page_title: A1 road (Great Britain)
section_title: Overview and post-First World War developments
hierarchical_section_title: A1 road (Great Britain) / Overview and post-First World War developments
caption_attribution_description: English: The A1 road skirting the Scottish coastline just across the border from Northumberland (south of Burnmouth).
context_page_description: The A1 is the longest numbered road in the UK, at 410 miles. It connects London, the capital of England, with Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. It passes through or near North London, Hatfield, Welwyn Garden City, Stevenage, Baldock, Letchworth Garden City, Huntingdon, Peterborough, Stamford, Grantham, Newark-on-Trent, Retford, Doncaster, York, Ripon, Darlington, Durham, Sunderland, Gateshead, Newcastle upon Tyne, Alnwick and Berwick-upon-Tweed.
  It was designated by the Ministry of Transport in 1921, and for much of its route it followed various branches of the historic Great North Road, the main deviation being between Boroughbridge and Darlington. The course of the A1 has changed where towns or villages have been bypassed, and where new alignments have taken a slightly different route. Several sections of the route have been upgraded to motorway standard and designated A1. Between the M25 and the A696 the road has been designated as part of the unsigned Euroroute E15 from Inverness to Algeciras.
context_section_description: Most of the English section of the A1 is a series of alternating sections of primary route, dual carriageway and motorway. From Newcastle upon Tyne to Edinburgh it is a trunk road with alternating sections of dual and single carriageway. The table below summarises the road as motorway and non-motorway sections. The non-motorway sections do not have junction numbers.
  A 13-mile (21 km) section of the road in North Yorkshire, from Walshford to Dishforth, was upgraded to motorway standard in 1995. Neolithic remains and a Roman fort were discovered.
  A 13-mile (21 km) section of the road from Alconbury to Peterborough was upgraded to motorway standard at a cost of £128 million (£227 million as of 2020), which opened in 1998 requiring moving the memorial to Napoleonic prisoners buried at Norman Cross.
  A number of sections between Newcastle and Edinburgh were dualled between 1999 and 2004, including a 1.9-mile (3 km) section from Spott Wood to Oswald Dean in 1999, 1.2-mile (2 km) sections from Bowerhouse to Spott Road and from Howburn to Houndwood in 2002–2003 and the 8.5-mile (13.7 km) "A1 Expressway", from Haddington and Dunbar in 2004. The total cost of these works was some £50 million.
  Plans to dual the single carriageway section of road north of Newcastle upon Tyne were shelved in 2006 as they were not considered a regional priority by central government. The intention was to dual the road between Morpeth and Felton and between Adderstone and Belford.
  In 1999 a section of A1(M) between Bramham and Hook Moor opened to traffic along with the extension of the M1 from Leeds. Under a DBFO contract, sections from Wetherby to Walshford and Darrington to Hook Moor were opened in 2005 and 2006, taking the section to a junction.
caption: A single carriageway section of the A1 skirting the Scottish coastline just across the border from Northumberland.
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