B2063
| B2063 | ||||
| Location Map ( geo) | ||||
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| From: | Seabrook Road (TR186349) | |||
| To: | Cheriton High Street (TR201367) | |||
| Via: | Shorncliffe Camp | |||
| Distance: | 2.1 miles (3.4 km) | |||
| Meets: | A259, B2170, B2064 | |||
| Old route now: | B2170 | |||
| Highway Authorities | ||||
| Traditional Counties | ||||
| Route outline (key) | ||||
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The B2063 connects the village of Seabrook, between Sandgate and Hythe in south Kent, to Cheriton, a western suburb of Folkestone and site of the northern terminal of the Channel Tunnel.
Starting from a junction with the A259 coast road in Seabrook, the route climbs Hospital Hill, heading first east-by-northeast before curving left and left again at the summit to skirt three sides of a 200-year-old hilltop fortification: the Old Redoubt.
By the time we reach the entrance to Shorncliffe Military Cemetery, we are heading due west. At this point, however, the road takes a sharp turn to the right and the B2063 now straightens out to follow the original western and northern limits of Shorncliffe Camp, a large army barracks, via two thoroughfares known – prosaically enough – as West Road and North Road.
Where North Road ends, at a T-junction meeting with Military Road, we turn left. (The right turn here, leading down to Sandbrook, was once a spur of the B2063, but is now numbered B2170.) Military Road becomes Risborough Lane and our route now heads northward overall, with a modern estate of Army married quarters occupying the land to our right and older, private housing the area to our left.
After passing under the Tonbridge to Folkestone South Eastern Main Line the B2063 ends where it meets the B2064 (formerly A20) Cheriton High Street.
History
Until the beginning of the 1980s, and the construction of the present married quarters on the former Cavalry drill ground east of the B2063 in south Cheriton, Risborough Lane – which now ends, southbound, at the point where it becomes Military Road – was a rather longer road, extending first west for some 110 m along what is today known as St Mark's Close, then turning left to follow what has since been renamed as a continuation of Royal Military Avenue for a further kilometre south to meet the mid point of North Road.
The B2063 originally followed this longer Risborough Lane throughout, as seen in the map on the left, where all of the Class II roads shown were, at the time, sections of the B2063.
