A19 road

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A19 road
Direction	North-South
Start	Doncaster
Primary destinations1	York Thirsk Teesside Middlesbrough Sunderland Tyne Tunnel
End	Seaton Burn
Roads joined	A1 road A1068 road A189 road A1058 road A194 road A184 road A1231 road A690 road A689 road A66 road A174 road A172 road A684 road A170 road A168 road A59 road A64 road A63 road M62 Motorway A638 road
Notes Primary destinations as specified by the Department for Transport.

The A19 is a major road in England, running parallel to and east of the A1 road. It provides a viable alternative to the A1 between Dishforth in Yorkshire and Tyneside. It is often assumed the A19 starts at Dishforth Interchange A1(M) Jct 49, but the first few miles is actually the A168, as this is a trunk route.

Doncaster-Selby

The A19 starts at a junction with the A630 Church Way and A638 just to the north of Doncaster itself near to the parish church; this junction has been improved in recent years. It leaves the A638 at the next roundabout as Bentley Road, and then winds its way over the East Coast Main Line, which it will follow through Selby and York, through the suburb of Bentley passing the Shell Bentley Service Station, St Peter's church and the Druid's Arms and out into the countryside to the north of the urban area. It then passes the Pavilion exhibition centre.

Much of the A19's course round here runs through the old Yorkshire coalfield, and there's evidence of this on the way with old slag-heaps and colliery buildings. It passes through Toll Bar and the primary school.

It then sets off north towards the village of Askern, itself with a history of mining in the area. It meets the B1220 for Carcroft and goes through Owston, passing the Owston Park Lodge. Here it passes the Askern Hotel, Red Lion Hotel and Jet Askern Service Station and goes over a level crossing. There is also a boating lake, St Peter's church and a greyhound stadium. There is a left turn for Norton. There are some long straights north of here, and the surrounds are mostly flat as the road heads towards the M62. It enters North Yorkshire and the district of Selby where it crosses the River Went near Walden Stubbs. There are some crossroads at Balne Moor, and it passes through Whitley Thorpe and Whitley and the George & Dragon. It meets the M62 at junction 34.

From the M62, the village of Eggborough has been bypassed in recent years, with the new road travelling from this roundabout to near the power station to the right (there are three power stations in a row at this point, running west-east: Ferrybridge, Eggborough, and Drax, with its enormous chimney, to the east). Close by is Whitley Bridge and the A19 then meets the A645 at a roundabout and its previous alignment to the north of the village, before travelling through Chapel Haddlesey where it crosses the River Aire and the small village of Burn where it crosses the Selby Canal, then before Brayton, it joins the A63. The £44m six mile A63 Selby bypass, to the south of the town opened on June 11, 2004. Before this happened, all the traffic, headed straight towards the centre of Selby, over a level-crossing and on to a busy traffic-light junction with the A63 from Leeds. The A19 took the major of the concurrency through the town centre, whilst crossing the old toll bridge and heading on north towards York. The road is still the A19 through Selby, but the bypass is the A63. However, north-bound traffic follows the A63.

Selby-Thirsk

The £5m five mile Riccall and Barlby bypass opened in October 1987. This provided better junctions with the A63 (Howden) and A163 (Holme-on-Spalding-Moor). The A63 and A19 meet at a roundabout near a large pickle factory. It heads towards Riccall where the road is much straighter after the bypass; it is following what was the East Coast Main Line before the Selby Diversion was built. Where the road leaves the old railway, the Trans Pennine Trail follows along the old track. At Escrick, it enters the Vale of York, and passes the BP York Road Garage, the Parsonage Hotel and the church of St Helen. Next is Deighton, passing the White Swan Inn, then it heads towards Crockey Hill. It meets the A64 near the headquarters of Persimmon plc. The York Northern By-Pass as the A1237 is a substitute for the A19 through York – this road is poorly engineered and has frequent roundabouts. The A19 still goes through York, beginning with the junction with the A64 close to a shopping centre, then Fulford, meeting the B1222 and passing St Oswald's church. It crosses the East Coast Main Line and passes through Clifton and Rawcliffe. North of York, the road passes the Riverside Farm pub, then goes through Skelton as Shipton Road passing the Blacksmith's Arms and Ramada York Hotel. It re-enters North Yorkshire and the district of Hambleton and goes straight through the middle of Shipton by Beningbrough as Main Street, to the annoyance of many residents. It passes the Sidings Hotel, Dawnay Arms and the Holy Evangelists church. Leaving the village it passes a garage on the left. There is a left turn for Tollerton and goes through Tollerton Forest. Heading northward the section between York and Thirsk was not helped much by the opening of the £5m three mile Easingwold Bypass in November 1994, as the road remained single carriageway, starting at a roundabout. There is a left turn for Raskelf. The residents of Thormanby look forward to their village being bypassed. Here it passes the Black Bull pub. There is the small dwelling of Birdforth with a roadside cafe and crossroads for Hutton Sessay and Carlton Husthwaite. It crosses the Thirkleby Beck near Great Thirkleby and goes across Pudding Pie Hill. It meets the A168 from the south, and the old route through Thirsk is now the A170 then the A61. The bypass meets the A61 and A168 (for Northallerton) at a junction near South Kilvington.

Thirsk-Seaton Burn

North of Thirsk, the A19 takes over from the A168 as the link from the A1 to Teesside and becomes a fast dual carriageway with mostly grade separated interchanges, passing North Kilvington, climbing slightly past the junction at Knayton near Borrowby and skirting the western edge of the North York Moors, meeting the A684 (for Northallerton) after passing through Leake and by the Haines Arms. It drops towards the Cleveland Tontine at the junction with the A172 (for Stokesley and Guisborough). A mile later, it passes the BP Exelby Services on both sides of the road. Eventually after passing the Crathorne/Yarm exit the road hurtles towards Teesside over the Leven Viaduct. From the Crathorne bypass, the road leaves the old route to the east, with the old route now being the A67 then the A135 through Stockton. About a couple of miles from the Parkway Turn (A174) in Middlesbrough the road is raised slightly, overlooking Thornaby Industrial Estate and one of Europe's biggest housing estates known as Ingleby Barwick, giving clues that Teesside is imminent. At the Parkway the lighting columns appear then the road widens to three lanes, then at Acklam at the A1130 interchange it becomes four before two peel off for the A66 for Stockton-on-Tees and Middlesbrough. Either side of the River Tees crossing, the Tees Flyover, is a retail park - Teesside Park with a Morrisons to the south of the river and Portrack with an ASDA on the Stockton side, with a mass of industry in the vicinity of the A66/A19 interchange. This interchange is one of the few 4-way free-flow interchanges in Britain not found on the motorway network, and is similar to a four-level stack interchange, but with a single loop ramp covering the A19 south to A66 west movement. This road was improved in 1998 by widening from 2 to 3 & 4 lanes each way the four mile section between the Parkway and Norton. Even in rush hour the road still flows quite well. The grade-separated four-mile £19m Billingham Diversion was officially opened in February 1983, which diverted the traffic through a sub-standard section with roundabouts built in the 1970s.

Past Teesside the road climbs to a rural landscape, passing the Ron Perry & Sons service stations on both sides near Elwick, before hitting Peterlee and the surrounding ex-coal-mining villages all competing with place marketing billboards for industries to locate. At Peterlee a 'flyover' was built in the late eighties/early nineties to ease the congesetion that was a constant feature of the old traffic island that was there. Locally this island was known as the "Turnpike". Local rumour has it that the flyover was built as a gesture of good will for the Nissan plant at Sunderland, who did not want their transporter vehicles held up at the Turnpike. The road crosses the River Wear on the Hylton Bridge before passing the Sunderland Nissan plant. At Testo's Roundabout, the A19 originally ended as the A1 took over to run through the Tyne Tunnel, before that classification became assigned to the Gateshead Western Bypass from the Angel of the North to the Metro Centre. To the east the A19 now approaches the Tyne Tunnel, soon to be duplicated to offer a real alternative to the rush hour congestion blackspot that is the A1. The A19 continues to the A1 just north of Newcastle at Seaton Burn.

External links

• Selby bypass opens June 2004.
• Problems with the Selby bypass.
• New Tyne crossing on CBRD.
• Shipton by Beningbrough villagers angry over bypass postponement in 2001.
• Shipton by Beningbrough villagers losing their patience in 2003.
• Multiple murderer Mark Hobson is caught at a petrol station on A19 at Shipton by Beningbrough.
• SABRE article on the A19
• Highway Agency DFBO Dishforth to Tyne Tunnel