B6481 (Corby)

This article is about the B6481 in Corby.
For the other B6481 near Leeds that used to be part of the A639, see B6481 (Leeds).

Corby High Street

The B6481 is a short link road in Corby, Northamptonshire, that includes part of the old village High Street.

The road starts at traffic lights on the A427 Oakley Road, where there is a bus gate for B6481 traffic wanting to turn right but all other movements are permitted to all traffic. We head north along the residential Station Road (the station itself is down a drive on the left), then the road bears left to go over the railway line. We must TOTSO right here onto the High Street, which has a few older buildings to remind us of pre-New Town Corby. We then turn left at a roundabout onto The Jamb, then right at the next roundabout onto Lloyds Road to end at another roundabout on the A6086.

History

The B6481 as depicted in c. 1960

The origins of the B6481 in Corby are, however, a little more interesting. Whe originally classified in the mid-1930s it originally applied to all of Oakley Road, from the A427 in the centre of Corby to the A6003 near Oakley. This route is now mostly the A6014, but the short section of Oakley Road past Corby Station retains the B6481 number.

Curiously OS one inch maps from around 1960 show the road past the station as an A road (no number for this section has yet been identified), with the B road then extending from the bend out as far as a row of pylons, from where the A6014 takes over. The line of pylons was later used by the re-routed A427, perhaps showing that the OS were aware of what was coming, but not quite prepared to depict it at the time.