B5239

Route

Dicconson Lane

The B5239 is a semi-rural road in south Lancashire which links Standish and the Cooper Turning on the A6. It is an S2 road for its entirety, other than a 20-yard D2 stretch at Aspull.

The route starts at a signal-controlled crossroads with the A49 and the A5209 in the centre of Standish, from where it heads north east, descending a slight gradient as the road turns to face eastwards, passing a church on one side of the road and houses on the other. The B5239 then passes a school and descends slightly as the road turns north easterly past a golf course. The surroundings of the road begin to get increasingly dense with trees and shrubbery as the gradient steepens.

The road becomes increasingly demanding on vehicles' gearboxes and brakes as it descends, because there is a single-file railway bridge at the bottom of it, controlled by traffic signals. After you pass under the stone bridge, the B5239 becomes more urbanised as you pass between two medium-sized housing estates.

Once the estates pass, you come to a multiplex with the A5106; you need to turn right at a mini-roundabout (circa 2006, built at the same time as an access road to a new housing estate built on the former Standish Bleachworks site), onto that road. A short distance afterwards, you need to turn left at another roundabout. This ends the B5239's multiplex with the A5106.

Heading east once more, you're faced with a steep(ish) incline, known as Red Rock Brow. At the summit of the incline, there is another single-file bridge controlled by traffic signals, where there is a set for traffic exiting a small local lane and the car park of a public house next to the bridge, which spans the Leeds & Liverpool Canal.

After the bridge, the route becomes more twisty as it passes through the open countryside north of Haigh Hall Country Park, a popular local attraction. The B5239 then passes through a sweeping right-hand bend and soon after, it reaches a sharp left-hander where a private-road junction gives access (straight ahead) to the Haigh Hall Country Park.

The B5239 then becomes Meadow Pit Lane, which is an open stretch of straight, country road. After a quarter of a mile or so, the route TOTSOs onto Riley Lane, at a junction on a very sharp right-hand bend. Riley Lane continues until another sharp right-hand bend brings us into the quiet village of Haigh.

The road turns sharply to the left by the Balcarres Arms pub which takes us into the larger village of Aspull, where the B5239 reaches a double-roundabout junction with the B5238. We need to bear right at the first roundabout and left at the second in order to stay on the B5239.

Bolton Road, which takes us east south eastwards out of Aspull, is characterized by very generous "village green"-type grass verges, especially on the north side. After half a mile we come to a mini-roundabout with the unclassified Hall Lane, which is a popular short cut southward to Hindley, an area of Wigan.

Our road, now called Dicconson Lane, gradually curves round to head east north eastward and we cross from Wigan into Bolton at Dicconson Mill Bridge over the Borsdane Brook, just after passing the Gerrard Arms pub.

For the final three-quarters of a mile of its route the B5239 rises gently to reach open countryside, then makes a short descent to its terminus on the A6 Chorley Road at a signal-controlled T-junction marked by a small collection of houses and known as Cooper Turning.

History

The B5239 is only half the road it once was: the A5209 was formerly the B5239, so the road started on the A59 in Burscough. The full length of the B5239 lasted until at least 1975.