England Road Tours - A3 London to Portsmouth

Today's road tour takes us along the A3, a major route from Monument in Central London, to Portsmouth on the south coast. The A3 is a high quality road for most of its duration, with obvious limitations in London and the road winding down as we enter Portsmouth. The road begins at Monument, crossing London Bridge and navigating Borough, Elephand and Castle, Oval, Clapham, and Wandsworth before opening out into a dual carriageway as we approach Putney Vale. The A3 then winds through the urban areas of Kingston Vale, Raynes Park, Malden and Tolworth before speeds increase again as we leave the bustling city. The A3 encounters the M25 at Junction 10, and continues through Surrey passing Guildford, Godalming, Haslemere, and Bordon and Petersfield in Hampshire, with notable mention to the Hindhead tunnel which was one of the most recent improvements to the middle part of the route. The A3 diverges from the main route at Horndean to give way to the A3(M), which is not included in this particular video. Thrown back onto single carriageway through Waterlooville, the route slows down. At Cosham, the road turns right onto the dualled Southampton Road, before the A3 vanishes at M27 Junction 12, only to reappear again at the Portsbridge roundabout. The A3 then follows Northern Parade, Mile End Road, Anglesea Road past Portsea, and into Old Portsmouth where the road terminates near The Point, a headland near the Isle of Wight ferry terminal and Portsmouth Harbour. Being a single-digit road, the A3 instantly became a well defined important road when the original numbering scheme was unveiled in 1922, and the start and end points of the road haven't changed since. In London, the Elephant and Castle junctions were transformed into roundabouts in the mid-1960s, and became a well known traffic black spot over the years. The northern roundabout was redesigned into a two way three-quarter bend in 2015, famously causing serious disruption in the days following. In Clapham, the A3 ran along the northern side of the common in its entirety, before cutting the northeastern corner along Long Road in the 1950s. The A3 upgrades from Surbiton to Cobham were underway by the mid-1970s, and the dualled section from Petersfield to Hindhead were completed in the late 1980s. Originally the A3 ran directly through Kingston upon Thames, Esher, Cobham, Guildford, Godalming, and Milford, and along what is now the B2070 through Liphook and Petersfield. Filmed May 2023