Archway Bridge

The A1 in London is the southern part of the A1 road. It starts at Aldersgate in the City of London, passing through the capital to Borehamwood on the northern fringe of Greater London, before continuing to Edinburgh. The road travels through the City and three London boroughs: Islington, Haringey and Barnet, which include the districts of Islington, Holloway, Highgate, Hendon and Mill Hill, and travels along Upper Street and Holloway Road, crossing the North Circular Road in Hendon, a district in the London Borough of Barnet. The A1 is the most recent in a series of routes north out of London to York and beyond. It was designated in 1921 by the Ministry of Transport under the Great Britain road numbering scheme, comprising existing roads and streets, mostly historic, and later using stretches of purpose-built new roads in what is now the outer London borough of Barnet. The Archway Road section was built by Thomas Telford using Roman cement and gravel, an innovative technique that was used there for the first time, and is the basis for modern road building. The route closely follows the historic route of the Great North Road, though from 1954 it has diverted round the congested suburbs of Finchley and High Barnet along modern roads constructed in the 1920s and 1930s. The A1 is one of London's main roads, providing a link to the M1 and the A1(M) motorways, and on to the Midlands, Northern England and Scotland. Despite this, its main use is to connect a number of neighbourhoods within north London; less than 5% of its vehicles are through traffic – the bulk is local. The roads along which the A1 route travels are the shared responsibility of the local boroughs, the Greater London Authority, and the British Government via the Department for Transport.