B3140

The B3140 is unusual in that it is a 'C' shape. It is also considerably longer than it was when the number was first allocated.

The route is described in the reverse direction to that which most users will recognise. Today the road starts at the traffic lights on the A370 in East Brent. Some old maps show it extended along the Old Bristol Road to the A38 (where it is now closed off), a short-lived designation that presumably dates to when that road was realigned onto its current course in the early 1930s.

We then pass through the village of East Brent, a pretty settlement clustered towards the A370 crossroads, but then strung out along the edge of the hill. The road, therefore, circles the base of Brent Knoll to Brent Corner, where it takes a sharp right turn, so missing the village of Brent Knoll itself as it continues westwards, crossing open fields towards Berrow. In places the road is too narrow for a central white line, and it requires care to pass oncoming traffic. There is also a nasty double bend which occasionally catches people out. We then come to the village of Berrow, on the northern fringe of Burnham-on-Sea.

It is at Berrow Triangle where we first hit on some confusion between road numbers. Today, as in 1922, the B3140 serves all three sides of the triangle and runs south down Berrow Road to Burnham. However, some local maps from the 1960s indicate that a B road continued north to the church, and while that spur is not numbered, There are also maps from the same era denoting Berrow Road as the B3139. Both of these are believed to be errors.

Heading into Burnham

Heading south down Berrow Road, the road runs between some grand Victorian Villas from the time when Burnham was a booming spa resort, many are now subdivided or nursing homes. After a mile or so, we meet the B3139 at the mini roundabout between Oxford Street, Manor Road and Love Lane in Burnham. Most maps up until c. 1974 also show this junction as the termini of the two B-roads, although today the B3140 runs eastwards once more along Love Lane. We then cross another roundabout on the edge of the town, next to the Tesco store and use a road that was built in the mid-1970s, following the opening of the M5 to Burnham in 1973/4. During construction, a roundabout was installed at the Edithmead Lane junction, although this was later removed with one arm of that road closed up to stop it becoming a rat-run. The B3140 then terminates on the A38 at the large Edithmead Interchange, junction 22 of the M5.