Page 18 - Jigsaw May 2019

Glance at the past.......................................................................................
On the road again... Eric Franklin on life before the bypasses
Just under 30 years ago, before the A14 and the town bypass were opened, all traffic had to pass through Thrapston. These two pictures taken on 8th February 1990 give an indication as to how congested Thrapston was. The top picture was taken from premises on the corner of Chancery Lane and which were at one time the Electrovision shop. The lower picture is from the corner
of the High Street / Oundle Road junction. All through traffic had to cross the Nine Arch Bridge, with resulting long delays waiting for the traffic lights to change. At the Oundle Road junction the choice was either to
go up Oundle Road towards Oundle and Peterborough or to go straight on towards Huntingdon. I remember one August Bank Holiday Monday during the 1980’s watching vehicles queued from the Oundle Road traffic lights up the road and to nearly the Titchmarsh turn. It was not uncommon at these times for the journey through town to take up to an hour.
The bypass behind the Lazy Acre estate was opened on 30th October 1989 and is photographed two days before, from the bypass looking towards the Huntingdon Road roundabout. At this time the various industrial estate warehouses had not been constructed. The road sign indicates the
(Both pictures from the Eric Franklin collection)
way to Bythorn left, Wellingborough straight ahead and right to Thrapston and Islip. The A14 was under construction at the time and was still a couple of years away from completing the M1 – A1 link road.
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(Eric Franklin 1989)
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