A20 (Northern Ireland)

The A20 is an A-road heading east of Belfast along the Ards Peninsula.

Route

The A20 through Ballymacarrett

City Centre-Holywood Arches

The road begins on the A1 Donegal Square in the centre of Belfast, and continues along Chichester Street, including a short section closed to traffic outside the Royal Courts of Justice to Oxford Street where it turns left into East Bridge Street, a section which was at one time the A510, but as at 2015 it is part of the A20. The citybound equivalent is the full length of East Bridge Street, but while traffic takes a short multiplex with the A24 before continuing along May Street, all of May Street is part of the A20.

On East Bridge Street, it passes Lanyon Place station (formerly Belfast Central) before descending to the Albert Bridge. It continues towards the Holywood Arches, where it meets another section of A20 which starts at the south eastern corner of the Middlepath Street-Bridge End gyratory, and strikes due east along the Newtownards Road to the Holywood Arches.

Upper Newtownards Road and Kempe Stones Road

The Holywood Arches is where the Belfast and County Down Railway (BCDR) mainline from Belfast to Comber used to cross the Holywood Road B505 and the Upper Newtownards Road. The line on both sides is now a greenway, but Holywood Road Library now stands on part of the trackbed.

The A20 now continues through east Belfast, mainly with a bus lane in each direction and a speed camera near Ballyhackamore. It crosses the A55 approximately three miles from the city centre.

Half a mile further on, it passes the gates of the Stormont Estate and Prince of Wales Avenue, named after Edward VIII. One mile long, it leads to a statue of Unionist politician Edward Carson who had opposed Home Rule.

Approximately a mile further along, the A22 peels off towards Comber and the road passes into Dundonald and Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council. This council forms a U-shape around east, south and west Belfast. Here a short 30mph dual carriageway passes the Ulster Hospital, built in the 1960s to replace a hospital closer to the city centre, and until 2005 the terminus for Belfast Citybus services (rebranded as Metro and certain routes extended)

heading into Dundonald

After three quarters of a mile, a major junction at Dunlady Road with a Park and Ride for Glider (Belfast's tram-like bus) brings you to a 40mph dual carriageway. After a mile, the urban area finally ends, and the junction with the former A20 (C263 since 1980) brings you to a 2.5 mile derestricted dual carriageway. Eventually the two carriageways split for a short distance as the road descends into Newtownards.

Around Newtownards

The A20 has always been one of two major routes in Newtownards, the other being the A21 from Comber to Bangor. At one time, both converged on Conway Square and the Town Hall, but many years ago the A21 was diverted via the A20 to New Road. At the time, the A20 had run from Dundonald via what is now the C263, and then continued along Church Street, Regent Street and Frances Street to Castle Place and then Market Street to New Road and the Portaferry Road.

From 1980, when the dual carriageway opened, the A20 used Blair Mayne Road North (part of the BCDR branch line from Comber to Donaghadee until 1950) to reach Church Street. Westbound traffic used the A21 via High Street, Mill Street and Gibson's Lane, the other side of the gyratory.

Today, the A20 turns right at Ards Shopping Centre onto an S2 rather than left onto an S4, and uses the former BCDR in the other direction along Blair Mayne Road South and Messines Road onto a new alignment past Ards Airport to the Portaferry Road. The road ceases to be primary at this point, the trunk road T11 continuing as the A21 to Bangor.

The Portaferry Road

Newtownards-Greyabbey

The A20 now hugs closely to Strangford Lough, so called because the Vikings believed that it might have been a fjord, but geographically it is a V-shaped valley rather than the characteristic U-shaped valley of a glacier, and is essentially an inlet of the Irish sea. The A20 is a moderately narrow and twisty S2 with no footway until after C256 Mount Stewart Road, signposted for Carrowdore and Ballywalter, the main junction on this section, before becoming the Newtownards Road two miles further on. Shortly afterwards, about a mile and a half from Greyabbey, it cuts inland, and brings you to a TOTSO at Main Street in the middle of Greyabbey.

Greyabbey-Portaferry

Turning left at the TOTSO takes you onto the B5 to Ballywalter, but right takes you onto the Portaferry Road, which becomes the Shore Road on its way to the next village, Kircubbin where it becomes Cooks Brae then Rowreagh Road. The road stays close to the shore until Ardkeen, when the road continues as Deer Park Road then Coach Road southwards as the peninsula coast moves westward.

Entering town along Coach Road, a one-way system takes you along Ann Street at a mini-roundabout and thus the A2, but the A20 itself is now northbound only from the Square.