B758

The B758 is an urban B-road in north Lanarkshire.

Route

West of Kylepark

The route starts at a GSJ on the A725 Blantyre bypass, where the westbound onslip meets the unclassified Syde Brae and becomes two-way. It then heads west to a roundabout with the westbound offslip before turning north to pass under the dual carriageway and meet the eastbound slips at a signalised junction. After all the sliproads meet, the B758 heads north along Douglas Street, passing between modern housing. It crosses the B7012 (former A726) at a traffic-light-controlled staggered crossroads and then heads north along the winding Hunthill Road. The road is largely residential, and as Blantyre is almost just a big modern suburb lying between Hamilton and Glasgow, most of the properties are post war. However, some older houses stand along the route which is much older and for most of its distance marks the edge of the urban area, with the steep valley of the Rotten Calder on the left: sometimes there are houses on the left and sometimes not. A left turn winds steeply down to cross the river, while the B758 continues north along Bardykes Road.

Eventually the route becomes wholly urban once again and soon reaches a T-junction on the A724. This junction is a modified staggered crossroads, with the two routes briefly multiplexing as far as a mini roundabout to the left. The B758 then continues north along Blantyre Farm Road, which is a typical 1960s or 70s distributor route., The houses are either set back behind a service road, have rear vehicular access, or further north simply back onto the main road. After crossing a roundabout, the route winds round to cross over a railway line on a long skew bridge and finally leaves Blantyre behind. A thickly wooded section winds out to find some open fields, and a sharper double bend. To the left is Redlees Urban Park, which has the feeling of being a derelict indsutrial site reclaimed by nature, and was indeed once a quarry site. A left turn was once the B716, but is now unclassified and then, after some more bends round another block of woodland, the route goes under another railway line before crossing the River Clyde on Haughhead Bridge.

On the north bank of the river, the route turns hard right, although it originally turned hard left, and follows the river upstream for a short distance. Buildings ahead are the northern fringe of Uddingston, but the route curves round to the left at a junction to avoid them, and cross the M74 immediately to the east of the Maryville Interchange. The end of the route lies ahead, indeed so close that traffic can often queue across the bridge. The terminal junction is a simple T junction without signals with the A721, although it used to be the A74, and some maps still claim it is. The signage at the junction, however, states that the route is the A721 in both directions.

History

Both ends of the route have seen changes over the years, although despite the huge growth of the urban area of Blantyre, the central section of the route has hardly changed at all. At the southern end, the route originally started at what is now the staggered crossroads with the B7012. In 1922 this was the A726, later renumbered as the A776, before being bypassed by the current line of the A725 in the 1970s. It was at this point that the route was stretched south to meet the new bypass.

The northern end of the route was re-routed between 1965 and 1968 in advance of the construction of Maryville Interchange, which severed the original line. This headed west along the north bank of the Clyde towards Maryville Farm, and the first section is still open to traffic, as far as the gates to the farm. Here the old road curved to the right, and is partially retained to form a turning head leading into a field. The rest of the old route, and indeed the junction with the old line of the A74 now lie buried under the motorway junction.

The 1922 MOT Road List defines this route as: High Blantyre - Maryville