The North Circular Road (officially the A406), is a ring road around the northern half of inner London. Although it is now a single continuous road, it was formed from component sections, some of which are named North Circular Road while others retain their separate names, e.g. Gunnersbury Avenue, Hanger Lane. The term "North Circular" is used as a more accurate synonym for A406, including for route planning purposes. The road runs from Chiswick in the west to North Woolwich in the east via suburban north London, connecting various suburbs and other trunk roads in the region.
Together with its counterpart, the South Circular Road, it mostly forms a ring road around inner London, except for crossing of the River Thames to the east, which is done by the Woolwich Ferry.
The road's route was established in 1911 and it was constructed in the Interwar period, connecting local industrial communities and bypassing London. It was upgraded after World War II, and was at one point planned to become a motorway as part of the controversial and ultimately cancelled London Ringways scheme. In the early 1990s, the road was extended to bypass Barking and meet the A13 north of Woolwich, though without a direct link to the ferry.
The road's design varies from six-lane dual carriageway to urban streets; the latter, although short, cause traffic congestion in London and are regularly featured on local traffic reports, particularly at Bounds Green. The uncertainty of development has caused urban decay and property blight along its route, and led to criticism over its poor pollution record. Several London Borough Councils have set up regeneration projects to improve the environment for communities close to the road.
Route The North Circular Road forms the northern part of a ring-road around Central London. The route identified for it in 1911 lay substantially through green fields (unlike that for the South Circular Road), and consequently much of it is on purpose-built roads rather than urban streets. Some sections of the latter have been upgraded, often involving the demolition of houses and urban infrastructure.
The route is mostly grade-separated dual carriageway from the A40 at Hanger Lane to the A13 in Beckton except for the Drury Way/Brentfield Road junction, the Golders Green Road/Brent Street junction, Henlys Corner and the section from Bounds Green to Green Lanes. Sections of road which existed before they were incorporated into the North Circular are most likely to have retained their original names, e.g. Gunnersbury Avenue, Bowes Road.
Gunnersbury, Hanger Lane and Brent Cross
The road begins in Gunnersbury at the Chiswick flyover (junction 1 of the M4), from which the South Circular Road (A205) heads south over Kew Bridge, and the A4 heads east towards Chiswick and west towards Brentford. The first section runs along Gunnersbury Avenue through Gunnersbury Park to Ealing Common, with a mix of single and dual carriageways, where it becomes Hanger Lane.
The road crosses the Great Western Main Line west of Paddington to the Hanger Lane gyratory system, a large roundabout on top of the Western Avenue (the A40) with Hanger Lane tube station. This is one of the busiest junctions in London, used by 10,000 vehicles an hour.
From Hanger Lane the A406 was built as the North Circular Road. Originally it was a single carriageway but with space for frontage roads, except beneath the West Coast Main Line near Stonebridge Park. The road has been widened repeatedly (including beneath the West Coast Main Line) and is now a six-lane dual carriageway that connects the industrial estates in the area. Beyond Stonebridge Park, there is a junction with IKEA and the Neasden temple to the southeast, and the road runs alongside open land south of the Welsh Harp Reservoir.
Beyond the reservoir, there is a large interchange with the Edgware Road (A5) and junction 1 of the M1 motorway at Staples Corner, and a junction for the Brent Cross Shopping Centre at the Brent Cross Interchange (joining the A41 from Finchley). This section of the North Circular was used for filming the car chasing sequences in Withnail and I.
Northeast of Brent Cross, at Henlys Corner, the North Circular briefly shares carriageways with the A1, which joins it from the northwest and leaves it to the southeast to head into Central London. The junction complex also serves the Finchley Road and pedestrian traffic, and consequently is a major bottleneck on the route.
Transport for London have invested in the junction, including a special hands-free traffic-light-controlled pedestrian crossing which allows members of the local Jewish community to cross the road safely on the Sabbath. The road passes north of St Pancras and Islington Cemetery towards Friern Barnet and Muswell Hill. The road narrows to four lanes to pass under the East Coast Main Line, and continues as single-carriageway Telford Road towards Bounds Green.
Southgate, Woodford and Beckton
Traffic on the North Circular must turn right from Telford Road into Bowes Road at a traffic-light-controlled junction, which causes problems with heavy goods vehicles. The road continues past densely packed housing and business areas before widening at Green Lanes and assuming the North Circular Road name again. At Great Cambridge Interchange, its most northerly point, the A406 crosses Great Cambridge Road (A10). The disused Angel Road railway station is partially located beneath the flyover at Angel Road, in an area marked for redevelopment known as Meridian Water. This leads onto the Lea Valley Viaduct that provides a safe crossing of the River Lea's flood plain. The viaduct is part of the original construction and was one of the first of its kind to be built using reinforced concrete.
After the viaduct the road becomes Southend Road, passing north of Walthamstow, and immediately before the Crooked Billet junction, the former site of Walthamstow Stadium. It continues eastward, cutting through a southern section of Epping Forest and meeting the Woodford New Road at Waterworks Corner, before an elevated junction with the M11 motorway and Southend Road heading to Gants Hill. The South Woodford to Barking Relief Road (the section between the M11 and A13) opened in 1987. Previously, the A406 extended along Southend Road and Woodford Avenue as far east as Gants Hill. The current route of the North Circular Road turns south, passing Eastern Avenue (A12) on a flyover at the Redbridge roundabout. It passes Romford Road (the historic Roman Road from London to Colchester) to the west of Ilford and London Road, Barking, and ends at a roundabout with the A13 Newham Way/Alfred's Way in Beckton.
To reach the Woolwich Ferry, traffic must follow local roads to the ferry terminal – the A1020 Royal Docks Road, and the A117 named successively as Woolwich Manor Way, Albert Road and Pier Road. The Woolwich Ferry leads across the River Thames, connecting with the eastern end of the South Circular Road on the other side of the river. The junction with the A13 has been built to enable the North Circular to be continued across the junction to the Thames Gateway Bridge if and when it is built.
History Early history
In 1904 in his submission to the Royal Commission on London Traffic, William Rees Jeffreys proposed "A Boulevard round London", arguing that a road round London is perhaps the most urgently required of all the new roads. At present the traffic wishing to get from one side of London to the other has to pass through the congested central portions. The route sketched in the map would enable travellers to get from one side of London to the other without passing through it.
The Royal Commission did not adopt this proposal, but it was picked up by the London Traffic Branch of the Board of Trade. This was established to co-ordinate the activities of the various local authorities responsible for roads in their areas. Its 1910 Report put forward a proposal, which was revised in 1911 and which essentially set out the route which was subsequently implemented. The 1911 Report explained:Further consideration having shown the impossibility of satisfactorily widening and improving the whole length of Forest Road at Walthamstow, and other parts through Tottenham and Hornsey, a new line is now suggested for the proposed North Circular Road, some two miles further north, passing through Friern Barnet and Edmonton.Both schemes were based on existing roads, which were to be improved and connected together by new sections into a circumferential road. From 1913 local authorities and other interested parties held a series of Arterial Road Conferences. Their remit was broader than the Royal Commission's had been and they proposed roads extending from Uxbridge to Southend-on-Sea. In 1916 the second full Arterial Road Conference approved the London Traffic Branch's 1911 plans for London with minor additions.
Construction of the North Circular Road started in 1921 as an unemployment relief scheme with the Government providing funding to local authorities. Fortuitously, various manufacturing industries, including furniture production, had moved away from the East End in the early 20th century and started to be based in areas on the fringes of outer London development. As well as a general bypass of Central London, it connected the communities of Edmonton, Tottenham and Walthamstow, the latter via the Lea Valley viaduct, which was built in 1926. Further west, industrial work increased around Wembley to cater for the 1924 British Empire Exhibition, while former military factories at Willesden, Hendon and Acton also benefited from being connected by the North Circular Road. The land used for the route was mostly cheap, which encouraged further works and factories to be built by the road. The final section to open, in 1934, was that from Hanger Lane to Stonebridge Park, which required diversion of the Grand Union Canal, including an aqueduct over the new road.
Some sections of new road were built to dual carriageway standards, with a wide carriageway accompanied by verges. In 1937 the Highway Development Survey reported that of the 19 miles of the North Circular Road, 4 miles were dual-carriageway, 3 miles were single-carriageways of more than 30 feet width, while the remaining 12 miles were single-carriageways of 30 feet or less. Some of these were existing unimproved roads (e.g. Gunnersbury Avenue, Hanger Lane, Bowes Road); in other places the land acquired for the road was much wider (often 100 feet), but perceived demand had not justified building a wider road yet. By the end of the decade, the area surrounding the Park Royal estate had become the largest industrial estate in the south of England, and the London Passenger Transport Board was receiving regular complaints about the excess traffic levels.
Due to laxer laws that allowed housing to be built on major roads, as London suburbs developed, residential properties were built on the North Circular Road. The original purpose-built road had been designed subject to the (widely-ignored) national speed limit of 20 mph. This was lifted in 1930, but by 1951 a 30 mph speed limit was enforced along the route.
In 1946 the North Circular Road became a trunk road, funded from a national budget set by the Ministry of Transport (MOT) rather than a series of local roads.
London Ringways