B9020

The B9020 is a loop off the A942 through the Banffshire coastal village of Findochty.

Station Road, Findochty

The route starts at the western end of Findochty village at a fork junction off the A942, rather grandly signed to the 'Town Centre'. It drops down into the village on School Hill and Commercial Street, passing the harbour on the left. Commercial Street becomes narrower and at the end, the B9020 TOTSOs right, to climb up Station Road, although the turn is unsigned and the road ahead leads on into the village, along some very narrow streets, to eventually arrive at a dead end. Station Road climbs steeply up around some winding bends to another TOTSO, this time an even sharper fork, from where the B9020 continues south along Station Road to rejoin the A942.

History

The history of this route is somewhat complex. As originally classified, the route was intended to serve the harbour, and so it dropped down School Hill, then followed Commercial Road and continued onto Main Street to the eastern pier for the harbour, where it ended. OS maps from the 1950s then show a series of changes. The 1:25,000 sheet from 1951 appears to show that the route has been extended along Sterlochy Street, before doubling back around a sharp hairpin along Blantyre Terrace and the southern part of Station Road to meet the A942, although it is not clear how early this extension was added. By 1957, the same map shows that the route has been changed again, and now climbs Station Road as it still does. However, Blantyre Terrace is still included as a spur of the route, and there is a rather bizarre loop around Church Street and Blantyre Street, which seems to survive into the 1970s.

The present eastern junction of the B9020 and A942 lies 120 metres east of its original location, the layout of both roads here having been rationalized in the mid 1970s following the dismantling of the Moray Coast railway line in 1968. The old junction sat on the north side of the railway, with the A942 turning sharp right to cross the bridge, before a sharp left at another T junction on the south side, the road running almost parallel to the tracks on either side of the bridge.

The 1922 MOT Road List defines this route as: Branch to Findochty Harbour