B958

South Road in Dundee

The B958 as originally classified in 1922 was a relatively short route in Dundee, curving around from the A85 at Invergowrie to the A923 on Lochee High Street. A lot of development has occurred in Western Dundee in the last 90 years, and so while it seems probable that the B958 originally followed Mill Road out of Invergowrie, and then picked up South Road to get to Lochee, the middle section has been wiped out by the construction of Kingsway West and other developments.

By 1928 the B958 had already been extended westwards, indeed around 10 miles further along the northern bank of the Firth of Tay to meet the then-A85 at Glencarse Junction. This saw the route provide a secondary connection through the Carse of Gowrie, although the only real village served was Errol. Following the construction of the Kingsway around Dundee (originally numbered A972 but now A90), the B958 seems to have lost a short section, as noted above, with a brief multiplex along the new bypass. By the 1950s this multiplex had been removed, with South Road renumbered as the B9151 (and later declassified completely), so that the B958 was now an entirely different route to that laid out in 1922!

More recently still, the extension from Invergowrie to Glencarse has also been declassified, although it survived the dualling of the then-A85, which meant the inclusion of a GSJ at Glencarse Junction from the very beginning. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a number of Atlases show that by then the B958 ran from Glencarse via Errol and then turned back north through Errol Station to the A85, with the road through Grange unclassified. It seems likely that the B958 number disappeared at the time that the A90 was extended north, taking over this stretch of the A85, in 1994.

Route

The route started a few miles east of Perth at Glencarse Junction on what was for many years the A85, but is now the A90. The original T junction still survives, more or less, to the north of the modern dual carriageway, and the road then headed south east over the Railway and into St Madoes. A sharp left turn into the village has been realigned, with a block of flats recently built on the triangle of grass thus created. It is still possible to walk along the old road though. A long straight then leads out of the village, before the road became a little twistier heading through Hawkstone and Chapelhill. After forking right to avoid Leetown, the road straightened up once more, running through fields with occasional views south across the Firth of Tay.

The Carse of Gowrie is prime agricultural land, and the wide fields full of crops date back centuries, as the high quality farm buildings in the area testify. The Mains of Murie and Mains of Errol are just two examples passed as the B958 crossed the gently undulating landscape. The stone wall of Errol Park then appears on the left, with stunning views out to the south compensating for this bluff intrusion to the roadside scenery. A little further along, and the road turned sharp left around the corner of the park wall and headed north west into Errol village, coming out at a wide junction. Signage would suggest that the B958 TOTSOd here, the junction therefore remaining unchanged.

Turning right, the B958 headed through the occasionally narrow streets of Errol, which has grown greatly in recent years with large new housing estates to the north. Leaving the village behind, the road dropped quite steeply down to a T junction and then followed another long straight, past a wartime airfield which is now home to a number of businesses and a Sunday market. The T junction appears to be where a shorter B958 turned north to rejoin the A85 / A90 at Inchmichael before the route was completely declassified.

The former B958 at Grange

At the end of the straight, a left right kink took the route through the small village of Grange, and then another couple of straights led to a sharp left turn leading to a Level Crossing over the busy railway line at the former Inchture Station. After the crossing, the B958 turned sharp right, and it can be believed that this too was always a TOTSO junction. Another long straight under magnificent Oak trees leads eastwards to Rawes, after which the road becomes much twistier, the fine views across the Tay forgotten as the road sits much lower down. Another level crossing, a few more bends, and suddenly the Tay is there, or to be more precise, the mud banks of the Firth are there at the roadside, the river itself is over a mile away at all but high tide.

The small village of Kingoodie, squeezed between the shoreside road and the railway is soon behind, and then just as it started, the road finally finds a bridge to cross the railway for the final time. With a short sharp climb, Invergowrie is found, and Errol Road leads up to Main Street, which was for a while the eastern end of the B958 on the A85. The original section of the B958, continuing north and east around Dundee is as described above.

The 1922 MOT Road List defines this route as: Invergowrie - Lochee