B3355

Route

Thicket Mead, Midsomer Norton

The B3355 is a semi-urban B-road in east Somerset.

The road starts at a triangular junction on the A367 Fosse Way just north of Stratton on the Fosse. It heads north and very soon crosses the B3139 before continuing across the fields to enter Midsomer Norton. We descend Norton Hill and pass the former Midsomer Norton South station, now a railway museum. At the bottom of the hill, by the town hall, is a set of traffic lights. To the right is a spur of the B3355, one-way towards us, which follows the High Street alongside the River Somer to reach a mini-roundabout on the A362.

Meanwhile the mainline of the B3355 follows the western end of the High Street and goes round two sides of the church. It then zigzags via two mini-roundabouts and a short section of North Road to head north along Northmead Road. There's a narrow bridge controlled by traffic lights over Wellow Brook.

The A362 is soon crossed at a roundabout, after which the road is briefly rural before reaching Paulton. It runs along the High Street, which gets narrower as the road continues. We turn left at a mini-roundabout to follow Church Street and then leave town. The road descends into Hallatrow, where it ends at a T-junction on the A39.

History

The whole of the above was originally unclassified. The B3355 gained its number in the late 1920s but at that time only ran from the High Street/Silver Street junction in the centre of Midsomer Norton northwest to the A362 West Road. The spur along the High Street and the road south to the A367 was originally the B3354.

By 1932 the B3355 had been extended north to meet the A369 (present A39) and then it took over the whole of the former B3354 in 1935, giving the road its current route including the spur in Midsomer Norton.