B6 (Northern Ireland)

Derryboye

The B6 is a medium-length B-road in north Down.

The road originally started on the A1 in the centre of Lisburn but was cut back slightly when the A49 was inaugurated in the mid-1920s. That road was rerouted between Lisburn and Ballynahinch in the 1960s and so has taken on the another couple of miles of the original westernmost section of the B6.

From its present western end on the the A49 south of Lisburn the B6 heads east along Saintfield Road. It passes through no places of any size before Boardmills, where it crosses the A24. Presently the road reaches Saintfield and a mini-roundabout on the A21.

Originally the B6 ended here. However, it was extended east in the late 1920s. There is thus a short multiplex east along the A21 as far as traffic lights and the A7. The B6 reappears on the far side. It heads east along Station Road (the station no longer exists) before bearing right to pass through Darragh Cross. After skirting Clea Lough the road reaches Killyleagh and has taken over the B7 on the final approach into town.

The road zigzags onto the one-way High Street (lorries are diverted onto the parallel Dufferin Place, which presumably also carries westbound traffic) which reaches the A22. The B6 crosses onto Shore Street (still one-way) and TOTSOs right onto the two-way Seaview. The next road to the right, Irish Street, presumably carries traffic going the other way. The road then runs along the shore of Strangford Lough for a short distance before moving inland to bypass a headland. There is then another coastal section before the road heads inland and returns to the A22, ending at a T-junction. This final section of B6 (to the south of the A22) is narrow and not signposted with its number.