A7066

Main Article: A8/History

The A7066 is small part of the Edinburgh-Glasgow Road, built from 1924 to 1932. Although only two and a half miles long, it's still a very interesting piece of road, including the first dual-carriageway built on the route east of Newhouse, and one of the earliest grade-separated junctions anywhere in Scotland! It also passes through quite interesting countryside, with visible remains of three different generations of industries, all abandoned during the 20th century.

A bridge on the A7066 near Bathgate, wide enough to take a dual carriageway

Like much of the rest of the former Edinburgh-Glasgow Road, the A7066 is mainly a 10 m-wide two-lane single-carriageway road, and is likely to have been marked as three-lanes for a time. It was originally built as the new line of the A8, and gained that number in 1935. However, with the coming of the motorway to the south, the road's importance was reduced and so it was renumbered as the A7066, although this does at least give it the distinction of being the only 4 digit A road in Zone 7.

The wide single carriageway is set into an alignment that is considerably wider than the road itself. The single-carriageway sections of the A7066 all have a broad grass strip running along one side, which was intended from the outset to carry a second carriageway. All the engineering work was completed to dual-carriageway width, only the road surface and edge stones were left unfinished on the second carriageway. On bridge decks, the second carriageway was built, and the mossy remains give an indication of the true age of the road. What's most unusual about the A7066 is that for roughly a mile, the second carriageway was actually completed, although at a later date than the original road. The junction with the B792 was also upgraded, from a flat crossroads to a motorway-style grade-separated intersection, and long before it had been decided to build a new M8 motorway on a new line to the south.

The road's surface had suffered badly over the years, and had seen little major improvement, certainly since the 1960s, and possibly even since the 1920s. In recent years, the road had started to break up badly with winter frosts, and repairs were at best, temporary fills for the potholes, with tar and chippings applied overall to disguise the real state of the road underneath. However, further work appears to have been carried out as the road seems to be in better condition now.

A sign for the B792 on the A7066 - the grade-separated junction is an historical relic of the road's time as the A8

Just under half a mile from the end of the dual carriageway, Mosside Farm can be seen to the north of the road, set back in its own lands. In the days when the BMC Works produced some of the best tractors in Britain, Mosside Farm was the training establishment, where salespeople and prospective purchasers could come to learn the capabilities of their new steeds in a genuine farm environment. All of the early BMC publicity photos for Bathgate-built tractors were taken at Mosside Farm. Just over half a mile beyond Mosside Farm, the A7066 comes to an end at the A801 roundabout.