different alignment from the Roman Road, which, as might be expected, took a straighter route across more mountainous terrain, particularly at the Roman signal station near Black Fell. At Elvanfoot it crossed the River Clyde on a span single-arch bridge, and continued to follow the Clyde Valley past the Roman Fort at Crawford towards Abington, where the Roman road to Edinburgh (now the A702) branched to the right. It left this sparsely populated section in the Southern Uplands and entered the Clydesdale communities of Lesmahagow, Kirkmuirhill and Larkhall, crossing the River Avon into Hamilton. Beyond Hamilton, it followed the Glasgow Road north-west, crossing the Clyde at the Dalmarnock Bridge. It ended at the junction of Trongate and Gallowgate in the east end of Glasgow city centre. According to a summary in a report by the Institution of Civil Engineers, the length was . Current route The original road has been largely downgraded and renumbered and now only one short stub remains outside the Glasgow area; within the city boundaries it contains various remnants of a project from the 1930s that rerouted the road to run from Hamilton to Glasgow via Uddingston and the King's Bridge. According to contemporary Ordnance Survey mapping, the A74 starts in the Gorbals as Ballater Street, meeting the A8 (the A728 also starts here) and crosses the Clyde at the King's Bridge, runs through Glasgow Green and into the East End suburbs (Bridgeton, Celtic Park football stadium / Parkhead, Lilybank, Braidfauld, Foxley and Mount Vernon, all as London Road), then becoming Hamilton Road and running eastwards as far as Broomhouse where it ends at the Black Bear Roundabout, a feeder for the M74 Junction 3A (Daldowie). The road continues as the dual carriageway A721 for a short distance underneath the elevated lanes of the M73 Maryville Interchange until a small roundabout towards either Birkenshaw (B7001) or Uddingston – the latter route becomes the A74 again (on its original alignment) for a matter of a few hundred yards to Powburn junction, where New Edinburgh Road eastwards then takes on the A721 designation leading on to Viewpark and Bellshill, while Uddingston Main Street southwards downgrades to the B7071. History 19th century The A74 evolved from the Glasgow – Carlisle mail route. Originally, this followed the course of Roman roads, but by the early 19th century, this had become impractical as a fast through route for mail coaches. The