A30/history

Much of the A30 has been in use for hundreds of years, as the main coaching route from London to Exeter. This route commences at the junction with the A4 at Chiswick, scene of the famous flyover and proceeds in a generally straight line in a WSW direction through the counties of Middlesex, Berkshire, Surrey, Hampshire, Wiltshire, Dorset, Somerset, Devon and finally Cornwall. The A30 provides links to many large towns of importance along the way, especially through the more rural areas of the West Country. If a little encumbrance can be tolerated through the towns along the way a trip along this road is a rewarding experience with a few stretches of mostly unaltered dual-carriageway still in existence offering a flavour of how other Trunk Route in other parts of the country may have looked.

It has remained fairly steadfast with a few minor alterations and re-alignments over the years, such as at Phoenix Green just past Hartley Wintney in Hampshire. Here, coaches swung southwards and down into the small, pretty town of Odiham: this road is now basically the B3046, barring a diversion from Potbridge (caused by the building of the M3) and although known as London Road in the centre of the town was dissected by the A287 Odiham by-pass. The route out of Odiham passed the Lord Derby pub before splitting back NW, re-joining the current route at the Dorchester Arms pub west of Hook: much of this was re-built with the coming of the M3. Another variation followed what is essentially the B3400 today running from Basingstoke through Overton and Whitchurch and on to Andover before swinging south-west along what is now the A343 to Salisbury.

London

A30 Great South West Road at the time of classification in 1923, under construction

The original proposed start point of the A30 was at the west end of Hounslow High Street, where Bath Road diverged from Staines Road. This was changed to run on the Great South West Road, which was then being built, by the time the final route was announced. The old road became the A315, a late entry to the list of A roads.

This section, in modern times, is still the A30, being a somewhat urban section with a 40 mph speed limit. This is the case to the Crooked Billet, where the Staines bypass begins. The historic route now follows the A308 into the centre of Staines and through to Egham at the Runnymede Interchange.

Egham-Basingstoke

The historic route of the A30 goes through the centre of Egham, which has a dual carriageway bypass constructed in 1935. The old route is now the B388 and B3407, rejoining the modern A30 at Egham Hill.

This next section of A30 generally has been largely superseded by the M3 through Surrey and Hampshire to junction 8.The route is virtually untouched since classification. However, the geometry holds up to this day, mostly being a single carriageway of good quality. Urban growth, however, means there are a lot of villages and towns with corresponding speed limits along the route. There are also a number of short sections of dual carriageway, which have all been built online.

An old milestone just down from the sign on the right

Basingstoke

The original Basingstoke by-pass on the south of the town is worthy of mention, being of single-carriageway construction and laid down in the 1930s. 'Grove Road' and 'The Harrow Way' ran from the Black Dam Ponds west of Old Basing and Hatch to rejoin the original A30 alignment what is now the (locally) infamous Brighton Hill Roundabout. The 'renewal' of the town in the 1960s saw construction of a new ring road commence which was also anchored at the Black Dam roundabout from where it was to be connected to the M3 at junction 6 plus the A339 to Newbury. From this point the "Ringway South" straddles a route somewhere between the by-pass and the original London Road through the "Top Of Town" to the north. However, this 'new' A30 was never completely dualled between the Hackwood Road and Winchester Road junctions nor did those roundabouts have their overpasses completed, especially after the M3 arrived in the area.

Much of the original bypass route is still in place and can be travelled upon, providing some relief from the Ring Road itself; its elongated roundabouts, plus some trees and the odd period building retain a brief sense of the period in which it was constructed than perhaps the new town planners would have liked or even planned for. Going West, the A30 links directly to the M3 at Junction 7, although a recent change to the traffic-light controlled junction allows a better option for local traffic to continue on the original route (A30/A33) rather than the motorway.

Winchester St, the now pedestrianised pre-bypass A30

Pedestrianised London St becomes London Road

Basingstoke-Lopcombe Corner

Orignial Route

The original route as of the 1922 classification routed the A30 between Basingstoke and Salisbury via Andover, along what is now the B3400 and an extended A343. This route was altered in 1933.

The original course of the A30, west of Basingstoke, running on what's now the B3400

Revised 1933 Route

On 1 May 1933, not long after the Basingstoke Bypass opened, the A30 was rerouted over the former B3379 and A341 to run via Stockbridge instead of Andover.

West of M3 junction 8, the A30 disappears officially, multiplexing with the A303, to the Bullington Cross interchange with the A34. The modern A30 now reappears here, briefly following the line of the old A34 south from the junction to Sutton Scotney. The old road itself multiplexes with the A303 briefly, but reappears rather sooner at Overton Road Interchange, now carrying the C330 number. The two meet at a roundabout in Sutton Scotney, and the A30 resumes its march southwest on its historic route.

The C330 with an RCS sign befitting of the A30

The famous useless multiplex of A30 and A303 starts as the M3 spur ends, on the historic route.

Photo

Unfortunately I couldn't find a photo of this part of the Popham Interchange on the wiki, and I have only this 3am photo (the quietness of the road meant I dared to venture this way). If you have a photo that better shows the layout please do change it!

Lopcombe Corner-Yarcombe

From hereon, the route of the A30 is virtually untouched, with only a handle of bypasses at Salisbury, Shaftesbury and Yeovil, with an online dualling between Yeovil and Sherborne. It remains in second place to the incredibly popular (and 'unfinished') A303 holiday route until reasserting itself just short of Honiton. The A303 becoming the trunk road meant that dualling was seen on that route instead.

The A30 first continues on its old line to meet the A338 at Salisbury.

Salisbury

Salisbury

The A30 becomes primary here, but this is still the old road, now lined with houses. Shortly, we meet the A36. The modern line multiplexes with this around the Salisbury inner ring road towards Wilton, but the old line continues heading south buried under this elevated dual carriageway. The line then turns sharply right onto Winchester Street, which has a pedestrian underpass under the modern dual carriageway. We then reach the C329, which carries the line to the St Pauls Roundabout. Then, we're back on the A36. This is a multiplex with the modern A30, but the A36 is a trunk route and takes precedence to Wilton.

The A30 reasserts itself at Wilton, and this stretch of road is quiet and virtually unchanged to Shafesbury, with the most notable landmark being the Fovant Badges.

The Fovant badges in the distance were created in 1916

Shaftesbury

Shaftesbury

Once in Shaftesbury, there is another deviaton. The multiplex with the A350 has been realigned between the Royal Chase Roundabout and the Ivy Cross Roundabout. This is still fairly built up, but has no frontages, and a 40 mph speed limit. In comparison the old route through Shaftesbury High Street was very narrow for such a busy route.

Approaching the Ivy Cross Flyover

Heading west from Shaftesbury, there is a modern flyover down the hill from Ivy Cross - the old route followed a more precipitous drop down the B3081 with a sharp hairpin bend, before rejoining the current line by way of an unclassified D road. The route then again is barely unaltered, even as far as the dual carriageway between Sherborne and Yeovil. The dualling of this was performed online, with only a very minor realignment at Babylon Hill, entering Yeovil.

Yeovil

Yeovil

After following the online dualling of the A30, there's now a section of urban single carriageway where the route is unchanged. This is often slow. Dual carriageway soon reappears, but the modern line of the A30 now deviates from the historic route, which carries straight on off a bend of the modern road. There now follows a one way system, which makes following the historic route in either direction by vehicle impossible. Not that it matters, though, as it very shortly becomes the pedestrianised Middle Street, which is lined with shops. This gradually climbs the hill and carries straight on into the High Street. There is now a crossroads - this used to be the junction of the A30 with the A37, which now occurs at the busy Hospital Roundabout. The route turns left here, onto Hendford. Much as the modern roads multiplexed, so did the old roads. The line disappears under the modern Horsey Roundabout, but reemerges the other side to climb Hendford Hill - this is once again the modern A30. At the top of the hill the A37 turns off at Quicksilver Roundabout, and we continue to follow the historic route towards Crewkerne and Chard.

The old A30/A37 junction

Yeovil-Yarcombe

This section west of Yeovil is again very much unchanged since classification. There is a one-way system in Crewkerne, but it incorporates the old line of the A30. We then proceed along the High Street of Chard, not even that is bypassed. We then enter the Blackdown Hills, giving some serious terrain to deal with (although Yeovil-Chard isn't exactly flat, there are in fact a couple of cuttings). But leaving Chard, we immediately enter a cutting. We reach Yarcombe and enter Devon.

Devon

Main Article: A30/History - A303 to Exeter

The section between Honiton and Exeter was dualled in the 1990s before any further improvement ideas were binned by the incoming Labour Government. More recent plans for the A303 included improving the link from Illminster to the M5 at Taunton; this would have reduced the need for any further works to the A30 route especially over the picturesque Blackdown Hills. However, even this was consigned to oblivion in 2009.

The original line of the A30 west of Exeter

The original route of the A30 through Exeter continued along Honiton Road, Fore Street and Heavitree Road, where it originally met the A38 at the eastern end of the High Street. It multiplexed with the A38 through the city centre, crossing over the old Exe bridge, and diverging again the other side by St Thomas station. Though the historic postal route followed the appropriately named Okehampton Street and Okehampton Road, the A30 itself has never followed this course, but ran on Cowick Street and took a more southerly course to Tedburn St Mary, roughly shadowing the currently bypassed route. When the Exeter Bypass opened in the late 1930s, taking the A38 away from the city centre, the A30 became the dominant road, the old A38 becoming the A3085.

Main Article: A30/History - M5 to Okehampton

The M5 takes the strain past Exeter before diverging equally into the Devon Expressway (A38) to Plymouth and the A30 itself through the heart of Devon and Cornwall, all the way to Land's End. Much of the A30 past Exeter bears little relation to its original route but is one of the traffic backbones into the counties of Devon and Cornwall. Much-needed dualling commenced with major town bottlenecks of Launceston, Okehampton and Bodmin seeing the first fruits of improvements by being by-passed; on the other hand traffic sensing freedom was suddenly brought back to earth with a bump by joining the queue to be dumped back onto the original (and lengthy) two-lane alignments with its slow crawl, especially during the Holiday Season. These small by-passes were gradually interconnected through the 1980s and 1990s, the hillier areas especially around Dartmoor requiring completely new alignments to be planned and built.

Cornwall

Main Article: A30/History - Connecting Cornwall

A few sections through Cornwall remained stubbornly single-carriageway despite the need for upgrading.

In the 21st century, an anomalous roundabout near Cheriton in Devon was replaced by a new two-level junction, and a new section connecting the remodelled end of the Bodmin by-pass to the relatively recent section past Indian Queens has vastly improved matters, removing the section through Goss Moor with its infamous railway bridge. Dualling a preceding section on Bodmin Moor past Temple and leading into the commencement of the Bodmin by-pass itself remained 'on-hold' for a long time, but was finally completed in 2017.

In 2024, the section between Chiverton Cross and Carland Cross was upgraded. This now means that you can drive from Exeter (or Honiton if multiplexing with the M5) to Camborne on continuous grade-separate dual carriageway. This now leaves a short section east of Hayle to Long Rock that is still single-carriageway.

Detailed route sections

Bodmin-Penhale	Chiverton Cross-Hayle
C108 Bodmin A38 Bodmin A389 Bodmin u/c Bodmin A389 Bodmin-Innis Downs C771 Innis Downs-Victoria Interchange B3274 Victoria Interchange-Roche C120 Roche-Goss Moor path Goss Moor Trail C763 Indian Queens-Penhale B3275 Penhale C754 Penhale	C700 Chiverton Cross - Scorrier A3047 Scorrier-Redruth Highway A393 Redruth Highway-Redruth C720 Redruth A3047 Redruth C776 Redruth-Camborne A3047 Camborne C750 Camborne-Hayle B3301 Hayle