London's North Circular Road A 406 Quiz

Answer: Henlys Corner

The Angel Edmonton is a few miles to the east at the junction with Fore Street. The Angel Islington is off the City Road, and Shannon Corner is on the A3 near New Malden.

Answer: Hanger Lane gyratory system

Fiveways Corner is a couple of miles outside the A 406 in Mill Hill, as is Mill Hill Circus. Piccadilly Circus isn't a roundabout but a major intersection right in London's centre.

Answer: A wood

Hanger is an Old English word for a wood on a hillside, and parts still line the road. It is a long stretch south of the gyratory system running through Ealing.

Answer: Staples Corner

Staples was originally the name of a bed factory at the junction, which was demolished, and replaced with a complex of large warehouses including the new Staples which sells stationery.
Chalker's Corner is in Richmond, Brent Cross is the next junction to the east as well as the shopping mall between the two junctions. There is no Casio Corner, but Casio's London HQ can be found opposite Staples.

Answer: Kew Bridge

Although the road changes its number to the A205 at Chiswick Roundabout, (the number of the South Circular,) a sign opposite Kew Bridge in Chiswick announces 'North Circular Road', thus making sure the road indeed begins north of the river, not a little way along where it gets its familiar number A406.

Answer: East Ham

In the late 1980s, a new road was built as a motorway to the east of the existing North Circular along the River Lea, which originally went right through the centre of East Ham, a typical narrow shopping street and totally inappropriate for an arterial road. It now goes through Barking instead, and the other two suburbs are to the west of the old route by around a mile.

Answer: All of these

It's not called the worst road in the UK for nothing. Though over the years a number of two lane stretches have been widened to six, the Chiswick to Ealing part is mainly two lanes, and there's a six to two lane bottleneck approaching Bounds Green with a third lane to turn right which blocks many drivers behind them. Unlike some major routes which had their traffic lights replaced with underpasses like the adjoining A40, much of the western half of the road remains similar to what it was forty years ago in many places.

In fact when the Hanger Lane gyratory system was built it replaced lights with a roundabout, only to add lights when the queues built up in certain places. At the eastern extreme where it reaches the River Thames a bridge was never built.

It is, however, possible to take your car across on the free ferry from North Woolwich to Woolwich opposite. No plans exist to build one though many miles east one has been built for the M 25 motorway at Dartford, though one direction uses the original tunnel.

Answer: Two

The M1 to Leeds was extended from Mill Hill to Staples Corner in Cricklewood along the side of the railway line in the 1970s. The M11 to Cambridge joins the North Circular at Woodford.

Answer: Eight

From the west, Kew Bridge, Hanger Lane, Stonebridge Park, Silver Street, Angel Road, Redbridge, Gallions Reach (Docklands Light Railway) and North Woolwich. Before the eastern bypass there was Manor Park and East Ham, but the new part took in Redbridge instead, though it joined with the original terminus before North Woolwich.

The Docklands Light Railway opened in 1987 and has been growing ever since, and is still adding new lines and stations.

Answer: Brent

The river Brent begins around a mile to the west of Kew Bridge, flowing into the Thames at Brentford, and then runs around the same distance away until you cross the Hanger Lane Gyratory system at Park Royal, where it runs next to the road, wavering away and back for another six or seven miles until it splits into the Mutton Brook and Dollis Brook just before Henlys Corner in Finchley.

The Lea is crossed at Edmonton just beyond Angel Road station. The Crane is the next river flowing into the Thames just west of the Brent.