page_title: North Circular Road
section_title: Gunnersbury, Hanger Lane and Brent Cross
hierarchical_section_title: North Circular Road / Route / Gunnersbury, Hanger Lane and Brent Cross
caption_attribution_description: English: North Circular Road, Hendon, Barnet (borough), London, viewed from the top of the footbridge which connects Golders Green Road with Brent Street.
context_page_description: The North Circular Road is a 25.7-mile-long ring road around Central London in England. It runs from Chiswick in the west to Woolwich in the east, and connects the various suburbs in the area, including Ealing, Willesden, Wembley, Finchley, Bounds Green, Southgate, Edmonton, Woodford, Ilford, and Barking. Together with its counterpart, the South Circular Road, it forms a ring road through the Outer London suburbs. This ring road does not make a complete circuit of the city, being C-shaped rather than a complete loop as the crossing of the River Thames in the east is made on the Woolwich Ferry.
  The road was originally designed to connect local industrial communities together in addition to bypassing London, and was constructed in the 1920s and 1930s. It received significant upgrades after World War II, and was at one point planned to be upgraded to motorway as part of the controversial and ultimately cancelled London Ringways scheme in the late 1960s. In the early 1990s, the road was extended to bypass Barking and meet the A13 north of Woolwich.
context_section_description: 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. 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, incorporating 10,000 vehicles an hour.
  The A406 runs on purpose-built road to the north of Hanger Lane Gyratory, and is referred to as "North Circular Road" on street signs. The road is a six-lane dual carriageway that connects the industrial estates in the area, and passes beneath the West Coast Main Line near Stonebridge Park. Beyond this, there is a junction with IKEA and the Neasden temple to the south-east, and the road runs across empty land past 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 left and leaves it to the right 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 crossing for the local Jewish community, who can then cross the road on the Sabbath. The road passes north of St Pancras and Islington Cemetery towards Friern Barnet and Muswell Hill. The road narrows to two lane single carriageway to pass under the East Coast Main Line, and continues as Telford Road towards Bounds Green.
caption: Intersection of Brent Street and Golders Green Road, viewed from a footbridge in Hendon
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