A6141

Route

Leaving Baldock on the B197 (former A6141)

The A6141 was a short A-road in north Hertfordshire, connecting the towns of Letchworth and Baldock to the A1(M).

The road started on the A505 to the east of Letchworth Garden City. It headed south along Letchworth Gate, a wide, tree-lined avenue which passes between housing estates rather than through them. After about a mile the road reached the A1(M), which it crossed at J9.

On the far side of the motorway the road curved round to the left to run northwards. It crossed the fields before entering Baldock along London Road. At a roundabout an unclassified road bore off to the right to the A507 but the A6141 bore left into the High Street. It ran along the full length of this road before ending back on the A505.

History

There was no road immediately south of Letchworth when roads were originally classified in 1922. The B656 followed a similar path, through the village of Willian to the west and the A6141 was presumably built to bypass the village. The A6141 was in existence by the end of the 1930s and the B656 had been declassified. At this time the road only ran between Letchworth and the original line of the A1 (now B197) at Lannock Hill.

When the A1(M) Baldock bypass was built in the late 1960s the old A1 was downgraded. However, as the motorway junction (the present J9) to serve both Letchworth and Baldock was built to the south of the towns a Class I road was still needed to provide a route and so the A6141 was extended north along the old A1 into Baldock, with the old A1/A6141 T-junction bypassed. The road thus became a loop off the A505 to serve the A1(M).

In the 2000s Baldock was bypassed again, this time by the A505. That road took on the original section of the A6141, whilst the former A1 section was downgraded, becoming the B197 like the section to the south. As such the A6141 no longer exists.