B1052

Willingham Green

The B1052 is a rural B-road on the Essex / Cambridgeshire border.

It sets out heading north-east from a small roundabout on the B1383 (former A11) at Sparrowsend, close to Wendens Ambo in Essex, and immediately crosses the young River Granta. Some 2 km further on, we enter the small market town of Saffron Waldon, where the B184 takes over for a while, carrying the route along High Street, George Street, and Hill Street before the B1052 re-emerges as Common Hill, heading north out of the town.

Continuing through Little Walden and Hadstock, the road crosses into Cambridgeshire just before reaching the A1307 Linton bypass and entering the village via a left-right dogleg junction with the A-road, almost a virtual multiplex (and is a multiplex for HGVs who are advised to use a different access road into the village by going east along the bypass.

Linton (on the A132 in 1922) was the original terminus of the B1052 but within four years it had been extended along formerly unclassified roads through Balsham and Brinkley to meet the B1061 at Burrough End.

History

In the 1970s the southernmost part of the route – from the A11 near Wendens Ambo to the A130 in Saffron Walden (today, the B1383 and B184 respectively) – was promoted to Class I and became the A1063. Opening of the M11, however, led to downgrading of the A11 and A130, and return of the whole of the B1052 to the status it had had in the 1920s.