The B284 is a complicated B-road in the Epsom area of southwest London.
The route starts near Great Burgh on the edge of Nork Park where it leaves the A240 at a junction that dreamt of being a roundabout but didn't quite manage it. Heading first west and then northwest towards Epsom, we meet the B291 at a roundabout, and the B288 shortly afterwards. During its gentle descent of the North Downs, the road passes a number of racing stables before arriving in Epsom town centre via Church Street.
A brief multiplex with the A24 takes us under the Epsom to Sutton railway line before our route branches left and regains its number, quickly passing (via a low arched bridge) beneath another railway line: this time, the main line from London to Guildford.
Heading out of Epsom along Hook Road, we pass St Ebba's Hospital on the right shortly after emerging from the built-up area, and the second of two closely spaced roundabouts near West Ewell is a junction with the B2200, which leads into Ewell Village. The B284 turns left here and a 700-metre-long stretch of D2 follows, at the end of which the B284 turns right at a complicated junction to take us northeastward along Ruxley Lane – which is at first a narrow S2 but later becomes D2 – through an extensive residential area.
Traffic lights at the end of Ruxley Lane mark our return to the A240, which we first left some eight kilometres ago. We have not yet quite completed the whole of our route, however, for if we turn left here and follow the A240 northwestward for 500 m we will come to another set of lights where the B284 sets off again northeastward, heading to its ultimate terminus on the A2043 at Old Malden.
History
The final two-kilometre stretch, just mentioned, between the A240 at Tolworth Court Bridge and the present A2043 (originally the B283) constituted, in fact, the whole of the B284 in 1922. Within three years, however, the route to Epsom via Ruxley Lane, West Ewell, and Hook Road had been added to the itinerary.
Finally, in the 1980s, the road running southeast from Epsom to the present starting-point of the B284 was downgraded to Class II status and became yet another extension of our route.