The A6 is a major road in England. It runs from Luton in Bedfordshire to Carlisle in Cumbria.

Running north west from Luton, the road travels through Bedford, bypasses both Kettering and Market Harborough, continues through Leicester, Loughborough, Derby and Matlock before going through the Peak District to Bakewell, Buxton, Stockport, Manchester, Chorley, Preston, Lancaster, Kendal and Penrith before reaching Carlisle.

South of Nottingham, the road is paralleled by the M1 motorway, and north of Manchester the M6 motorway approximates its course.

Former route in the south

The route of the A6 south of Luton is now the A1081 for most of its length. In the initial road numbering scheme, the A6 started in Barnet where it joined what was then the A1 Great North Road. From Barnet the road went to London Colney, St. Albans, Harpenden to join the current start of the road at Luton. At St. Albans, the road met the then A5 at a crossroads: going north on both roads, the A5 arriving from the southwest, and leaving the crossroads northwest, and the A6 arriving from the southeast and leaving to the north east. Nowadays that stretch of the A5 has also been renumbered so that the crossroads in St Albans in now A5183 and A1081. Nonetheless it is still a busy crossroads but would presumably be busier is the roads had retained their earlier identities.

The A6 is also a major road in Northern Ireland. It runs from Belfast to Derry.

A6 (Switzerland) is an expressway in Switzerland.

External links

• Website of the English A6