouted at some point between 1968 and 1972, such that it instead started from the A590 at the roundabout between Duke Street and the High Level Bridge, heading south along Duke Street to the Strand, joining its current route south and then east parallel to the docks. A further change occurred in the mid 1990s when the A590 was significantly rerouted to enter Barrow from the north-west along Park Road, after the construction of the Dalton-in-Furness bypass. The A5087 abandoned Duke Street, instead continuing along the Strand, underneath the High Level Bridge and along Hindpool Road to meet the A590 at its current junction by Craven Park.

Along the Coast Road, there has been no significant changes in route, though OS Maps suggest that it originally ran through the village of Baycliff, before being diverted to its current route, on a previously unclassified road, at some point between 1947 and 1955.

In Ulverston the original route is unchanged, although the spur along The Ellers was added in the 1970s when the A590 Ulverston Relief Road was built to take traffic off the high street.