A420 road

UK road routebox
road= A420
length-mi=
length-km=
direction= east/west
start= Old Market Street, Bristol
destinations= Chippenham Swindon
end= Headington in Oxford
construction-date=
completion-date=
junctions= ukroadsmall|4044
ukroadsmall|4320
ukroadsmall|431
ukroadsmall|4017
ukroadsmall|4174
ukroadsmall|4175
ukroadsmall|46
ukroadsmall|350
ukroadsmall|4
ukroadsmall|3102
A4321 road
ukroadsmall|419
ukroadsmall|417
ukroadsmall|415
ukroadsmall|338
ukroadsmall|34
ukroadsmall|4144
ukroadsmall|4158
ukroadsmall|4142

The A420 is a road between Bristol and Oxford in England. Between Swindon and Oxford it is a primary route.

Present route

Since the opening of the M4 motorway, the road is in two sections. The first section begins on Old Market Street near the centre of Bristol, it passes through Kingswood before leaving the city on the east side. From here it travels eastward over the southern part of the Cotswolds, to the north of Bath, to Chippenham in Wiltshire.

The second section starts at a junction with the A419 east of Swindon. It then travels under the Great Western Main Line at the Acorn Bridge and by-passes Shrivenham (the road originally went through Shrivenham, but the by-pass was built in the mid 1980s) and Watchfield, then on towards Faringdon in the Vale of White Horse. A new section by-passes Faringdon, just south of Folly Hill and crosses the A417.

The A420 then travels the corallian limestone ridge that forms the Northwest border of the Vale of White Horse, travelling past Littleworth, Buckland and Longworth. A dual-carriageway section by-passes Southmoor and Kingston Bagpuize, on its way to Oxford.

A further dual-carriageway section bypasses Cumnor Hill, to give a view of the "City of Dreaming Spires" that is Oxford from the west. It then passes the Oxford Ring Road, through the suburb of Botley and down the Botley Road. It crosses the River Thames on Osney Bridge and reaches central Oxford. Within Oxford, it is routed along Oxpens, then Thames Street, parts of St Aldate's then the High Street, which is closed to most motor traffic. [Email from Oxfordshire County Council Highways, 23 October 2007] The road then crosses Magdalen Bridge to St Clements and East Oxford and ascends the notoriously steep Headington Hill to the suburb of Headington before terminating at the Green Road roundabout, where it meets the A40 and the Oxford Ring Road.

Large vehicles such as lorries are advised by large signs at Oxford and Swindon not to take this route and use the alternative A34, from Junction 13 of the M4. However, this advice is frequently ignored, resulting in very slow moving traffic on an already busy route.

History

When first classified in 1922, the A420 ran between Chippenham and Botley, near Oxford. The road between Bristol and Chippenham was the A430. [ [http://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/roadlists/1922.shtml#4 1922 road list] ] The two roads were later joined and the A430 renumbered A420. The road from Botley through Oxford to Headington was originally part of the A40. When the northern Oxford bypass was built in the 1930s, the A40 was rerouted along the bypass and the road through Oxford was renumbered A420.

As a result of the building of the M4 motorway and subsequent road modernisation, the A420 between Chippenham and Swindon lost its identity. From Chippenham to Lyneham through Sutton Benger and to the north of RAF Lyneham and its limestone ridge, it became the B4069. From Lyneham to Swindon it became part of the A3102. From Swindon through Stratton St Margaret to the A419 it became the A4312.

Site of Fastest Speeding Ticket

The A420 near Kingston Bagpuize in Oxfordshire was the site of the crime of the fastest driver ever caught in a routine speed check in the UK. On 27 January 2007, Timothy Brady, a 33 year-old man from Harrow, London, was clocked at 172 miles per hour (277 kilometers per hour, or 77 meters per second) in a Porsche 911 Turbo that he had taken without permission from his employer, a luxury car hire firm. [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/oxfordshire/7009923.stm BBC article about 172 mph speeding ticket] ] On 24 September 2007, Brady was disqualified from driving and sentenced to 10 weeks in jail.

References