B3063
| B3063 | ||||
| Location Map ( geo) | ||||
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| From: | Wimborne Road (SZ089925) | |||
| To: | Castle Lane West (SZ101949) | |||
| Via: | Charminster Road | |||
| Distance: | 1.8 miles (2.9 km) | |||
| Meets: | A347, B3064, A3049, A3060 | |||
| Primary Destinations | ||||
| Highway Authorities | ||||
| Traditional Counties | ||||
| Route outline (key) | ||||
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Route
The B3063 in Bournemouth is unusual in that the classification coincides exactly with one road name. It is Charminster Road, from beginning to end.
It starts at Cemetery Junction in Bournemouth, which I believe was among the first junctions to use traffic lights with amber arrows. It proceeds northward alongside the cemetery and through the main shopping area of Charminster, which includes a vibrant night-time economy featuring a cosmopolitan variety of restaurants and bars, from Chinese to Italian and from Korean to Turkish.
After half a mile we reach the junction with the A3049, which leads to Boscombe in the east and northern suburbs and Poole to the west. We descend past the 24-hour Texaco garage (formerly a BP), past the parish church of St Alban and, opposite, the Catholic Church of the Annunciation, before passing another 24-hour garage, an Esso, on the right.
We then reach the Fiveways, a roundabout with Queen's Park Avenue. It is only a three-exit roundabout but the name Fiveways undoubtedly refers also to nearby Green Road and Charminster Avenue. The Fiveways pub, built in 1927, is on the left before a short ascent to the library.
After a short flat section, we reach East Way on the right and West Way on the left, before going downhill once again and reaching Castle Lane West, the A3060, at the Broadway roundabout. The even numbers have reached 592 here and the odd numbers 643.
History
The Ordnance Survey map of 1898 shows this route as no more than a track through forestry and claypits, and serves as a reminder as to how young the town of Bournemouth is. While Winton and Moordown, suburbs to the west, were villages in their own right before being swallowed up by Bournemouth suburbia, Charminster really did not exist, apart from a couple of cottages where the Fiveways is now. On the copy of the map in my possession, the borough engineer has pencilled in Charminster Road and Queen's Park Avenue, even with the roundabout that is there to this day, although probably not intended as a 'roundabout' as we know it.
In 1922 the B3063 ran only south of the B3061 (now the A3049). It was extended northward around 1935.
