A46 road | |
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Route information | |
Length: | 214 mi (344 km) |
History: | Construction completed: Warwick and Kenilworth Bypass - 1974 Newark-On-Trent Relief Road - October 1990 Leicester Western Bypass - November 1995 Lincoln Relief Road - December 1985 |
Major junctions | |
From: | Bath (51°23′49″N 2°20′10″W / 51.397°N 2.336°W) |
A1 road A1434 road M1 motorway M40 motorway M5 motorway A617 road |
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To: | Cleethorpes (53°33′40″N 0°02′06″W / 53.561°N 0.035°W) |
Location | |
Primary destinations: |
Stroud, Cheltenham, Warwick, Coventry, Leicester, Newark-on-Trent, Lincoln |
Road network | |
The A46 is an A road in England. It starts east of Bath, Somerset and ends in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire, but it does not form a continuous route. Large portions of the old road have been lost, bypassed, or replaced by motorway development. Between Leicester and Lincoln the road follows the course of the Roman Fosse Way, but between Bath and Leicester, two cities also linked by the Fosse Way, it follows a more westerly course.
The original (1923) route of the A46 was from Bath to Laceby, passing through Cheltenham, Broadway, Stratford-on-Avon, Coventry, Leicester, Newark and Lincoln. Unusually for such a long road, no changes were made to its route until the 1970s. In recent years the central sections of the road have been rerouted and renumbered substantially, and there are now two sections where there are gaps of over 10 miles (16 km) where the road does not exist at all. The A46 has also been extended from Laceby to Grimsby and Cleethorpes - the road between Laceby and Grimsby was originally part of the A18.