B2110

Route

The B2110 is a reasonably useful road across the north of Sussex with large parts formed from former A roads.

Section 1: Lower Beeding - East Grinstead

Lower Beeding

The B2110 starts on the A281 in Lower Beeding as the bottom corner of a triangle of roads, with the B2115 and A281 forming the other two sides. It takes a sharp right at the B2115 and then heads straight for the A23 at Handcross. This part of the road forms the final part of a route used by many drivers to get from the A24 to the A23 using the A272 and A281. At Handcross there is a GSJ with the A23 which has a frightening short on-slip to the A23 southbound. The southbound off-slip is about a mile further north on the B2114. Through Handcross the B2110 multiplexes with the B2114 which is following part of the old A23.

From Handcross the road follows what must be one of the longest "High Streets" in the country and is somewhat narrower and a lot more twisty. The road then meets the B2036 just south of J10A of the M23. There is a brief multiplex northwards. Continuing past Worth Abbey, with some fantastic views of the local countryside, the next village to be reached is Turners Hill. Here the road meets the B2028 at an uncontrolled crossroads, with the B2028 having priority. Both routes get very busy at peak times, with the B2110 forming a useful avoider of the heavily congested A264; there is desperate need for at least a mini-roundabout here.

Having escaped Turners Hill, the road then once again becomes very twisty as it heads under the Bluebell Railway, past Kingscote and into East Grinstead, meeting the A22 at the Beeching Way Gyratory outside East Grinstead railway station.

Section 2: East Grinstead - Langton Green

From the gyratory, the main line of the B2110 multiplexes with the A22 along Beeching Way and out as far as Forest Row before striking out eastwards again. However, following the renumbering of the B2110 and A264 in the late 1960s/early 1970s (see History), a short stub of "old" B2110 was left in East Grinstead along College Lane and Blackwell Hollow. For some reason, this stretch was neither declassified nor re-numbered. As such, to drive it as one continuous route, a driver would need to leave the gyratory along the A264 Moat Road to down to Blackwell Hollow Roundabout, then turn sharp right and head back uphill along the "stub", passing back over the A22 Beeching Way, and take a left at the mini-roundabout outside Sackville College before rejoining the A22 for the multiplex down to Forest Row. Needless to say it is equally as complicated in the other direction and no one would actually drive this as a whole route as staying on the A22 would have been easier as well as shorter. Note that although the "B2110 stub" is signposted both ways off the A264 at Blackwell Hollow Roundabout, it is entirely absent from signage at the Lewes Road roundabout with the A22. (The B2110 is, however, signposted here in brackets to Turner's Hill along the A22 Beeching Way.)

Hartfield

After the multiplex south on the A22, Forest Row is reached, where the B2110 is found again. We head east, winding through Coleman's Hatch and Upper Hartfield before reaching Hartfield itself, where there is a multiplex with the B2026. The road then passes through Groombridge and then ends on the A264 outside Langton Green. It forms the main route at its terminal junction; drivers heading west on the A264 need to TOTSO.

While likely a useful road to get from the A22 at Forest Row to Tunbridge Wells, it again doesn't form a useful route when driven as a whole as the A264 from East Grinstead is more direct.

History

The original route of the B2110 east of East Grinstead

The B2110 originally started at the current northerly junction with the B2114 in Handcross on what was then the A23. The section from Lower Beeding to Handcross was formerly the A279, now defunct. The GSJ with the A23 was improved as part of the A23 Handcross-Warninglid improvement.

The B2110 originally ended in East Grinstead, running up West Hill and West Street to meet the then-A22 at the War Memorial. It was subsequently extended eastwards to Langton Green in 1935, running down College Lane and Blackwell Hollow and thence along the now-A264 Holtye Road. Sometime in the late 1960s/early 1970s, the A264 and B2110 swapped numbers between East Grinstead and Langton Green, leaving a "stub" of B2110 along College Lane/Blackwell Hollow and giving rise to the lengthy multiplex along the A22 to Forest Row. Finally, in 1978 when the Beeching Way Gyratory was opened, the B2110 was re-routed up Brooklands Way (making the B2143 defunct) so that all roads within the historic town centre could be declassified.