A36
From Roader's Digest: The SABRE Wiki
| A36 | |||||||||||||
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| From: | Bath (ST714655) | ||||||||||||
| To: | Southampton (SU336135) | ||||||||||||
| Length: | 64.8 miles (104.3 km) | ||||||||||||
| Meets: | M27, A4, A27, A35, A303 | ||||||||||||
| Now part of: | A4, A35, A33, A3024 | ||||||||||||
| Primary Destinations | |||||||||||||
| Bath • Frome • Salisbury • Southampton • Warminster • | |||||||||||||
| Highways Authorities | |||||||||||||
| Traditional Counties | |||||||||||||
| Route outline (key) | |||||||||||||
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The A36 is the principal route from Bristol and Wales to the central south coast, though in recent times the "long way round" combination of the M4, A34 and M3 have taken some of the pressure off it. A lot of the road remains rural single carriageway.
Route
The A36 starts at a TOTSO junction on the western outskirts of Bath. A dual-carriageway section of the A4 trunk road from Bristol ends at traffic lights, where it bears off as non-primary to the left along Newbridge Road, and the A36 continuing as trunk straight ahead as Lower Bristol Road. The first section of the road skirts the centre of Bath to the south, and is signposted as the main route for through traffic (leaving the A4 for the city centre). It runs through Twerton and Oldfield Park up to a strange elongated roundabout near Churchill Bridge, which lies directly beneath the main Bristol to London railway line. (This is the junction with the A367.) Then there's a very short section of dual carriageway at Widcombe, which crosses the Kennet and Avon canal.
The road turns north to follow the River Avon as far as Sydney Gardens, where it splits in two. The left-hand road is a spur over Cleveland Bridge which rejoins the A4 (and, by extension the A46), and the right-hand one is the A36 proper towards Warminster. From here, it finally clears the urban sprawl of Bath and enters the countryside, climbing up the Limpley Stoke valley. It continues to Bathampton, where there's access to a private toll bridge over the Avon, and then to a junction with the B3108, which provides access to Bradford on Avon. This section of road is quite winding and is now subjected to a 40mph limit.
After a few more miles, the A36 finally reaches the top of the winding valley, and the quality improves somewhat. The road crosses from Somerset into Wiltshire, and intersects the A366, passing typical rural farmland that might be expected of the area. Past this, there's a roundabout with the A361, and there's a short stretch of dual carriageway along the Beckington bypass, dropping the A361 off at the next roundabout. The next section is straight, and (unusually for a single carriageway) has a multi-grade junction with the A3098. After this, there's a single-carriageway bypass round Warminster (though climbing lanes are still provided in places) which meets the A362 and A350.
After that the road quality reduces as the A36 returns to its original route, winding along the Wylye Valley. There's a junction with the B390 which runs over Salisbury Plain after a few miles. At Deptford there's a short section of dual carriageway with an odd hybrid multi-grade junction with the A303, one part of which involves turning right through a gap in the central reservation. There are also permanent traffic lights. At the other side of the junction, the road reverts to single carriageway, though some of the worst bends have been straightened out in places. This section of road has had several signs campaigning for a relief road along it.
The A30 joins at Wilton, and the A3094 at Quidhampton, after which the A36 enters the urban edge of Salisbury. This is probably the most built up section of the road since Bath. However, once in Salisbury, there is a dual carriageway relief road around the city, which meets the A360, A345, the eastbound A30 (leading to the northbound A338) and the A354 at assorted roundabouts, the other links to minor roads into the city are grade separated. After the final roundabout with the A354, the A36 turns onto Southampton Road, passing through numerous industrial and retail parks before clearing Salisbury.
After this the quality of the road improves greatly. There's a dual-carriageway bypass round Alderbury, then a long, wide and fairly straight single-carriageway section, on which starts the A27 near Whiteparish. There aren't many settlements beyond this until Plaitford, just inside Hampshire. Just before the Shoe Inn at Plaitford, a small stream runs under the road which is the border between the two counties. In fact there used to be a small bump in the road where the different authorities' roads began and ended.
The road here runs on a 40mph limit past the villages of West Wellow and Canada, including a roundabout halfway along, though the road is still reasonably quick. At the other side, there's then a reasonably fast run down to a roundabout junction with the A3090 (former A31) near Ower.
At this point, the A36 appears to split in two. The mainline continues on a former spur of the M27 up to Junction 2 (with the A326 continuing the through route at the other side). Meanwhile, back at the roundabout at Ower, the original line of the A36 becomes non primary turns right to run through the village and over the M27, dropping off a short section of non primary A31 on the other side. There's a junction with the A326 which runs underneath as a grade separated dual carriageway, and after a few miles the road enters the industrial estates of Testwood.
The final section runs through to the centre of Totton where it meets the A336 at a roundabout by the local Conservative Club. After this, it turns left to yield to the A35 just before Redbridge Causeway, which takes up the route towards Southampton.
History
The A36 originally started at St Andrew's Gate, Avonmouth, which formed the front entrance to the Royal Edward Docks. It then ran along St Andrew's Road and Avonmouth Road to what's now M5 J18. From here to Bristol, it was projected to run along the then-unbuilt Portway to Bristol City Centre. (The older route through Shirehampton, Stoke Bishop and the Triangle became the A4018 and is now a combination of that road and the B4054). Beyond Bristol, the A36 ran on what's now the A4 to its starting point.
All of this route (along with a few other local roads in Bath) was renumbered as an extension of the A4 in 1935 Road numbering revision.
The spur over Cleveland Bridge in Bath was originally given its own number when classified in 1927 following the removal of the bridge's tolls - the A3080.
At the other end, from Totton, the A36 used to run on the Redbridge Causeway over the River Test, then along Redbridge Road, Millbrook Road and Commercial Road into the north end of Southampton City Centre, before ending on the A33 at its junction with Above Bar Street. This latter section of road has been extensively rebuilt and upgraded since the 1950s.
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