Readers reply: Which is the most interesting road in the UK?

Which is the most interesting road in the UK? Not necessarily the most scenic, but the one that is most important historically or has the most fascinating story. Olly, Warwickshire

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Readers reply

A contender should be Calum’s Road on Raasay , built by the islander Calum MacLeod. According to Wikipedia, locals spent decades campaigning unsuccessfully for a road, so he took matters into his own hands, with the help of Thomas Aitken’s manual Road Making & Maintenance: A Practical Treatise for Engineers, Surveyors and Others. Replacing the old footpath – mainly using only a shovel, a pick and a wheelbarrow – took a decade. By 1974, he had constructed nearly two miles of road between Brochel Castle and Arnish. It’s a great drive and includes unusual road signs! Paul Rackham

Given its ratio of length to tourist visitors, I’d suggest it’s that one in north-west London with the zebra crossing. EddieChorepost

Related: Abbey Road zebra crossing repainted in coronavirus lockdown

The Great North Road . Difficult to beat for historical significance and importance. mbbcam

Bealach na Bà (“the pass of the cattle”) in Wester Ross, north-west Scotland, which links the beautiful village of Applecross with the A896. It’s the UK’s only version of an alpine-style series of steep ramps and hairpin bends; it’s a favourite with cyclists. It takes you over some very remote and desolate moorland and then down into Applecross, which has a fantastic pub that does amazing seafood. The return is even more spectacular, with views over Loch Kishorn towards Plockton, but keep your eyes on the road! It’s becoming a very popular diversion on the North Coast 500, which means it gets very busy in the summer. Trilobyte; realisscum

How about Tom Otter’s Lane on the Lincolnshire-Nottinghamshire border? It’s named after the last man to be gibbeted in Lincolnshire, who (probably) murdered the pregnant bride he had just bigamously married there. The story was such a sensation in the 19th century that the gibbet site is marked on maps. It’s said that a blue tit made a nest in the mouth of the gibbeted corpse, giving rise to a local riddle:

“Ten tongues within one head,
Nine were living and one was dead.
One went out to fetch some bread
To feed the living in the dead.”

Otter also haunts the site of his crime, of course. SpoilheapSurfer

The A303 is surely a contender – not just because it goes past Stonehenge, but because it follows some ancient thoroughfares such as the Fosse Way, past prominent iron age forts such as Ham Hill and Cadbury Castle. (The second is one of the many supposed locations of Camelot.) You can also just make out Glastonbury Tor from some parts of it, so that’s another big chunk of Arthurian legend to add to the list (it’s supposedly the Isle of Avalon). JonathanCR

Related: Stonehenge’s altar stone was carried all the way from north-east Scotland. But how?

There’s the old joke: “Why did they build Stonehenge so close to the A303?” But there may be more than a nugget of truth in it, because, as JonathanCR says, the A303 follows the route of some ancient trackways, such as the Fosse Way and Harrow Way. In fact, that part of the country is crisscrossed by ancient trackways, many of them dating back to Neolithic times. So, it is perfectly possible that Stonehenge was sited where it is because it was already a meeting point or junction for traders. Trilobyte

Cock Bridge to Tomintoul in the north-east of Scotland. Well worth carrying on fora few more miles to Grantown. When the signs say “low gear”, believe it. Record it on a dashcam, if you have one, because the driver can’t afford to be distracted. Tedami7

Being a local, I’d suggest the Hardknott Pass , with its Roman fort, its steepness and the incredible scenery (which is nigh impossible to beat). Maybe not “interesting” (or too interesting) for the driver, who has to concentrate so very, er, hard. But for the passengers, there’s enough interest to talk about for months, especially if you stop at the fort. thebardoftysoe

I’m going to give the prize to the Electric Brae in Ayrshire , not so much because of the genuinely impressive optical illusion, where the road appears to be running uphill when it is actually running downhill (and vice versa), but because of the terror felt when driving round the bend on to the brae at speed, only to find a family of four in a Vauxhall Astra freewheeling backwards towards you. “Interesting” is definitely an understatement. BellaTheCook

A route from Heddon-on-the-Wall to Heriot (south of Edinburgh) would be hard to beat. The B6318 runs west from Heddon, often alongside Hadrian’s Wall. This road was built by General Wade’s army in 1746 and is now the longest B-road in the UK. It finishes in Langholm (the birthplace of [poet] Hugh MacDiarmid), just over the border with Scotland.

A mile north of its endpoint on the A7 is the start of the B709 (the second-longest B-road), which is one of the quietest of the spectacular roads through the Borders, running through Eskdalemuir (home to a geophysical observatory and a Buddhist monastery), Ettrick (the birthplace of James Hogg) and Traquair (the location of Scotland’s oldest inhabited house). MarkGould

The Snake Pass is a beautiful road, fun to drive, though a little bit dangerous due to subsidence. It’s the most direct link between Manchester and Sheffield, there being no motorway that covers the entire route. The road is right on the moors and I’ve seen plenty of wildlife at night and at dusk – deer, owls, hares, plus the occasional sheep on the road. The summit passes Bleaklow, which, as the name suggests, is a bleak but beautiful place, where among other things can be found the wreckage of a B29 bomber. Further along the route there’s Ladybower reservoir, which has a “plughole” drainage system . The reservoir was also used by the RAF 617 squad (AKA the Dambusters) for training.

The Snake Pass is also a good spot from which to reach Kinder Scout , as the road does a bit of the climbing for you. Coming from the Sheffield direction, you get dramatic views of Manchester on a clear day. And there is always the chance of running into the mysterious Longdendale Lights when driving the Snake Pass at night. I thought I saw them once, but it was lightning striking the hillside: almost as good. copticstitch

From Ullapool to Durness, in the very north-west of Scotland, you are travelling on the very ancient boundary between the Americas and Europe. Long before the Atlantic appeared, there was a sea here; this road marks the coming together of the two previous shores. As you head north, the turreted Torridonmountains on your left sit like battleships on a sea of gneiss; on your right are the great wastes of the Flow Country . At Knockan, on that road just north of Ullapool, a small visitor centre explains how the 19th-century geologists Ben Peach and John Horne used the folding and crushing of layers of ancient rock exposed just above the road to demonstrate how the Earth’s crust moved. Sheona York