The A1 opened in 1964 and dominates this area. The A1 bridge connected Coddington to Beacon Hill and a new stretch of road ran to the base of Brownlow’s Hill. This joined the 1930s road to Plough Junction and formed what was then called the A17 from Newark to Sleaford. Newark Rd was bypassed and the junction arrangements left the end of it as a dead end. Greenways and Greenfields survived (though marooned and isolated) but Catch ’em Inn Farm and Gilbert’s House were demolished.
Catch’em Inn, once a pub sited by a bend in the turnpike road from Mansfield to Sleaford, appears on an 1835 map of Newark. There was once lime-quarrying and burning activity south of Newark Rd, and a windmill also once stood there.
The Thorpe estate once stretched across Coddington and into the parishes of Newark, Winthorpe and Holme. The A1 and its sliproads runs through many 1918 Thorpe Estate Sale lots – numbers 21, 20, 16 and 17, 12, 29, 30 and 31, and farm lots 1 and 3.
Newark’s traffic relief was only temporary – in 1988 a further bypass road had to be built, which looped around Coddington, cutting through Drove Lane.
For more information about the A1 opening visit Winthorpe’s webpage: