A37 (Isle of Man)

Looking north along the A37

The A37 is a short stub - it is perhaps unique in that it is unconnected to another A road and while roads like the A888 on Barra are like that, they are the only A road on the island, which isn't the case here. The reasons behind the existence of the current A37 are long and complicated, and fully explained on the Marine Drive page.

Today the route starts at a T junction with the B52 and an unclassified road, which is the southern part of the Marine Drive, and as such was formerly also part of the A37. Traffic from the B52 flows straight into the A37 as it winds along the clifftops, past a handful of houses. The road then turns inland a little, briefly running alongside the Isle of Man Steam Railway, with a field between the road and cliff edge. A car park then sits on the left hand side of the road, with the road running through trees. It then reaches a horseshoe bend, with a T junction coming in from the right. This is the B23 dropping down to Port Soderick, which TOTSOs with the southern end of the A37.

As hinted above, the A37 was once much longer, and started in Douglas, following the full length of Marine Drive. The northern end of the old route is now the B80, followed by a section which is closed to traffic due to landslips. There is then the unclassified section leading to the current start of the A37. Since Marine Drive closed in the 1970s, some maps have suggested that the B52 was part of the A37. Whether this was really the case, or whether it was an attempt to connect the stub A37 back to the A road network is uncertain, however.