The A700 road is a short but important link skirting Edinburgh City Centre between the A8 and A7 roads.

Route

The road begins at the West End junction at the terminus of the A8 and heads south then east comprising the streets of Lothian Road, Earl Grey Street, Brougham Street, Brougham Place, Melville Drive, Summerhall Place and West Preston Street. It ends at a crossroads where it meets the A7 and

A701 road The A701 is a major road in Scotland that runs from Dumfries to Edinburgh. Route The A701 leaves Dumfries and travels north to meet the A74(M) east of Beattock. It then passes beneath the A74(M) before continuing to the north-east towards ...

s. The major junction along its route is at Tollcross where it meets

Lauriston Place Lauriston ( ) is an area of central Edinburgh, Scotland, and home to a number of significant historic buildings. It lies south of Edinburgh Castle and the Grassmarket, and north of The Meadows public park. Lauriston is the former locatio ...

, West Tollcross and the Home Street

A702 road The A702 is a major road in Scotland, that runs from Edinburgh to St. John's Town of Dalry in Dumfries and Galloway. It is the last section of the route from London via the West Midlands and North West England to Edinburgh, which follows the M ...

. It overlaps for the length of Earl Grey Street with the A702, which diverges to the west on

Fountainbridge Fountainbridge ( gd, Drochaid an Fhuarain) is an area of Edinburgh, Scotland, a short distance west of the city centre, adjoining Tollcross with East Fountainbridge and West Port to the east, Polwarth to the west and south, Dalry and Haymark ...

. The northern section of the road is a designated a

Red Route On United Kingdom roads, the term red route may refer to a stretch of road with painted red lines signifying that vehicles cannot stop there, or to a road which has historically high accident rates. Painted lines Red routes are major roads wit ...

on which no stopping of vehicles is permitted in order to maintain traffic flow.

History

The Melville Drive section is flanked to the north by The Meadows, a large public park established in the 18th century. At each end of Melville Drive is a pair of stone pillars topped by a lion and a

unicorn The unicorn is a legendary creature that has been described since antiquity as a beast with a single large, pointed, spiraling horn projecting from its forehead. In European literature and art, the unicorn has for the last thousand years o ...

. The pair at the eastern end were built in 1881, gifted by the publishing and printing company of Thomas Nelson; the pair at the western end were built around 1886 by Sir James Gowans.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:7-0700 Transport in Edinburgh Roads in Scotland