The South Coast Trunk Road

The South Coast Trunk Road is a 222-mile-long blast from the past. Apart from the odd section such as the Brighton bypass that has been dragged kicking a screaming into the modern age, it is a remnant of the era of long distance travel without motorways – an era I am too young to remember! It used to be known as the Folkestone to Honiton trunk route, but has since commandeered the A2070 to Ashford instead. One suspects it will be years before the road-signs reflect this.

Being shoe-horned into the densely populated south-east corner of England, I am only qualified to talk about the eastern half of this route in detail. If you can provide a similarly detailed description of the western end of the route, please e-mail it to Hamcopublishing@AOL.com.

From Honiton’s main street, the trunk route begins humbly, winding its way up out of the valley onto the hillside before a prolonged descent into Wilmington, a typical Westcountry village full of thatched cottages....

Like most British motorways, there is little to grab one’s interest on this road. The A31 seamlessly becomes the M27 to bypass Southampton. The fern-lined dual carriageway that has guided us across the New Forest now has six lanes and a hard shoulder. First the M271 (from Southampton docks) feeds in, then there’s the service area, then the M3 departs reluctantly with its lengthy slip-road. Airport traffic leaves at Swaythling, and you will pass an attractive inlet of water to your right, usually lined with yachts and small boats. The motorway bypasses Fareham and Portchester. After a steady climb, the scene becomes much more urban, with the road descending past terraces of houses stacked up along the hillside above Portsmouth.

The British road network is odd. For here, a few miles north of Portsmouth we find the M27 being joined by the M275, thus expanding to eight lanes until the departure of the A3(M) for London. Yet bizarrely, this is the point that the route surrenders is motorway status and becomes the A27.

London-bound traffic departs at Havant and the road reduces to a standard dual carriageway. The terrain is mainly flat and the gentle curves first one way, then the other are nothing to get excited about. Route confirmation signs placed at every mile count down the distance to Chichester.

It is often argued that it is quicker to go through the centre of this cathedral city rather than use the bypass. Indeed, the A27 makes quite a meal of this, with a succession of roundabouts – the cause of many a queue. It is with a sense of relief that one leaves the city’s orbit and streaks towards Worthing. The genuine 70 mph road is broken by one roundabout half way to the short Fontwell multiplex with the A29 (between two more roundabouts) – no real cause for delay.

Just before Arundel, the road singles and winds with double white lines at the centre through the trees before a gentle descent. The historic town and its castle are well worth a detour. The A27 crosses flood plain land, bypassing the town between roundabouts, then climbs gently after passing the railway station. The junction beyond this is interesting; one feels as though one is descending onto a motorway via a slip-road. This is where the A27 dualling from the east came to an abrupt halt.

The road is now fast again to Worthing, with some medium inclines; one used to have a dangerous crossroads at the bottom but the gaps have now been closed here. Before long though, it’s back to single carriageway for a trawl through the northern suburbs of Worthing – Sompting to be precise. There are two roundabouts creating a short multiplex with the A24, and a 40 limit throughout. Dual carriageway is briefly regained before it’s time to hit the brakes again for Lancing - cue 40 limit and several box junctions with traffic lights.

But once open countryside is reached, the road strides over the River Adur (these bridges have been painted by an artist and featured on Meridian's TV news) and climbs steeply onto the South Downs to bypass Hove and Brighton via a series of scenic ups and downs. There’s a glimpse of Shoreham before the climb into a short tunnel under the hills. The road resembles an expedient roller coaster ride, until it is rejoined by its former self (A270) at Falmer, the site of Sussex university. It then descends, tree-lined, through the valley, with carriageways separating, to Lewes – the historic county town of East Sussex, well worth a quick detour and famed for its annual bonfire night pageant.

The land is again a flood plain between the two roundabouts (the northbound A26 tunnels beneath the chalk escarpment as a kind of eastern bypass). Then the A27 singles once again. And this time it is more or less for good. After a gentle climb and 'descent with crawler lane' to the level crossing and Beddingham roundabout to allow the southbound A26 to depart, the road becomes a series of long straights across fairly level land, with the stunning South Downs ever to the right. The road is muzzled to pass through the village of Selmeston, and has to halt its flow again for a roundabout near Berwick.

Soon (if the traffic is light) we arrive at Polegate. The A27 bears left at the lights and multiplexes with the dual carriageway A22 for a mile or so, bypassing the town to the north. Continuing in wide, straight, single carriageway style, it reaches its muted climax at Pevensey – a pleasant village with a castle (William the Conqueror’s famed landing place is nearby). All the South Coast trunker will see of it though, is a large roundabout where the A259 takes hold of the batten and presses on to Bexhill.

Nicknamed as the ‘world’s worst trunk road’ by some, this road is of a reasonable standard until Bexhill, with a tree-lined straight (actually some of the gentlest curves imaginable). It then bears smoothly right and climbs, suddenly winding back and forth at the top before slowing right down to enter unbanity, after a few bends, for the next ten miles. There is a 30 limit for much of this section. Bexhill (home of British motor racing) is all suburbs, with one roundabout and a box junction before the rat-race climb for a brief flirt with dual carriagway around the back of the town centre. Then a long, slow straight all the way to the out-of-town entertainment complex that marks the border with Hastings.

After Bulverhythe, the road passes under the railway bridge and finds its way to the sea, running along the promenade of St Leonards, all the way to Hastings, where the greensand escarpment above the old town is ever prominent. Apart from Dymchurch and Sandgate on the detrunked part of the A259 (Kent), this is the only point that the South Coast route truly hugs the coast.

At the centre of the ‘birthplace of television’, you will pass the pier and fun fair to your right. Beyond the completely pointless roundabout, you will pass the old fishing sheds. A259 then dives inland for a sustained climb of almost a mile through the suburban housing, to Ore. Trumped ambitiously as ‘Ore Village’, the road forms the main shop-lined street here, and a short climb later, it presents the motorist with breath-taking views before its steep descent.

There used to a crawler lane all the way up this hill for Hastings-bound traffic. Not any more. Beyond Guestling, the road narrows, then winds, then narrows some more, and then sorts itself out for a mile or so before Icklesham. It regains momentum beyond this pleasant village, with an impressive descent followed by the resulting climb to Winchelsea – Britain’s oldest ‘new town’, laid out in a grid pattern in the 13th century – well worth a visit, and often quoted as ‘England’s smallest town’.

The A259 has no such interest, and passing the old stone archway drops steeply down the wooded hillside with a sudden hairpin at the bottom. After a bumpy ‘risk of grounding’ undulation, it uses straight lines along the banks of the Royal Military Canal to plot its narrow route across the marshes to Rye, a larger town which successfully contorts the A259 by 180 degrees to cross the River Tillingham and then hides it away between the southern undercliff and its Victorian terraces.

Another mini-roundabout, a narrow bridge over the Rother and the road streaks in a dead straight line purposefully out of the town and into the vast expanses of Romney Marsh – totally flat, pastoral and grazing land which remains so until Hamstreet. Of course this speedy beginning is deceptive; at East Guldeford there's a chicane between two level crossings, and two right-angle bends follow. One is then in Kent. After two more right angle bends the A259 remembers that it is a trunk road, widening and straightening out, through-passing Brookland with a 50 limit and roundabout. It used to run through the pretty High St, sadly now devoid of basic amenities, however Brookland's church is worth a visit as its steeple is on the ground! You will barely notice the level crossing as you speed towards Brenzett – the transport hub of the marsh.

This is a ‘rags to riches’ story. From the 2070’s humble beginnings as a B road from New Romney to Ashford, it has now usurped the Brenzett to Folkestone section of the A259, which has been detrunked. Well, it was slow and non-stop thirty limits anyway!

This is a top-grade single carriageway all the way to Ashford, with two straights of over two miles long. The road has even been recommended for speed trails by motorcycle magazines – not advised! The terrain is completely flat, passing the hamlet of Snave towards the gently curving section that climbs the clay hills around Hamstreet – worth a detour for its typically Kentish weather-board buildings. The village was once featured on a set of UK postage stamps too. Beyond this village the road is grade separated, with five bridges and no further junctions until the roundabout to serve the sprawling southern estates of Ashford.

A mile later, the A2070 reaches a roundabout and enters a brief 50 limit to spirals up sharply onto itself – the dual carriageway Southern Orbital road. This is now the land of business parks, and it is due to become much more urbanised as time goes on, with the proposed expansion of Ashford. Within two miles, you will pass Sevington church and reach M20 junction 10, known locally as the ‘roundabout from hell’. For Folkestone and Dover use M20/A20, for Canterbury use A2070/A28.

The South Coast route as described is no longer used as a general east-west route, with most patrons opting for M20, M26, M25 and a suitable conduit south (M23/A3/M3/A303) instead. Although efforts have been made to improve certain busy parts of this road (Brighton bypass/Polegate bypass/A2070), the abandonment of the Hastings and Bexhill bypass plans will see that it stays this way. In the interest of the countryside that remains along this varied route, perhaps this is not such a bad thing.