B8064

Dunblane High Street: looking northeast

The B8064 follows the original route of the A9 through the middle of Dunblane, while its subsequent route is now otherwise the B8033 through the town. It is today essentially a town-centre distributor road, and indeed with its one-way sections, this short route (of less than a kilometre in length) cannot be driven throughout in either direction. Its through-traffic role has been taken over since the 1930s (probably - see below) by the shorter and more direct Perth Road (dualled in 1959).

The B8064 forms two loops in towards Dunblane Town Centre, but thanks to the one-way systems in place, it is easiest to describe the route from the middle of the three junctions it has with the B8033. This sees traffic head north along Beech Road to a fork. The town centre lies ahead, so traffic is subtly turned to the left by the use of paviors in the road, onto Stirling Road and so across the ancient Dunblane Bridge over the Allan Water (dating back to 1409; last widened in 1927). Stirling Road then completes the 180 degree turn in front of the Station, and heads south alongside the railway back to the B8033. Here the near-pointlessness of this loop is completed by traffic being turned left onto the dual carriageway, and so back to the initial junction. Clearly this loop exists today solely to serve the station, and a few dozen properties lying between river and railway.

Turning left again, but this time forking right onto the historic High Street, at the end of which lies a small roundabout. Ahead, along The Cross, lies the magnificent medieval Cathedral, while the High Street, and the B8064 become two-way as they turn right, quickly followed by another sharp right. The road is now broader and more residential in character (it was laid out circa 1825). Old maps seem to label this stretch as Perth Road as it now runs east to also rejoin the B8033, this time at the large Fourways Roundabout by St Mary's Episcopalian church.

History

The history of this route is not as straightforward as might be assumed. The road across the meadows which is now the B8033 appears to have been built in the late 1920s or early 1930s (perhaps in conjunction with the widening of the old bridge in 1927), as it is marked on large scale OS sheets from c1933. However, it still necessitated traffic to navigate around the old bridge on Stirling Road. The new bridge over the Allan Water was apparently opened in 1940, which would have allowed A9 traffic to finally bypass Dunblane town centre. Unfortunately, the critical area around the bridges falls on a sheet join in the large scale mapping of the time, and the One Inch sheet was not updated at the time, meaning that it is very difficult to clarify these changes with mapping. The B8064 number is not marked on maps until after all of these changes had been completed (and initially erroneously as the A8064), although it was surely allocated when the first section of the bypass was completed, c1932.