A10 road

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Cambridge Road redirects here. For other roads with the same name, see Cambridge Road (disambiguation)

The A10 (or the Great Cambridge Road, also known as the Old North Road) is a major road in England. Starting at London Bridge, it runs northward through the City of London (along the sections known as King William Street, Gracechurch Street and Bishopsgate), then through Shoreditch (where it forms Shoreditch High Street), Dalston (forming Kingsland High Street), Stoke Newington (forming Stoke Newington High Street), Tottenham and Enfield.

The Great Cambridge Road crosses the M25 motorway at Junction 25, close to Waltham Cross, and then bisects Cheshunt as an urban dual carriageway, which has become prone to traffic congestion, in particular because of the junctions with local roads. In the early 1990s many properties beside the road were compulsory purchased for a relief scheme that involved sinking the road below ground level through Cheshunt, and converting the original alignment to single carriagway for local access.^{[citation needed]} However the scheme was dropped, and the road remains a dual carriageway, with surrounding houses having been sold back to private buyers.

The situation between Cheshunt and the M25 is likely to be made worse with the construction of a new printing press for News International, close to J25 of the M25.

From here, the Great Cambridge Road continued through Broxbourne, Hoddesdon, and Ware (along what is now the A1170). In the late 1970s, these towns were bypassed by a new all purpose dual carriageway route, including a bridge (The Kingsmead Viaduct) over the Lea Valley between Hertford and Ware and the Hertford East branch of the West Anglia Main Line.

From Ware, the road used to pass through the Hertfordshire villages of Wadesmill, Thundridge, High Cross, and Collier's End, but these are now bypassed by a 4-mile extension of the dual carriageway which opened in late 2004. The bypass would have opened sooner, but the lime-stabilised subsoil heaved and cracks opened up in the road surface. A substantial portion of the road surface had to be relaid.

This is followed by further piece of 1970s dual carriageway road between Puckeridge and Buntingford, which itself has a 1980s single carriageway bypass.

From Buntingford, the road runs through the villages of Chipping, Buckland, and Reed, before reaching the edge of Hertfordshire in the market town of Royston.

Once in Cambridgeshire, the topography changes from undulating hills to flat agricultural and fenlands, round the villages of Melbourn and Foxton (the road going over a level crossing adjacent to Foxton railway station), through Harston and up to the M11 motorway (J11) at Cambridge. A10 traffic is signposted to travel north on the M11, skirting round the top of Cambridge on the A14; however, the former course of the A10 turns into the A1309 and heads for the city centre.

The A10 reappears to the north of Cambridge at the Milton Interchange of the A14 and heads north, bypassing Ely and Downham Market before reaching the coast at King's Lynn in Norfolk. Its northern section runs up the valley of the River Great Ouse.

Parts of the section from London to Royston follow the route of the Roman Ermine Street.

[edit] External links

• Society for All British Road Enthusiasts entry for the A10