A896 (Wick)

This article is about the former A896 in Wick.
For the current A896 in Wester Ross, see A896.

Bank Row in Wick

The original number of the route in 1922 was B874

The 1935 Ten Mile Road Map is the only one to show the A896 number

By the 1936 edition of the Ten Mile Road Map, the road had already been through two numbers of its own and become part of the A882

In the 1938 edition, the road is on its fourth different number

The number A896 was originally used in about 1933 as a link road in Wick, having been renumbered from the B874. It is currently only known from the 1935 edition of the 10-mile map, and is not shown on the 1932 edition, which shows the new A895 but not the A897. This incarnation was decidedly short-lived, however, as the road was quickly renumbered as an eastern extension of the A882. This presumably happened in May 1934 because, as the A896, it had been pushed out of zone by the A9 extension from Inverness to John O'Groats. Curiously, therefore, it became the A8002 a couple of years later, as shown on the 1939 10-mile map, however this can be explained by the short westwards arm from the A9 to Wick Station. The whole route is now unclassified.

The road itself started on the then-A882 Cliff Road and headed east along Union Street and Bank Row to end at the harbour. Despite the A8002 later including a very short spur to the west (as seen in the map to the right), leading to Wick Station, the intermediate use of the A882 number for the road suggests that the A896 never extended to the west in Wick.