B1103
| B1103 | ||||
| Location Map ( geo) | ||||
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| From: | Burwell (TL589665) | |||
| To: | Newmarket (TL644636) | |||
| Via: | Exning | |||
| Distance: | 4.4 miles (7.1 km) | |||
| Meets: | B1102, A142 | |||
| Primary Destinations | ||||
| Highway Authorities | ||||
| Traditional Counties | ||||
| Route outline (key) | ||||
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The B1103 is a short B-road on the Cambridgeshire/Suffolk border.
Route
The road starts at a staggered crossroads with the B1102 in Burwell, with a destination obvious from the street name: Newmarket Road. Passing the doctors' surgery on the left, with new housing apparent all around us, the road takes priority through a T-junction with Isaacson Road bringing traffic from the south of the village; some maps show this as a spur of the B1102. As we leave Burwell, the road takes a sharp left before climbing over the old railway bridge which marks where the Cambridge–Mildenhall branch line ran before the Beeching cuts.
As we come off the bridge, we cross the county border into Suffolk, leaving Cambridgeshire behind us. A slight hill past a farmhouse marks a blind but shallow right-hander before we descend into Exning. The road twists through the village, before reaching a modified crossroads at The White Swan. While the main road turns right through here, continuing straight over and up Windmill Hill leads to the A14/A142 junction.
Following the main road though, we pass the church on our right before the final left-hander of the village, then pass under the A14 Newmarket bypass, although there is no junction here. We climb back uphill, with another blind right. Beware here on windy days, as the trees on the left have been known to fall and block the road. Horses in the field on our right signify that we are now entering the horse-racing town of Newmarket, as the road bends towards the left for a long straight entrance to town.
The road into Newmarket is fairly insignificant, except for the town's hospital on the left, before we hit the steep downhill into St Mary's Square. The market is in front of us and the road originally continued ahead along the narrow and partially pedestrianised Wellington Street. Now, however, the road turns sharply left onto Fred Archer Way, passing the Guineas shopping centre and Our Lady and St Etheldreda Catholic church as we hit traffic lights and the A142 one way system upon which the road terminates.
Of note here is that the sign coming off the one-way system does not seem to match the road number. For many years, this junction signed the B1103 as a continuation of the B1063 which leads out of the town to the south. This is probably due to the fact that the B1063 originally began at a junction with the B1103 at GR TL645637 on Mill Hill, from which it ran along Exeter Road towards its present starting-point.
History
Fred Archer Way, Newmarket - the 0.2 mile road from Wellington Street to Fordham Road was opened on 15 November 1972. The official opening had been planned for two days prior, but rain had prevented the final tarmac surfacing to complete the road. The official opening went ahead anyway and Councillor Les Ball "opened" the road. Cost was £35,000. It was part of the redevelopment of that part of the town and the shopping centre followed.
