A611

Route

The A611 is the back route from Nottingham to Mansfield, the A60 being the more obvious road.

Nottingham - Mansfield

The road starts just north of Nottingham City Centre on the A60, at a signalled junction. Travelling north-west, it meets an unclassified road at a junction locally known as 'Chip Shop Corner'. However, this junction has no official name. Heading north, it enters a shallow sandstone cutting allowing it to cross the A6514 Nottingham Ring Road at a roundabout before a crossroads with the B6004, and a wide S2 skirting Bestwood to the south-west before meeting the the end of the B683. There is then a bridge crossing the Nottingham to Hucknall railway line and also NET Line One, on the other side of which is a mini-roundabout where the A611 turns right as it terminates the A6002 and meets, for the first time, the original route of the A611.

We follow the original route for a very short distance before a further roundabout means the A611 joins the Hucknall bypass, an S2 alignment opened in two stages in 1991 and 1993. There are two roundabouts on the bypass, with the B6009 and an unclassified road, before the original route is met again, this time as the B6011.

The road is now dual carriageway heading towards the A608 for M1 junction 27. Part of this is split carriageway. The northbound carriageway is the original line of the road: less direct, skirting a motte-and-bailey castle to the south; the southbound route is newer and more direct. The A608, which provides access to the M1, is met at a signalised roundabout, where the two A611 carriageways also converge.

Autumn near Annesley

The route passes through Annesley, meeting the B6021 to Kirkby in Ashfield, which it skirts the south-east edge of, before crossing the B6020 (one way to Kirkby again, the other to Ravenshead and the A60). The B6139 is the next route to be crossed (to Sutton in Ashfield in one direction and the B6020 in the other) before passing over the A617 Mansfield bypass (without a junction), becoming dual carriageway for a short distance before terminating at a signalled junction on the road it started on, the A60.

History

• The original start of the A611 was on the A610 in Radford, to the west of Nottingham city centre - the present start of the route was then the B683. The road travelled along a now-unclassified route before meeting the B682 at the Nottingham Ring Road, following it through Bulwell, and along the last section of A6002.

• The original alignment also passed through Hucknall, along what is now an unclassified route and for a short distance the B6011.

• Although the current route ends in its original place on the A60 south of Mansfield, the A611 was extended in the 1920s to multiplex with the A60 for a short distance before passing along the current former B6031 through Clipstone, meeting the A614 at Ollerton, and carrying on to the A57 at Darlton along what was the B6033. In the 1960s the A6075 took over the route from Mansfield to Darlton including part of the A611; its route from Mansfield to Ollerton was further north, so that section of ex-A611 is now numbered B6030.

• Hucknall Bypass - Phase 1: The 1.4 mile road from Nottingham Road to Watnall Road (B6009) was opened on 18 November 1991. Phase 2: The 1.5 mile road from Watnall Road (B6009) to Annesley Road was opened on 22 February 1993 by Gordon Young, County Council Chairman, to complete the bypass. It had an 11m carriageway. It included dualling of 0.75 mile of Annesley Road. Contractor was Alfred McAlpine Construction Ltd. - Budge, total cost £6.6 million.