A323
A323 | ||||||||||
Location Map ( geo) | ||||||||||
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From: | Guildford (SU986509) | |||||||||
To: | Hartley Wintney (SU766568) | |||||||||
Via: | Aldershot | |||||||||
Distance: | 18 miles (29 km) | |||||||||
Meets: | A322, A324, B3411, B3206, A331, B3208, B3008, A325, B3010, B3013, A3013, A30 | |||||||||
Former Number(s): | A324, A3015, B3010, B3011 | |||||||||
Primary Destinations | ||||||||||
Highway Authorities | ||||||||||
Traditional Counties | ||||||||||
Route outline (key) | ||||||||||
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Route
The A323 runs through some of the towns on the Surrey/Hampshire border.
Guildford - Hartley Wintney
The road starts in Guildford at a set of lights with the A322 just north of the A3 / A25 roundabout. It soon clears the urban streets to head into the countryside, where there's a brief spurt of dual carriageway as it meets the link road from the A322 at Worplesdon.
The A323 carries on through Normandy, running along fairly uneventful countryside at the bottom of the Hog's Back. (Compare and contrast with the A31, which runs along the top of it.) It meets the A324 (marking its original terminus) and shortly afterwards swings round to the left after terminating the B3411 (originally A3011, renumbered A321 in the 1970s) just outside Ash.
From here, the urban sprawl starts building up again as the A323 crosses over the railway line at a level crossing. It then heads through Ash and out the other side, where there's now a large junction with the A331.
Immediately after this, the A323 enters Hampshire and heads through Aldershot, running around the town centre and then there's a brief stretch of dual carriageway up the hill towards the A325.
The A323 multiplexes with the A325 for nearly a mile to the north, before heading off left past Farnborough Airfield. It crosses the Basingstoke Canal and enters Fleet. It then turns half-left and runs parallel to the Basingstoke Canal for some three quarters of a mile before it turns half-right, crosses the Fleet High Street (Fleet Road) at the Oaksheaf corner and continues northwestwards forming one of the boundaries of the "Blue Triangle". Then there's a fairly uneventful run over the London - Southampton railway, under the M3, and through heathland towards Hartley Wintney, where it terminates on the A30.
History
As stated above, the original western end of the A323 was on the A324 between Normandy and Ash. In 1935 the road was extended west to Aldershot and the A325 along what was the A3015, although the A324 remained dominant in the multiplex and presumably only took on this section in the 1990s when the A324 was downgraded to the west. The section through Aldershot has since been rerouted.
Then in the 1960s, presumably with the growth of Fleet, the A323 was extended through the town and on to the A30, taking over the B3011 (the eastern section of which was formerly numbered B3010).