A641

Route

The A641 is a relatively short A-road in urban Yorkshire.

Section 1: Huddersfield – Brighouse

The road begins its short journey on the edge of the A62 Huddersfield Ring Road in two locations about 100 yards from one another either side of the railway line, depending on which direction you approach it from. It proceeds northwards, initially as S2 for the first half-mile towards Fartown, and then becomes a D2 for the next mile and a bit, as it climbs up to Bradley Bar roundabout, and then down towards Brighouse. The D2 ends just after the road crosses over the M62 although there is no junction here. It then continues as S2 down the hill into Brighouse.

Roundabout junction with the A644 in Brighouse

These days we turn right at a roundabout as we bypass the town centre on a D2. And then we come to a busy junction where the A644 and A643 cross us and make their ways to Dewsbury and Leeds respectively. This has always been a busy junction but it kept moving, but in the past two years a roundabout has given way to a traffic light controlled junction designed and built by - wait for it - Tesco.

Yes, Tesco have started building the roads as well. God help us if they are all as bad as this. If you want to go to Tesco, it's excellent: all the approach roads now have dedicated lanes for Tesco and it's very clearly signed, but for the rest of us this junction is now a nightmare. It has been altered already, with filter arrows at places but it's still a poor junction. And all the signs are wrong as to the status of the roads. They have all become primary again.

Section 2: Brighouse – Bradford

Anyway, we leave this mess and leave Brighouse behind us on S2 as we continue towards Baliff Bridge were we cross the A649, and then we get to the A58 at Hellfire Crossroads. For many years it lived up to its name with regular deaths on a non-signal-controlled crossroads. Traffic lights have been here for may years now, but the name sticks.

Guided busway in Bradford

The road continues by Wyke and towards Odsal Top where we're actually grade-separated through the junction. We become D2/3 as we drop into Bradford City Centre. We have gained a guided bus lane in recent years down this bit too and a roundabout with the Bradford Outer Ring has been replaced with more traffic lights recently. We cross the A647 at yet more traffic lights just outside Bradford City Centre to end at a signalised roundabout on the A6181 Central Ring Road.

History

Before the mid 1970s, the A641 just went straight through Brighouse. You can clearly see the old line of the main road. The name Bradford Road is still used to this day.

The road was primary all the way from Huddersfield to Odsal at one time; sadly we are non-primary these days, unless we take those signs at Tesco, and the initial Route Confirmation Sign in Huddersfield at face value.