Sunderland section Throughout the Sunderland section it is known as either
Durham Road or
New Durham Road, and is one of the major routes in and out of the city. A
single carriageway section runs from the city centre to a large
roundabout at the Barnes. The road then climbs a steep hill toward High Barnes, alongside the Bede site of the
Sunderland College before becoming
dual carriageway. Beyond a set of
traffic lights at the
Prospect Hotel, the road remains dual carriageway, but the inside lane is a 'no car lane'. (In early 2009 the
Prospect Hotel was demolished to make way for a new Lidl store.) The road then climbs another hill, becoming single carriageway, with the
Farringdon estate to the east and the
Thorney Close estate to the west. A down hill stretch leads into the
East Herrington and then on toward the
A19 fly-over. Just after the A19 intersection, the road once again becomes a dual carriageway with a speed limit of . Within the first mile after the A19, the road comes to a notoriously bad intersection - which is frequented by a speed camera van on the Eastbound carriageway just outside the
Evans Halshaw. The road then runs through
Houghton-le-Spring, via a locally famous transport feature named
Houghton Cut. This huge cut through the hillside was reputedly built with the forced labour of Napoleonic prisoners of war. The road then runs out of the
City of Sunderland boundary and on toward the
A1.
Houghton Cut The Houghton Cut "carries the A690 over the steep and prominent
Magnesian Limestone escarpment at
Houghton". In 1815,
French prisoners of war blasted this cut deeper than it already was, to improve the road to Sunderland's port. It was blasted again for the same reason in the 1930s, and "the Germans are said to have helped by bombing it". From 1968 to 1970 it was widened again.
Durham section Durham Entrance - geograph.org.uk - 726882.jpg|The A690 enters Durham Durham Dawn - geograph.org.uk - 368139.jpg|A690 in Durham Looking down on the A690 at Durham - geograph.org.uk - 991681.jpg|Looking down the A690 at Durham ==References==