B3066

Exeter Road

The B3066 runs through the town centre of Bournemouth and, as the only direct route across the Pier Approach, acts essentially as the town's southern by-pass.

Route

We start on the A35 at Bournemouth station roundabout and proceed southwestward towards the Lansdowne, passing major offices and arriving at the landmark clock tower of the College. We take the third exit (first and fifth are the B3064) and find ourselves on Bath Road, heading for the beach. Over St Peter's Roundabout we start the descent to the Pier Approach, and cross it on an early 1970s bridge at which point Bath Road becomes Exeter Road.

Past the Bournemouth International Centre, we turn left at the BIC roundabout and tackle the steep ascent of Priory Road, among small and medium sized hotels and guest houses. This becomes West Cliff Road and at the next roundabout we turn right into Durley Road South, which becomes Durley Chine Road – a far cry from what it would have looked like when surrounded by more Victorian hotels – and brings us out at St Michael's roundabout, where the former A35 Poole Road crosses. We go straight ahead, then, onto a short D2 section which brings us to our journey's end at Bournemouth West Roundabout on the Wessex Way, which is the present-day A35 town centre bypass, multiplexing with the A338.

An amended OpenStreetMap trace for this route awaits uploading to the SABRE Wiki.

History

The 1922 Road Lists describe the B3066 as Bournemouth (The Triangle and Avenue Road), presumably making it a loop off the A35, although the road is not marked on the 1923 MoT map.

It seems likely that the B3066 was later extended in both directions to meet the A35 at what are now the County Gates Gyratory and the Lansdowne. The northern section was severed by the construction of the A338 in the 1970s and so it was rerouted to Bournemouth West Roundabout. The original section of road is therefore now unclassified.