A3049 (Portsmouth)

This article is about the original A3049 near Portsmouth.
For the current A3049, a major road near Poole and Bournemouth, see A3049.
For a later A3049 in Plymouth, see A3049 (Plymouth).

The road on the 1926-27 MoT Map

Western Road as it is now

The A3049 number was was originally allocated to Western Road which cut the south west corner between the A3 and the A27 just north of the bridge with Portsea Island, allowing traffic to avoid Cosham.

The new road was opened on 26 October 1922 by Alderman A.E. Porter, Mayor of Portsmouth and the A3049 number was the first A3xxx number to be allocated after the original 1922 classification.

It was 40 feet wide with a 30 foot carriageway and 10 foot sidewalk, and had been built across the edge of the mudflats, described at the time as a "dismal swamp". This necessitating an average of 5 feet of filling of chalk, brick rubble, and granite with bitumen surface. A light railway brought 130 tons of chalk a day down from Portsdown Hill. It was an unemployment relief scheme and employed an average of 170 men a day. Cost was £40,000.

In 1935 it became a spur of the A27. After the Cosham and Havant bypasses were built, it became the mainline of the A27 in its own right. The road has since been upgraded heavily and would be unrecognisable from its A3049 heyday.