B6086

This article is about the current B6086 to the north of Sheffield city centre.
For the original B6086 to the east, see B6086 (East Sheffield).

Route

The B608x routes are all to the north-east of Sheffield City Centre or leading along routes in that direction, although this is coincidence for the B6086, being the second use of that number.

Part 1: Fir Vale - Shiregreen

The road starts in the northern suburbs of Sheffield, at a forked junction with the A6102, near to its junction with the A6135 next to the Northern General Hospital. Access is not possible to or from the A6102 east of the junction - to reach the B6086 you must go along Selby Road to the east. The road climbs up through the terraced housing of Fir Vale, until we briefly pass by parkland and sports grounds that divide Fir Vale from Firth Park.

We shortly reach a roundabout at the main shopping area for Firth Park. The roundabout is odd in the fact that it appears to have an unused road passing through the centre, but this is where the old Sheffield tramway passed through the roundabout. The old tracks have been conserved and are visible.

Bellhouse Road

There are five exits from the roundabout, the one we have just entered from, followed by (going clockwise)- Hucklow Road, Stubbin Lane (providing a spur of the B6086 that continues ahead to the A6135), Sicey Avenue, and Bellhouse Road. The last two roads form the next bit of B6086, as a mini one-way system. Weirdly, the one-way roads are reversed: the northbound Bellhouse Road being to the right of the southbound Sicey Avenue. The two parts meet up and run north along Bellhouse Road. This takes us through the suburb of Shiregreen, an early example of Local Authority housing dating from the early 1930s. It is interesting to note that even though the road has street lighting there are still the mountings for cats eyes along the centre line. Passing over a mini roundabout, the road heads down a hill to a triangular shaped junction with the B6082 Ecclesfield Road.

Part 2: Shiregreen - Hood Hill

After a brief multiplex to the right the B6086 once turned left at another triangular junction, with the B6082 continuing ahead towards Meadowhall. However, the next section was declassified in the 2000s leaving the two isolated sections of B6086 that exist today.

Thorpe Hesley

The road used to drop sharply to pass under the Sheffield to Barnsley railway line, followed quickly by a what was a level crossing for a railway removed during Beeching's Cuts. The station house for Grange Lane Railway Station is still there amongst the industrial units. The B6086 then passed under the M1 and into open countryside before climbing uphill to the outskirts of Thorpe Hesley and a T-junction on the A629.

A short distance to the left the B6086 reappears and climbs into the centre of Thorpe Hesley where it bears left at a mini-roundabout. On the edge of open country a T-junction is reached where we TOTSO left. Priorities have clearly been altered here but for no apparent reason as the unclassified road to the right has a weight limit and quickly gets lost in a residential area. Meanwhile the B6086 continues northwest across the fields and then goes through a wood to enter the village of Hood Hill. Here it ends at a T-junction back on the A6135.

History

The old road layout in Firth Park, with the A6135 and B6086's routes swapped

With the exception of the loop in the Firth Park area, which was originally the mainline of the A61, all of the above was unclassified in 1922. The B6086 was an early example of a recycled number, coming into being later in the 1920s. At that time it connected the A61 to itself, running between Firth Park and Hood Hill.

By 1930 the B6086 had been extended south to cut off the corner of the A61's loop by following the direct line along Barnsley Road (an extension that required a multiplex). The A-road was renumbered A6135 in 1935 and this situation remained for some years.

The A6135 and B6086 swapped their routes in the Firth Park area in the 1970s giving the road a spur. The section between Shiregreen and Thorpe Hesley was then declassified in the 2000s and the B6086 gained its current length.