B1018
B1018 | ||||||||||||||||
Location Map ( geo) | ||||||||||||||||
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From: | Braintree (TL761229) | |||||||||||||||
To: | Southminster (TQ957997) | |||||||||||||||
Via: | Witham, Maldon | |||||||||||||||
Distance: | 25 miles (40.2 km) | |||||||||||||||
Meets: | B1256, A120, B1389, B1019, A414, B1022, B1010, B1021 | |||||||||||||||
Former Number(s): | B1012, B1010, B1020 | |||||||||||||||
Highway Authorities | ||||||||||||||||
Traditional Counties | ||||||||||||||||
Route outline (key) | ||||||||||||||||
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Route
The B1018 is a cross-country route in Essex.
Section 1: Braintree - Witham
The B1018 starts off near the centre of Braintree, branching off from the B1256 at a set of lights. It continues down Cressing Road until it reaches Galley's Corner roundabout with the A120, and then crosses another roundabout. These crossovers can become notoriously congested at times, with A120 traffic from the west colliding with traffic from out of Braintree.
From here, the route continues in a southerly direction towards Witham for four miles. Cressing Temple Barns – two vast 13th-century barns – stand beside the road. The final section of mile or so into Witham runs parallel to the Braintree to Witham railway line, on which trains run hourly in each direction. Passing through Witham, the road then crosses over the short B1389 (the former route of the A12 and the only way to access it from this road).
Section 2: Witham - Southminster
From here on, the road passes under the A12, a set of part-time signals having been recently installed at the junction with Blue Mills Hill. It then winds it way towards Maldon, passing Wickham Bishops railway station (closed in the 1960s) and over the River Blackwater. The road then forks at Langford when it meets the B1019 and continues on to reach the A414 Maldon bypass. That road ends a roundabout further ahead and a disembodied section of the B1018, part of the road's original route, heads back north into Heybridge, where it turns into the B1022. The mainline of the road, meanwhile, multiplexes south along the A414 bypass.
The road reemerges at Wycke Hill before running its way along low-lying Essex countryside. This includes a short multiplex along the B1010 and a couple of villages such as Latchingdon. Presently the road reaches Southminster, where it ends on a useless multiplex with the B1021; a bypass was built around the southern edge of the village but not the northern side. As the B1018 was not renumbered it is the only way to connect the two ends of the B1021.
History
Apart from a short rerouting in Braintree, the B1018 still follows its 1922 route from Braintree to the A414 at Maldon. From this point, it went through the centre of town before leaving along Mundon Road. After going through Mundon it ended on the B1010. The entire of this section is now unclassified.
In the 1980s the route of the B1018 south of Maldon was changed, along with several other roads in the area. It now multiplexed with the A414 through Maldon (and still does with the building of the bypass) before heading south along formerly unclassified roads to take over the B1012 from Cold Norton to Latchingdon, then B1010 from there to Althorne and finally B1020 for the rest of the route.