A610

Route

The A610 is an important medium-length A-road in the East Midlands.

Nottingham – Nuthall

Derby Road, Nottingham

The road starts at a roundabout in Nottingham City Centre with the inner ring road, the A6008. This was formerly the A52 when it passed through the centre, and is a one-way system up the hill to Canning Circus, where the A6200 (ex-A52), A609 and A610 radiate in a clockwise manner. The road passes through Radford before meeting the ring road, the A6514, at a signalled junction which was formerly a roundabout.

Now primary, the route continues to pass through the outskirts of Nottingham where it crosses the B6004 at a signalled junction and the B6008 at a roundabout. This section is 30 mph, enforced rigidly by SPECS. After the roundabout the route is dual carriageway and NSL, but for the subsequent dual carriageway being 40, the traffic rarely travels much faster than 40. The next roundabout, which is large and signalled, is with the B600 (here the old route of the A610, and erstwhile A613), and A6002. A short distance of dual carriageway, now with a 40 limit, brings up M1 junction 26; this section was a spur leading purely to the motorway before the bypass was completed.

From here, the primary nature of the A610 is under question with contradictory evidence from both mapping and the signage on the ground.

Nuthall – Ambergate

Still dual carriageway, but this time grade-separated and with nothing around at all, the road rather nonsensically carries a 40 mph limit, which randomly becomes 50 further down. At a GSJ with the A6096 and B6010 (not far from the old route) at a large retail park with stores including Comet, Decathlon and Ikea, the road becomes NSL. A further GSJ with the A608 makes the A610 single-carriageway as it skirts Langley Mill on a bypass before joining the old route to pass through Woodlinkin (on a rather interesting D1 section carrying a 50 limit) on the way to Codnor, where at the top of a hill it meets the A6007 at a set of lights, terminating it. The A610 goes through Codnor to Ripley, where we meet the former route, the B6441, which passes through the town centre, we turn right (at a Sainsbury's store) at the roundabout along a bypass. Two further roundabouts, with the Derbyshire police HQ, and a second access to the retail park, bring up the NSL alignment of the bypass which is S2 but there's no access until we pass the A38, and B6441 again, at a large roundabout, the A38 accessible by slip roads.

Bull Bridge

The remaining section of the route is relatively twisty as we approach the Peak District (we never actually enter the national park); as the A610 passes through villages it carries a 40 mph limit. The B6013 crosses at a signalled junction. The road then passes alongside a railway line at Bullbridge (a right turn under the railway to Crich and the Tramway Museum) before passing under it at a low bridge. Prior to entering Ambergate the railway is crossed again, before a third railway crossing (on the Matlock line) leads to our termination on a T-junction with the A6 at Ambergate, by a restaurant.

History

The route formerly passed along the B600, unclassified, and B6010, through Nuthall, Kimberley and Eastwood, before multiplexing with the A608 to Langley Mill and diverging on an unclassified route to the current alignment. The route through Ripley is now the B6441.

The Kimberley/Eastwood bypass was built in 1976, along the trackbed of the Great Northern Railway, which had closed 10 years previously. The Langley Mill bypass followed in 1982, which followed some more of the trackbed.