B5288

This article is about the current B5288 west of Penrith, Cumberland, and its earlier, parallel route.
For the original B5288 from Ullswater to Troutbeck in the same county, see B5288 (Ullswater - Troutbeck).

Greystoke

The number B5288 has been used for two different but mostly parallel routes in the Penrith area of Cumberland.

The present-day B5288 starts on the edge of Penrith's town centre at the Morrisons/Castletown railway bridge roundabout junction with the A592 (or A6 according to one sign) then heads over the bridge making two very sharp almost TOTSO junctions. Here the road is officially known as Norfolk Road but most of the rows of houses alongside have different names. At the top of a slight hill here there is a fork where the original A594 (Greystoke Road) went to the left but as this is now a dead end so we must go the right along Newton Road (formerly the B5305) passing the entrance to the Gilwilly Industrial Estate. At one time the sign saying "Penrith" was positioned just past the estate's entrance but has now been moved further along. Though road signs along Newton Road direct into "Penrith" and not "Town centre", though the suburb of Castletown has always felt separate to the rest of the town. Just before the motorway bridge is the entrance to the Penrith or Myers Industrial Estate whose main road (Haweswater Road) links up with the A592 close to M6 Junction 40.

Once over the motorway the former route of the B5305 branches off to Newton Rigg College and the villages of Newton Reigny, Laithes and Skelton. This road meets up with the current B5305 by the Skelton Radio transmitting station home of the tallest radio mast (and structure) in the UK.

The B5288 runs along a "new" alignment until it meets the old A594 again a few yards along by the Wildriggs meat carcass waste processing plant (home of the "Penrith Pong") and becomes a quiet country road for the most part. Another link to M6 Junction 40, known as Mile Lane, branches off just past Wildriggs by the Greystoke Pillar, which makes the boundaries of Inglewood Forest, The Honour of Penrith and the Civil Parish of Penrith with the Barony of Greystoke and the Parish of Dacre.

Passing through the hamlet of Pallet Hill we come to the Clickham Inn standing by a crossroads where one road goes to the villages of Great and Little Blencow and another to Newbiggin and the A66 at Stainton. The fingerpost here until recently stated that the B5288 is the A594 and that the Newbiggin road leads to Blencow railway station (which closed in the 1970s).

Just along the Blencow road is the mansion known as Ennim this was for many years the home of William, later Viscount, Whitelaw, MP for Penrith and The Border and Home Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister under Margaret Thatcher.

The B5288 carries on to the largish village of Greystoke past some farms built in a strange design as follies by the Dukes of Norfolk, who at one time owned Greystoke Castle. The castle is still owned by a branch of the Howard (Norfolk) family.

After Greystoke we pass through the villages of Motherby and Penruddock. At Penruddock we meet the former route of the B5288 and turn right for a short time eventually joining the A66 by the Sportsman's Inn.

History

The earlier route of the B5288 in 1961

The original route, upgraded from an unclassified road in the mid-1920s, ran from a junction with the then-B5320 just outside the village of Stainton over the hill known as Barons Hill to meet the then-A594 at Penruddock.

With the opening of the M6 Penrith bypass in 1968 all this changed. The A66 took over the route of the B5288 (although Stainton and Pendruddock were bypassed and most of the old route is now dualled) and the A594 west of Penruddock.

The B5288 name was assigned to the former A594 from Penruddock to Penrith except for where it crosses the M6 at Castletown on the edge of Penrith. A new bridge was built here and the old A594 (Greystoke Road) was made into 2 culs-de-sac at either side of the motorway. The "new" B5288 also took over part of the former B5305 as its entrance into Penrith along Newton Road.