C273 (Staffordshire)

This article is about the Class III road numbered C273 by Staffordshire Council.
For other roads that are numbered C273, see C273.

Staffordshire County Council's locally classified C273 is the former route of A449 along Old Stafford Road, to the east of the village of Coven, just north of Wolverhampton.

At the northern end, the roads starts where the original route of A449 diverges from the modern route at the light controlled Standeford Crossroads, where it also meets one of the ends of the C259 School Lane, which heads into Coven. It is now a relatively quiet road, but as befits its former Trunk road status, it is suprisingly wide and well-aligned for a rural Class III route. It leaves the hamlet of Standeford, but there are individual buildings all along the road - mostly rural housing but also the occasional farm access and "tin shed" industrial unit. It crosses the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal at Slade Heath Bridge, and immediately passes the remains of a small bridge under the West Coast Mainline - now closed to all but pedestrian traffic.

Beyond here, there is a relatively busy junction with the C234 New Road, which heads off to the east passing the HM Prisons of Featherstone and Brinsford on its way towards the A460.

Almost immediately, there is a very narrow bridge, again across the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal, with a staggered crossroads with unclassified roads around the bridge itself, before it passes the Three Hammers Golf Club, and terminates on a LILO junction again with the A449. There is no access to or from the northbound carriageway of A449.