B859 (Dingwall)

This article is about the former B859 in Dingwall.
For the former B859 from Braemore to Poolewe (now A832), see B859 (Wester Ross).

The now-unclassified former B859 Hill Street

The B859 seems to be primarily identified from the 1946 10-mile sheet, which clearly marks the B859 as a loop to the south of the A834 of the time; however, it is difficult to be certain whether the A834 has changed course since that time. Equally, the small scale and thick lines used for the roads makes it very difficult to be precise about where the various routes went.

Further comparison of various sheets identifies that at the time the A9 followed Station Road, High Street and Tulloch Street, with the A834 continuing along the western end of High Street to its current route. It therefore seems possible that the B859 was Greenhill Street and Hill Street, indeed there are no other roads which it could be. This has now been confirmed by the RAC British Road Numbering System document from 1958. Whilst this does not exactly tally with the 1946 map, allowance has to be made for the small-scale. This extremely short route is marked on OS Maps from the late 1930s in red - the colour used for 'main roads' - and later in orange, on the 1947 One Inch map, which defines B roads as well as the more important unclassified roads. However, by 1958 it is definitively marked as unclassified on the one-inch sheet. Greenhill Street is now part of the A862, which has taken over the A9 through town.

In the later 1970s, the western end of Greenhill Street was built and appears to have become part of a complicated grid of A roads around Dingwall to cater for the rising traffic levels before the Cromarty Bridge was built and took A9 traffic away from the town. This is now the A862, with Hill Street remaining unclassified today.