B6291

Coxhoe

The B6291 is a short B-road in east County Durham.

The route starts at a roundabout on the A688 on the southern edge of Bowburn and heads southeastwards into Coxhoe. It runs along the main street of the village before turning left at traffic lights onto The Avenue. It zigzags around a quarry and climbs to the village of Quarrington Hill.

Whilst in the village the road becomes traffic-calmed. Bizarrely, this calming continues even after the road reenters open country, lasting just until the next village of Cassop. The road continues to climb and eventually ends at a T-junction on the A181.

History

The B6291 originally reached Spennymoor

As can be seen from a map, the B6291 is now entirely in the 1 zone; this is because the section of the road in the 6 zone has been renumbered.

Originally the B6291 started on the A6074 in the centre of Spennymoor. It headed east through town along Barnfield Road and Works Road, meeting the B6290 and B6288 in quick succession before leaving town and crossing the A1 (later to become the A167 at this point) in Thinford. The road then went under the East Coast Main Line at Metal Bridge before crossing the A177 in Coxhoe to follow its current route to Thornley.

When the A688 Spennymoor southern bypass was constructed in the 1970s, the B6291 west of Thinford was bypassed or became part of the A688. Metal Bridge was bypassed in the 1980s, but more extensive renumbering took place in the 1990s when the village of Tursdale was bypassed. The A688 took over the B6291 to the east before heading north up the new Tursdale bypass to meet the A1(M) at what is now junction 61 of the motorway. The section of ex-B6291 east of there to the motorway bridge became the A177 bypass and the remainder into Coxhoe was declassified. To allow the B6291 to start on a classified road it was extended north along the pre-bypass A177 to meet it and the A688 at A1(M) junction 61 of the A1(M.

In the 2000s the A688 was extended east, taking over the section of B6291 immediately to the east of the motorway interchange, thus establishing the latter road's current route.