Talk:A1 in London/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

This article was created using text from several other Wikipedia articles, the page histories of those articles with the editors who contributed to them can be found by following these links: St John Street, London, Upper Street, Holloway Road, Archway Road.

Notes by original author

I realise this is a long article, but would urge anyone to reconsider before splitting it. It was formed from merged (and rewritten) stubs on five of the sections (see this version for the five existing stubs plus my Aldersgate Street article), and I do think it's important to keep them together to show the way the road's character changes through its length.

I've tried hard to keep anything not directly related to the road and buildings actually on the road out of the article, as it's already very long and this could easily become an incoherent mess. The sole exception I've made to this is the Bishop's Avenue section, as I feel this section is necessary in describing the extreme contrast between the A1 itself and its side streets at this point. Likewise, the long asides about stations are, I feel, necessary; in Holloway Road's case to explain why there are four (and were at one point six) separate stations on a 2 mile stretch of road, and in Highgate's case to illustrate just why there are so many abandoned tunnels, derelict station buildings and half-built railway lines going nowhere near Highgate tube station.

The geocoding is not ideal as it's too precise. I've chosen a spot roughly halfway along Archway Road as the focus but do feel free to change it if you have good reason.

This article (and its sister article A215 road) is a pilot of mine for a new format for A-roads that have multiple named sections, to replace the existing multiple-stub approach. I'd be grateful for any feedback - positive or negative - regarding it — iridescent (talk to me!) 20:16, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Forced image sizing

I've deliberately forced the image sizing on some of the thumbnails even though I know it violates MOS - the images with longish captions actually take more space at smaller size due to the word wrapping. A couple of images such as the Wesley memorial also include elements such as text which are not visible at smaller resolutions — iridescent (talk to me!) 15:26, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

GA Pass

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   a (fair representation): b (all significant views):

5. It is stable.

   

6. It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.

   a (tagged and captioned): b lack of images (does not in itself exclude GA): c (non-free images have fair use rationales):

7. Overall:

   a Pass/Fail:

It is a very well written, comprehensive and highly sourced article. Good job - • The Giant Puffin • 12:11, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Categorisation

User:Iridescent asked me on my talk page the following: "Any particular reason you've deleted Category:City of London from A1 road (London) but left Islington, Haringey & Barnet? I can understand (though not agree) if you want to delete the borough categories and just leave Category:Streets in London, but can't see the logic in deleting one and leaving the other three"

I'd been moving London streets from Category:Streets in London (which was vastly overpopulated) to subcategories by borough and similar subdivisions. After I did the A1 it then occurred to me that it was potentially overkill to have long list of categories of streets for every local authority it passed through, so I put it back into Category:Streets in London. It did also occur to me it was similarly overkill to list each local authority the street went through, so I didn't reinstate Category:City of London. However, it didn't occur to me to see whether other local authorities were listed, leaving behind the illogicality. Anyway, I have now decided to go the whole hog, and put it into Category:Streets in xxxxx for each local authority. (Those cats are themselves in the cats for Islington, Haringey & Barnet.) I have also left it in Category:Streets in London as it is a London-wide road. All this may or may not be overkill - I'm not sure. Can I have some feedback on this? Thanks.--A bit iffy 19:45, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Probably the best place to build a consensus is on the talk page of WP:LONDON. Normally, I'd suggest WP:ROADS as well, but they seem to be moribund at the moment.

My personal opinion is to have the A roads in a category of their own, and the individual shorter roads in borough categories. In my opinion most road articles could happily be deleted or merged. IMO even Oxford Street would sit perfectly well as a section of A40 road (or A40 road (London)) in the same way that Holloway Road now sits as a subsection of this page, but I realise that might be a bit extreme — iridescent (talk to me!) 20:04, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Inline citations

Inline citations need to go directly after the punctuation, with no space in between. --Nehrams2020 02:21, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

There is no "need to" about it. While you're obviously free to change it if it bothers you, Footnotes come after punctuation is a guideline, not a policy, and it's a guideline I personally don't agree with. The Manual of Style makes no comment either way on the matter — iridescent (talk to me!) 15:26, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm with iridescent on this one, it looks grossly unnatural and I can't wait for the wiki-wind to blow the other way - and then from the same page, the dates are all 'over linked' which is in contradiction to WP:MoS. Kbthompson 15:43, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Suicide Bridge

It is stated in the article that Archway Bridge is "the subject of Johnny Burke's 2006 film The Bridge." Actually, the subject of the film is the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

No, you're thinking of Eric Steel's documentary of the same name. Johnny Burke's was definitely about Suicide Bridge; first paragraph of its accompanying press release reads "There is a 100 year old woman, a serial killer, in North London. Her name is "Suicide Bridge". High above the Archway Road, throwing a heavy shadow over the passing traffic, she assists the tragic people who come for her help". — iridescent (talk to me!) 17:42, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

• Hornsey Lane Bridge marks the boundary between Islington and Haringey, and consequently the official boundary between Inner London and Outer London. Although technically the boundary runs down the centre of the bridge, in practice the bridge is treated as part of Haringey and the land beneath it as part of Islington.

Last statement could use a citation, I think. In all the wiki pages I read on Haringey I don't think I ever saw the bridge mentioned. "In practice", whose? Derekbd (talk) 07:10, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Haringey maintain the road surface on the bridge, and Islington maintain the footpaths beneath it (the road below is maintained direct by TfL), if you get robbed beneath it Islington police will come, if you get robbed above it Haringey police come, and so on. The location of the formal boundary—along the dead centre of Hornsey Lane for its length, including the bridge—can be seen on any ward-level map. – iridescent 16:55, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Primary Destinations

Hi. I've removed most of the primary destinations based on this list. Also I moved the map into the infobox and removed a lot of spaces from the road list as sometime ago the routebox was changed in it's format and it left all of the in use boxes in a mess. Hope this is OK with people. Regan123 (talk) 21:39, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations

This is a terrific article, one of the best I've seen on here. Well done. 138.37.199.206 (talk) 08:35, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Add to that - it certainly is. Sarah777 (talk) 11:34, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks... At some point A10 road (London) will also appear when I can get around to it (so far, A215 road is the only other I've got round to). – iridescent 17:07, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Er....I hate to say this but if you look at modern map of London you will see that you have got the starting point of the A1 wrong. The A1 starts just north of St Paul's tube station on St Martin's Le Grand, south of London Wall, within the old city walls...not at the roundabout at London Wall itself. Colin4C (talk) 20:12, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Depends which map you look at. On a skim through, mapmakers seem to split fairly evenly as to whether the St Martin Le Grand—Newgate Street—King Edward Street—Montague Street gyratory forms part of the A40 or the A1. (If we're being really picky, then since this is a gyratory there's no "start point – or alternately, even if it is all considered part of the A1, the "start" would still be the Aldersgate Street/London Wall roundabout as that's where any "longest possible journey on the A1" would originate.) On older maps, St Martin's Le Grand – and also Cheapside – were designated as the A1 which officially terminated at the Bank of England, but since the post-IRA security cordons the formal A1 was truncated with the southernmost sections designated as the A40. I won't lose sleep either way, but it would probably take someone writing to the Highways Agency to settle it. (The A-Z is most emphatically not a reliable source.) – iridescent 20:36, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Curiouser and curiouser...(said Alice/Colin). But...also...just to add that I think I am on firmer ground in stating that Aldersgate itself was not on the site of the roundabout, but south of it at 62 Aldersgate Street, just to the south of - the extra-mural - St Botolph's church. I distinctly remember a plaque on a wall in that location, near the pub where the pretentious Museum of London archaeologists hang out, confirmed by Weinreb and Hibbert's entry on it in The London Encyclopedia. Colin4C (talk) 21:19, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

GA Reassessment

This discussion is transcluded from Talk:A1 road (London)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the reassessment.

This article is being reviewed as part of the WikiProject Good Articles. We're doing Sweeps to go over all of the current GAs and see if they still meet the GA criteria. This article was awarded GA-status back in 2007, so I will be assessing the article to ensure that it is still compliant.Pyrotec (talk) 19:14, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Overall summary

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

---

A comprehensive, well-illustrated, well-referenced article

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality:

   The prose is reasonable, although there are number of short one & two-sentence paragraphs that could do with some attention.

   B. MoS compliance:

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. References to sources:

   Some web links are tagged as {{dead link}}

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   B. Focused:

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

   B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

This article could do with some attention, particular those links already marked as {{dead link}}, but on balance, this article is still GA-class. I'm marking it as WP:GAR - Keep. Pyrotec (talk) 20:38, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

City of London

The City of London is not technically a London Borough as stated in the article... do we care about this? Nzseries1 (talk) 11:40, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I certainly don't. Yes, it's formally a ceremonial county, not a London borough, but for all practical purposes it's a borough that happens to have a distinctive means of electing local government. In the context in which it's used ("the road passes through four London boroughs") it would be ridiculous to include a full explanation ("the road passes through three London boroughs, plus the City of London which is not formally a London borough as it was not listed as such in the London Government Act 1963, but is treated as one under local government legislation"). – iridescent 16:24, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Why not just through three London boroughs and the City of London.? --Alastair Rae (talk) 11:46, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Because there's a consensus on Wikipedia (which I disagree with, but recognise that I'm outvoted) that except in contexts where its definition is obvious, we don't use "City of London" without an explanation of what it is, as it will confuse American readers who are used to "City of ..." referring to the whole urban area. See this discussion, for example. – iridescent 19:13, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Big Wood/Little Wood section

Surely we could split off the majority of the A1_road_(London)#Big_Wood_and_Little_Wood section into it's own article, and keep just the first paragraph summary with a main article link to it? - J.P.Lon (talk) 10:29, 28 May 2010 (UTC).

Apex Corner

There is more than one Apex Corner in London, there is one on tha A316. 86.177.201.179 (talk) 15:27, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Should it be Henly's Corner or Henlys Corner?

Hi. I am wondering if it should be Henlys Corner. I do understand about apostrophes in the possessive, but there seems to be a lot of usage out there which omits it. Further, the business Henlys, after which the junction is named (they had a car showroom there once, donkeys' years ago), dropped the apostrophe a long time back - please see for example our own articles Henlys Group and Plaxton and this inter alia. So it's perhaps not quite as simple as saying "it is the corner of someone called Henly, so it is Henly's Corner" - it may, rather, be "it is named after a business called Henlys so it is Henlys Corner". What do you think? Thanks and best wishes DBaK (talk) 07:33, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Henlys (no apostrophe) is what TfL use. Since they're the "owners" of the A406, whatever naming they use is the "correct" name. – iridescent 15:47, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Wow, that was quick and painless - thank you very much! Cheers DBaK (talk) 16:22, 14 June 2011 (UTC)