The South Coast Trunk Road

The South Coast Trunk Road is a 222-mile-long blast from the past. Apart from the odd section that has been dragged kicking and screaming into the modern age (such as the Brighton bypass), it is a remnant of the era of long distance travel without motorways. Formerly known as the Folkestone to Honiton trunk route, it has since commandeered the A2070 to Ashford instead, although the roadsigns from Hastings to Brenzett still give Folkestone as the end destination.

Its extremities are single carriageway, with dual carriageway in the middle and a 'fat' motorway section at the centre of this. This website concentrates on the eastern half of this route but briefly lists places encountered at the western end..

Honiton,Wilmington, Axminster, Charmouth, Morecombelake, Chideock, Bridport, Winterborne Abbas, Dorchester, Puddletown, Tolpuddle, Bere Regis

Predominantly single carriageway, with some dual sections.

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 Rownham's service area, then the M3 departs via a lengthy slip-road. Airport traffic leaves at Swaythling, and our road bypasses Hedge End and descends to an attractive inlet of water, usually lined with yachts and small boats, in the vicinity of Bursledon and Swanwick. All the while the A27 runs parallel to the south of the motorway, bumping itself up and down the hills in a semi-urban landscape. The motorway then 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 to the waters of Portsmouth Harbour - visible on the right-hand-side.

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. The water to the right of our road is Langstone Harbour.

London-bound traffic departs at Havant and the road reduces its width to four lanes. The terrain is mainly flat and the gentle curves, first one way, then the other, are nothing to get excited about. As we bypass Emsworth, Southbourne, Nutbourne, Walton and Fishbourne, the A259 begins its life as the 'old A27' through these villages, whilst route-confirmation signs placed at every mile count down the distance to Chichester on its more modern counterpart.

It is often argued that it is quicker to go through the centre of this cathedral city and county town of West Sussex 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. The short section where the A27 and A29 run together between two more roundabouts is no real cause for delay.

Just before Arundel, the road singles and winds through the trees with double-white-lines at the centre, before a gentle descent. The historic town and its castle are well worth a detour. The A27 crosses the flood plain of the River Arun, bypassing the town between roundabouts. It 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 dualling of the A27 from the east came to an abrupt halt.

The road is now fast again to Worthing, with some medium inclines; one of these used to have a dangerous crossroads at the bottom, but the gaps have now been closed. Before long, 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 the Southeast news) and climbs steeply onto the South Downs to bypass Shoreham-by-Sea, 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 (now the A270) at Falmer, the site of Sussex university and Brighton and Hove's football grond. Our road then descends, tree-lined, into a valley, with carriageways briefly separating. The next town is Lewes – the historic county town of East Sussex - well worth a quick detour and famed for its annual bonfire night pageant.

The road strides across another flood plain (River Ouse) between the two roundabouts. The northbound A26, which tunnels beneath the chalk escarpment as a kind of eastern bypass, joins us as for a short climb and descent as a dual carriageway bridging the railway line at the site of the former level crossing, which was still in place until the late noughties. Once the Southbound A26 has left at the roundabout at Beddingham, our trunk route singles again, and this time it is more or less for good. Our road becomes a series of long straights across fairly level land, with the stunning South Downs ever to the right. Just up a lane to the left is the attractive little village of Glynde, and Glyndebourne which is famous for its opera. The road is muzzled to pass through the village of Selmeston, and has to halt its flow again after desceding to a roundabout near Berwick.

Soon we arrive at Polegate. The A27 bears left at the lights and then right at a large roundabout where it multiplexes with the dual carriageway A22 for a mile or so, bypassing the town. Upon leaving the mighty A22, our road continues in wide, straight, single carriageway style, to reach 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 baton and presses on to Bexhill.

Nicknamed as the ‘world’s worst trunk road’ by some, this road is of a reasonable standard to begin with, being a long, 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 for the next ten miles, beginning with Little Common. There is a 30 limit for much of this section. Bexhill (home of British motor racing) presents us with one roundabout and a box junction before the rat-race climb, where it briefly flirts with dual carriagway around the back of the town centre. Then it plunges back into urbanity with 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, crowned with its castle. 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 a completely pointless roundabout, you will pass the old, black, wooden fishing sheds. The 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 regains its confidence for a mile or so before Icklesham, which has a windmill. The road regains momentum again 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 one of the three stone archways, it drops steeply down the wooded hillside with a sudden hairpin-bend 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, before hiding it away between the southern undercliff and its Victorian terraces.

After another mini-roundabout and a narrow bridge over the River Rother, the road streaks purposefully in a dead-straight line out onto the vast expanses of Romney Marsh – totally flat, pastoral and grazing land which remains so for the next 13 miles of our route. This speedy beginning is deceptive - at East Guldeford there's a chicane between two level crossings, and two right-angle bends follow, first right and then left, where we cross the border into Kent. The Cheyne Court wind farm is ever present here. 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 Street, 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, due to predominantly being an urban road through a series of coastal towns and villages.

The new route is a top-grade single carriageway to Ashford. 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, and once featured on a set of UK postage stamps. Beyond this village the road is grade-separated, with five bridges and no further junctions. It climbs through forest and runs dead-straight across flat farmland until the roundabout serving the sprawling southern estates of Ashford.

A mile later, the A2070 reaches another roundabout and enters a brief 50 limit, to spiral up sharply onto 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 at Willesborough, known locally as the ‘roundabout from hell’.

The South Coast route as described is no longer used as a general east-west route, with most patrons opting for the M20, M26, M25 and a suitable conduit southward (M23/A3/M3/A303). Although efforts have been made to improve some parts of this road (Brighton bypass/Polegate bypass/A2070), the abandonment of the Hastings and Bexhill bypass plans should 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.