A35: Honiton - Southampton

According to M40's 1922 list, the A35 originally started in Exeter and took the route of the current A3052. A trip along the A3052 through Lyme Regis may make you realize why it was diverted! The main section is now part of the trunk route along the south coast, the rest being made up of the A31, M27, A27 and A259.

It starts on the A30 at Honiton, and in fact includes a short section of the original A30 from before the bypass was built. It continues through East Devon, crossing the A358 near Axminster. There's a short section of dual carriageway near the border with Dorset, and then it's joined by the A3052 from Lyme Regis. There's a bypass round Bridport, and then the road climbs uphill towards two more short dual-carriageway sections. It continues via Winterbourne Abbas towards Dorchester, where a fairly new section bypasses the town to the south, meeting the A37, A354 and A352. Another dual-carriageway section starts near Thomas Hardy's Cottage, continuing past Puddletown, where the northbound A354 leaves, and past Tolpuddle, home of the "Martyrs" who were punished for forming a trade union. (The reason for the name "Puddle" in so many of the local placenames is because the local river is named the Piddle, but in Victorian times this name was not considered appropriate!) Then the dual carriageway ends and the road comes to a roundabout near Bere Regis, the start of the A31.

The next section is primary, but I don't think it's a trunk route. It runs across Bloxworth Heath, and then a dual-carriageway section bypasses Lytchett Minster and Upton (northbound A350 junction). Then the southbound A350 leaves for Poole Harbour, while the A35 continues as single-carriageway through Parkstone and Branksome, and across into Bournemouth. The A338 "Wessex Way" starts here, and from this point onwards the A35 is non-primary.

The non-primary section runs across the Stour into Christchurch, and then over the Hampshire border and through the New Forest. I remember this section from many years ago - it's fairly straight and is rather impressive. It meets the A337 at Lyndhurst, and then on the approach to Southampton there's a dual-carriageway section which bypasses Totton and takes you over the River Test. Here there's a junction with the M271 where the road briefly multiplexes with the primary A33, even though the A33 doesn't continue past here! (This phenomenon recently came up elsewhere - do we have a word for it?) At the next junction the A35 leaves to go through Shirley and along Southampton Common, where it crosses the A33 again. I can't tell you exactly where it ends, but it appears to be either on the A335 or on the A27 at Swaythling.

Guy