The Lost 1930s Dual Carriageway - A33 Winchester Bypass
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- Опубликовано: 16 апр 2024
- #infrastructure #bridge #driving #cars
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In this video we explore a 1930s built dual carriageway. Or we would if there was anything left of it. In any case, I'll be telling the story of how this road came to be and why upgrading it to become the M3 was a bit more of a challenge than first thought. 
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Ahh, the Hockley Lights! Long gone, never forgotten.
Not forgetting the suicide lane that opened up on the outside as you approached the lights but was non existent on the other side 🤣🤣
And the Winall lights which got removed when the first part of the m3 was extended
Missing the usual intro and outro
I was hoping it to be wicked sweet awesome
Yes, the Fwickedsweetawesome
I still liked the video, and regardless of the lack of its mention, I was pleased to discover that there was still a button specifically for that. 😆
It's only the main Sunday series (Secrets of the Motorway, Great British Car Journey) that it applies to. The midweek videos aren't a continuation from one to another, but more of interesting things and points Jon has for us
A much younger me was involved in a multi-car plie up on the Winchester Bypass. I was in the back of my Dads Rover P6 and like many kids on a journey, there were no rear seatbelts and I had fallen asleep on the back seat only to be woken up by being thrown into the footwell. Good times!
Lucky boy, those Rovers were built like tanks.
"Good times" 😂😂😂. Funny that, I can even recall the unique leathery smell most P6's had back then
Repeat after me: Twy-ford Down. "Tifford down indeed", dear me!
Yes, I wondered at that (but I'm not a local, so I kept stumm).
Worcesersestershire sauce.
That certainly isn't how to say the name!
@@1258-EckhartAnd THAT, as Martin Neimöller’s poem explains, is how tyranny wins. No, it’s not funny and it’s not clever. Next time, speak up like a brave little boy. 🧐😎😜😂
@@G58 But I hadn't recognised the "tyranny" (to maintain your utterly absurd metaphor).
I am 65 and have lived in Winchester all my life and remember the Hockley Lights, what a nightmare
The remains of that junction is now half a bike/pedestrian path junction. The other half is M3 J11!
My memory of the Winchester bypass was trying to keep up with a hearse, with my uncle in it, doing 70mph in the outside lane in my mini trying to get to Stoneham crematorium for our 'time slot'
Couldn't he have slipped you in the back? 🤔
Along with the later Newbury bypass the protests for the road pretty much ended new road building in the UK.
To their credit, Winchester was separated from St Catherine's Hill by the first bypass and the railway and now with both gone it is a nice walk from the city center to the hill.
Ahh, the great Ed Winchester! Long gone, never forgotten.
Went to see Fast Show Live recently and said I would be disappointed if it didn't start with Ed Winchester. Got blank looks. On balance they were probably right not to reminisce about that character.
@@TheStavveers You may have just started an overdue revival 😁
@@TheStavveersComing soon: the Ed Winchester show. Imagine an entire evening
In 1994 my girlfriend (now wife) lived in Southampton, I lived and worked in mid Wales. Every Friday night and Monday morning I commuted through here on my way to the A34 (pre Newbury by pass too!) It was always traffic carnage, especially as there were roadworks for the final stages of completing the M3 cutting. In March 1995 I moved to Southampton and began commuting to Basingstoke or Farnborough every day. Without the completion of the M3 missing link, I probably wouldn’t have accepted the job!
@frimleyfrodo I can't imagine how bad that commute must have been without the Newbury bypass and the lack of M3 here. Did the A34 still cut through Winchester in 1994? Can you remember which way it went? St Cross Road? Then did it join Otterbourne Road or did it push traffic towards Winchester bypass via Hockley lights or join it further up? Thanks in advance
I drove along the A33 many times before the motorway was built, and the tailbacks were horrendous at times.
Fun Fact - The protestors were up in arms about the loss of green space, but as a result of the cutting there is *more* green space now than there was before.
This is an example of some of my gripes about trying to block infrastructure because of 'evironmental' concerns.
Don't get me wrong we should absolutely not run rough-shod over the land in the 'name of infrastructure' (ie it should still be difficult to get government approval for a scheme and all environmental impact studies should be done, and well funded, to ensure minimal damage is caused), but given how quickly nature recovers (especially if given a helping hand by the construction by planting trees, grasses etc as part of the build) all the 'big' impacts are transient and brief.
The A34 around the devil's punchbowl took a mere few years and now you'd struggle to know it was there.....
I still don't really understand the gripe about a tunnel near stonehenge if I'm honest.... I think the corrosive particulates from the exhaust of all the cars and lorries is doing far more actual damage to the stones than a tunnel ever would.... it's not like the tunnel is planned to go directly under the stones, or anywhere near... I think having a major A road so close to an area of unbelievable and incalculable national historical importance is the biggest travesty of it all.
@@Thats_Mr_Random_Person_to_you Edit reqd. A3 at Hindhead Devil's Punchbowl. 🙂
@@Thats_Mr_Random_Person_to_you The 'gripe' about the Stonehenge tunnel is that 1. Almost all of the current delays on that section are caused by traffic from Amesbury joining at Stonehenge Road - what was the old A344 and traffic stopping/starting at the two laybys on the A303 to the west of Stonehenge. 2.The proposed tunnel is too short as it does not include all of the known archaeologically significant parts of the landscape/World Heritage site around Stonehenge. If it was longer or the other much cheaper modifications were tried first, there would be no 'gripe'. Currently it's prioritises expensive political showboating above a cheaper/non-intrusive option or protecting archaeologically significant landscape around an internationally renown ancient monument.
@@Thats_Mr_Random_Person_to_you I totally agree with you. I'm glad the A303 tunnel is going ahead.
The M3 Twyford cutting in this video saw so much trouble from protestors, even with babies being held in front of diggers in an attempt to stop construction, that this became the last major motorway project in the UK. And that annoys me. Roads (and rail for that matter) take up a very small proportion of green space, when compared to housing developments. Motorway building should be on the up but everyone sees it as a big bad killer to nature when it really isn't. Yet not having the road infrastructure causes so much delay, and POLLUTION that no one thinks about. Drives me mad. Mindsets need to change
@@TheMightyAntar Correction. The delays around Stonehenge are due to... traffic slowing down to look at Stonehenge. Move the traffic underground and out of sight of said marvel of the ancient world. And you get ... free flowing traffic.
We lived in London and used to visit family in Bournemouth once a month, and boy do I remember queuing through the Hockley lights as a kid. Traffic lights, on a motorway (almost). I'm sure you can imagine the chaos! :D
I never realised there was so much history around that cutting! Been through there hundreds of times. Great stuff
Amazing isn't it :)
I recall that high arched bridge over the A33 bridge. And the massive traffic jams.
Spitfire Bridge - because someone flew one under it 👍
@@keithposter5543 Allegedly!
@@DrivermanONot actually a Spitfire, of course 😉
Very fitting for the overall tone of this channel shenanigans is just another word for utter madness.
That was a horrid road to drive at night and even worse in dark when raining, drove it many times on my way from London to Dorset. Thank goodness for the Twyford downs section ❤
What a fun stretch of road and so many memories, from the traffic lights to being one of the first cars on there when it opened off to Fairford Airshow with my Dad.
You missed the other bridge under the ‘bit of railway’ that the A33 south of the Hockley lights used to pass under.
I spent ages locating that from archive pics and went on foot. It's literally a railway bridge in a field near Shawford/Compton now
@@keithposter5543and mostly filled in nowadays also, the original height clearance sign used to be still in place but I’d guess that’s gone now.
Lovely walk up there. Your legs won’t thank you with all those steps.
Ah, the good old days. Anyone else remember Swampy?
Soap Dodger in Chief...
Wasn't he Newbury?
@@DrivermanO Both, I think. But it's easier to name a protest Swampy wasn't at 😀
The very end of the a33 at Kings Worthy is also a collision hotspot. The junction just before the winall roundabout routinely is visited by blue lights
@Adam-mm9re the last part of the Winchester Byapss that remains. Will likely be gone when the Winnall J9 improvements are made in a few years time
That junction is a nightmare. The markings are nonsensical and catch many out
I love how this is a microcosm of every motorway project:
• The project is delayed for years.
• When it goes ahead, it's over budget.
• A railway is displaced to allow it to happen.
• We're left with a bridge or road that goes nowhere.
• To this day, an awkward corner or junction is still in use.
Pedant Corner here....not Twiff-Ford but Twhy-Ford....carry on........
Yep! A video about that infamous gap in the motorway network I saw when I came to England in the late 80s! The old dual carriageway used to creep under the SWML and the railway bridge is still there, but over nothing like the road bridge on the video.
I remember the Winchester Bypass well. I moved to Southampton from Newcastle in 1978 but still went regularly to Newcastle for girlfriend (now wife) and family. That journey was bloody awful then and for quite a while after that. The A43 was single carriageway, there was no Newbury Bypass then and the Winchester Bypass had narrow lanes and traffic lights. The journey took 7-8 hours then compared to 5½ - 6 hours now.
I can remember the old route from about 1970. It seemed to me to have quite sharp turns and unexpected traffic lights for a dual carriageway. (In those days the A34 even went through the middle of Newbury). By the time I could drive and go on my own foreign tours, it had become todays M3. I always wondered what happened to the old road. Thanks Jon.
Winchester and Newbury had a bypass road, the Newbury one was the old road with lots of roundabouts on it from the 60s. Both places ended up having a bypass to their bypass.
I remember that bit of A33, bounding up the M3 from Soton, turning a sharp bend only to view a ton of stationary traffic at the lights and praying your brakes worked!
That must have been frightening! Where was this sharp bend exactly, as there seemed to be one the other side of Hockley lights near Bar End Road bridge too!
@@laurenceblackshaw3369 it was a long while ago, but as I remember, the view of the road ahead was obscured by the landscape, and the traffic lights came up quite quickly. I believe it was before where the cutting is now. Somewhere near the Hockley Viaduct where the river Itchen passes the current M3. It's difficult to envision now as the landscape has changed so drastically. But yes it did occasionally raise the pulse somewhat 😁
The laughs and fun John gets into his videos is great, John don't change anything mate you've nailed it and we love it 😂👍
The total lack of end music completely threw me off but a cracking video as always!
Same 😂
ok!, your almost on my doorstep! i can remember picnic trips to st Catherins hill (and pepper box hill) as small child, usually weekends as its close and although my dad drove, we often caught a bus
@AutoShenanigans Jon, I love you. I've only lived in Winchester a few years, and am moving soon, but during my time here I've done a lot of researching about this Winchester bypass, both online and in real life driving to what remains of it. I can't believe you made a video on this! 🤩 Wish it had gone into more detail, particularly with the use of the Spitfire Link road and the Spitfire Bridge that got replaced in this area, and the apparently infamous Hockley lights! During the M3 construction, a temporary tunnel was used I believe. As someone who wasn't around during the bypass' time though, it's difficult to imagine what it all used to look like but have done my best. Really glad you did this video, looking back on Google Street View to 2008, still not much nature had grown near the Bar End Road bridge, but nowadays it really has taken over. What baffles me is why they made the Chandlers Ford bypass a motorway BEFORE they sorted the Hockley light junction. Bar End junction (J10) is rather odd as a result of it connecting to the A33 for a while. I believe M3 J11 utilises part of the bypass as one of its slip roads.
Winnall J9 is all set to drastically change soon with freeflowing slip road to/from the A34, and this is likely to change the only remaining bit of the Winchester bypass left at Kings Worthy, as now a smaller roundabout will be installed further up for traffic heading north on the M3.
The cutting through Twyford shown here caused so much unrest and anger that this marked the end of major motorway building in the UK. And that really frustrates me. Roads (and rail for that matter) take up such a small proprotion of green space, compared to housing developments, yet many sees building major roads as a big bad killer to nature when it really isnt. Motorway building should be on the up. A lack of road infrastructure not only causes mass delays but causes POLLUTION which no one thinks about. Mindsets need to change.
The whole demolition of the A33 Winchester bypass after the M3's completion is one of very few major recent road demolitions, and so its nice to still be able to see some remains of what used to be.
Yep, I had a real flashback when I was walking along the Itchen by St Cat's Hill a few years ago and remembered that the A33 went that side of it. Went down a rabbit hole for a few weeks digging out all the archive pics and maps even locating old railway bridges in fields. Amazing what they've done with it although I do wish they'd tunnelled through the down rather than cut it.
@@keithposter5543 Should have been a 'cut and cover' job but the government of the day wouldn't pay for it. I also suspect it would have also attracted protests regardless so they just went for the worst/cheapest option.
AS I recall the removal of the redundant ByPass was part of the eventual aggreement reached on the Motorway build, to return the 'old road' to nature to compensate for the cutting through Twyford Down.
As a 7 year old I used to swim in the river by Tonbridge, using my scooter to get from where I lived on Stockbridge road.
Great stuff - but it's pronounced "Twai-ford". Otherwise good work; carry on :)
Aaah. The Winchester Byoass. I used to travel on it a lot. It was positively dangerous. Even in the 1960s it was taking traffic that it was never designed for.
A33, once one of the most dangerous roads in Hampshire.I was talking to a retired ambulance driver some years ago. He said that if you got a shout on the A33, there was a good chance it could be a fatality.
That bridge in the begining was known as spitfire bridge known so as a ww2 pilot flew a spitfire under it which is where spitfire link gets it's name
Except it _wasn't_ a Spitfire. Whoever saw it mis-identified the aircraft, but the name stuck.
@@phillwainewright4221 it was a curtiss tomahawk I managed to forget that detail
In my early driving career, I used that bypass a lot. With the inevitable picnic length wait at the lights at the bottom. One summer, July or August, we stopped, maybe 6-8 cars back from the lights, and it sudenly clouded over, and we were hit with a hailstorm. Over several minutes, we had so much hail, some quite large, that left the road covered with these frozen balls, over an inch deep. So dark, and so much rain/hail, it was impossible to see, so no-one moved, for about three light sequences. Then it stopped, as suddenly as it started, but still no-one moved, as the road was like ball bearings. With the sun on show again, it all melted in minutes, and traffic again flowed. (If flowed was ever the right word for Winchester bypass).
"Some of its corners are perhaps a little bit tight". Here we have the latest contender for understatement of the year. Those corners were tight for local traffic, never mind motorway traffic.
Also the response from a friend of my dad’s after he'd driven his E-Type up… the M1!
Having recently visited Winchester and walked around and up St Catherine's Hill I found this very interesting.
I remember the Winchester bypass with the wonderful Hockley lights and Spitfire bridge - and the extended time you got to appreciate the scenery due to the traffic. Also the objections to what became known as the Tory Canyon. Somehow the traffic situation doesn’t seem much improved.
Ah, the "Tory Canyon". Probably not many who will recall the actual Torrey Canyon oil spill ... The tunnel, which the project deserved, and which would have avoided the steep hill we now suffer either side of the cutting, wasn't really so much more expensive, but someone in Downing Street was having none of it regardless!
Anyone who lived and travelled in that area will remember the notorious Hockley lights! They deserve a video all of their own. On a further note you showed a photo of s famous Bridge towards the start of the video. It was known as Spitfire Bridge ad urban legend had it that a Spitfire famously flew through the span. I believe though I may stand corrected that it was in fact an American P41 in the 1940's. Any research you could do would be great. Love your vlogs!
Saw this video yesterday and decided today to go for a nice walk around the St Catherine's hill area and go and have a look at this bridge, been over it many times in the past.
I'm always amazed about how much information you manage to cram in in a short while. It's like being at a lecture with an entertaining professor. Thank you.
I remember from going down to the South Coast on holiday in the late 80s that the A33 was horrendously over capacity. It's a real shame the M3 had to smash through Twyford Down but it was a huge bottle neck that needed fixing.
Glad to see the back of that old stretch of the A33, nearly had an accident because of it - was in the front passenger seat of a van driving back to London after midnight and the interruption to the smooth motorway flow led to my driver dozing off once we were back on the fast bit \m/
Winchester used to be our Capital…
Fantastic Fast Show reference. Thanks 😊
Loving the NWA refrence 😂
It's amazing what nature can reclaim in just a few short years when humans leave it alone. I mean, I'm all up for the M3 n that and now there's a lovely river people can walk along and enjoy.
Extra points for the niche fast show reference; Ed Winchester. Oh and Compton while I'm at it.
Welcome to Auto shenanigans... Nice.
Disused roads make me warm and fuzzy inside
I can remember going down the Isle of Wight a few years on the trot when my kids were younger. We had to cut through the likes of Hungerford and getting stuck in a the traffic around the local Sainsbury`s supermarket, But it was ideal for a fill up the car halfway through the trip! Oh! I like some other people have noticed the absence of intro and outro music!
I recognise the music you played at the end. That was the silent credits from the Doctor Who episode where Adric died.
If ever a railway was needed for freight it would be one that mirrors the M40/A34 from the Midlands to the South Coast...
A34, M40 and on up the A43 to link up with the West Coast mainline that parallels the M1. Existing rail freight terminal at DIRFT and the new rail terminal next to East Midlands Airport, there is also a new terminal being built just off the M1 at J15, Northampton!
So yes, I'm in total agreement with you on that!
Bits of the A34 are built on it!
@@katywalker8322 Hence I said "mirrors it"
Closed and destroyed forever by the wisdom and foresight of Dr. Richard Beeching and his puppeteers at the government. Mainly a certain Earnest Marples (of Marples Ridgeway road builders)!
Birmingham, Banbury, Didcot, Reading (where lots of money was spent providing flying junctions to keep freight trains out of the way of GWR expresses), Basingstoke, Winchester, Southampton is the route used by freight trains. The DN&S sounds like a good idea but it was mostly single track and would be a serious bottleneck today.
Although unpopular with some people, I found the M3 motorway through Twyford Down that eliminated the traffic lights and allowed a true 70mph speed limit a very necessary improvement. Previously, I could easily spend 1 hour queueing, especially on a Friday evening. The Newbury bypass was similarly well received by anyone having to drive from the Midlands to the south coast...... I was certainly not against these improvements.
The Newbury bypass just moved the problem to Chievely, so they had to redo all that as well. But at least you could avoid the hellish Throbbing Hood roundabout.
@Mike-H_UK it honestly sounds mad, it's tricky for me to imagine, as these days it's all free-flowing. 1 hour! Where could the queues start from each side? Did the A34 go via St Cross Road then? Did it then link to Otterbourne Hill or push traffic to the Hockley lights? I'm guessing the A34 extension to Winnall got built when the M3 did?
Any road improvements certainly aren't unpopular with me. Too much protest about things that take up very little green space when compared to business parks and housing estates.
Improvements at Winnall J9 will see a seamless transition to/from M3 and A34.
@@laurenceblackshaw3369 As I remember it, in the late 1980s/early 1990s, the M3 between Southampton and Winchester did not exist as such, and there was a very winding quite narrow dual carriageway that looked like a snake when viewed from above. At the junction for Bishops Waltham, on the south side of Twyford Down, there was a set of traffic lights. This dual carriageway passed over the hill and eventually joined up with what is now the A34 just north of the Winnall roundabout. Under quiet conditions the road was fine, but when traffic built up or when there was an accident, massive queues would built in both directions. I can't honestly remember where the queues started but delays of 30 minutes were usual and 1 hr not uncommon. I think they were a couple of miles long. When travelling South from Newbury to Portsmouth, I normally ended up leaving the road and going cross-country through Bishops Waltham, past Marwell Zoo and through Wickham.
Really interesting. I used the old road and watched as it all changed in the late 80s, early 1990s.
They did a pretty good job turning it all back into nature really. Great to see the drone footage though as at ground level it’s quite difficult to work out where everything was.
Great video as always sir!
Tearing along the very twisty and narrow A33 was guaranteed to raise the heart rate and adrenaline levels. Especially with an HGV alongside, its wheels filling the view out of the side windows.
By todays standards it would feel like madness.
the Lesmahagow bypass in southern Scotland was of a similar vintage and design standard, and was bypassed by M74 in the late 60s
unlike A33 it's still there in all its 1930s glory, though it's now just part of a B road and doesn't get much traffic
@markukblackmore it sounds bonkers, yet not really that long ago!
This is the best video I've ever seen about anything
I did a "I can see my house from here" on one of the aerial shots. Did you visit Shawford station where Victor Meldrew met his untimely end?
Yes the Hockley lights, im old enough to remember them and dread them as it caused a really lot of traffic and was highly annoying. Got stuck there many times.
Friend of mine who worked in Southampton with me came from Edinburgh. She said when she travelled back to Southampton after seeing family in Edinburgh that the Hockley lights were the first traffic lights she encountered on her journey back!
There's another 'Bridge Over Nothing' very close to Junction 27 of the M6 at Standish just north of Wigan, it's a structure that carries Shevington Lane over a cutting that was originally planned to be a dual carriageway at that point & was to have been the start of the Wigan northern link road network.
Back when that section of the M6 opened in July 1963 there were some advance works & passive provision that saw Shevington Lane futureproofed/reconfigured & diverted to pass over a large void (wide enough for a dual carriageway) on a flyover so that when the Wigan northern link road was built, it could be bolted on as they say.
There were other advance works done as part of this scheme that saw the provision of three new bridges at Martland Mill... two were overbridges one was an underbridge.
One of these overbridges was over the Leeds & Liverpool canal, the other was over the River Douglas.
The underbridge was to carry the Wigan-Southport railway over a brand new stretch of Scot lane.
All three of these bridges at Martland Mill were built much wider than the road that they currently accommodate.
Had this Wigan northern link road ever happened then I understand that it would have been a 'Y' network that would have seen it running from Jct27 at Standish to near Boars Head roundabout with the other leg of the 'Y' branching off near Elnup Wood to finish at Martland Mill.
That is why the bridges that carry Scot Lane over the L&L canal & the River Douglas have motorway style parapet side rails etc.
But it came to nothing & the Wigan northern link road was never built (except for these little bits of advance works) one of which 'The Bridge Over Nothing' at Standish serves no purpose despite being there since 1963.
I got told that there were also plans for a Wigan southern link road that had it happened would have run from Jct 25 of the M6 as a dual carriageway beyond & past the Landgate roundabout to end somewhere in the Chapel Lane/Westwood area, but again it came to nought more or less with the Jct25 (restricted access junction) link road being somewhat truncated, coming to an end on the A49 at what is now named the Landgate roundabout...
Link to show the bridge at Standish
wiganworld.co.uk/album/photo.php?opt=5&id=20273&gallery=Standish&page=4
I know that section of motorway / J27 well from my many trips to Coppull to see grandparents.
@@Mike-H_UK Apparently Jct 26 at Orrell was a later addition too & was only added a few years later as a 'Temporary Measure'.
That dog bone/dumbbell roundabout configuration where the M6/M58 & the A577 all feed into etc soon gets snarled up when it's busy.
Perfect opening with that Fast Show clip!
To a foreigner like me, it was like a modernised Monty Python's Flying Circus.
nice to see you talk about my old home town
Great video John, driven the M3 many times, amazing as always 👌👍😀
Awesome Video
At least the f in tree huggers and their ilk got asked the question,what part of off don't you understand? Excellent as usual!👍👍🚛
Insightful stuff.
Great video John ⚓️👍🧲
Great vid and intro John ... Thanks
Lovely story Jon
Top content as usual, thanks.
And Rail Shenanigans will be starting... Can't wait Jon! 🙃
A great video with no distractions even at the end
Fascinating
Glad you came back to do this Jon - great drone footage 👍
Contrary to your comments, extending the M3 to reduce the terrible congestion on the A33 was highly popular with local residents and with people travelling to/from Southampton, even if imported rentamobs of New Age crusties tried to force their opposing opinions onto the majority, fortunately unsuccessfully.
@sotony7483 unfortunately they did kinda win in the long run - their protests here were so bad that it marked the end of major motorway building in the country. And that in my opinion is a really bad thing
I well remember the old Winchester Bypass as I travelled along it many times. There was a particularly bad bend towards the south end where it passed under the main line railway, and as far as I remember, the lanes were narrower than is normal today.
Then there was the famous "Spitfire Bridge" where it is rumoured a Spitfire from the local RAF station flew under it. It was an RAF plane but actually a Curtiss Tomahawk aircraft.
Fired up by this video I went onto Bing Maps to see the aerial photo views. Their Birds Eye view is particularly good. Yes, the bridge to take the Bypass under the main London-Southampton railway is still there, and quite distinctive because it is an angled bridge. Despite this, the bend near here was quite daunting in my friends 1954 MG TF, (this was mid-60s BTW). Most of the road here, though, has been comprehensively ploughed-up !
@frasermitchell9183 interesting! Where was this sharp bend exactly? Because it seems there was a sharp bend near Bar End Road bridge too! As someone who's not long been in Winchester it's difficult to work out what it all used to look like! And what about Garnier Road and the rail bridge there? How did that work with the bypass? Thanks in advance!
@@laurenceblackshaw3369 The sharp bend was a right-hander, just before the bypass dived under the main railway line. If you look carefully on Bing Maps directly east of Compton, then look using Birds Eye view you should see the angled underbridge where the Bypass ran. The road either side is just fields now.
High speed roads in U.K. as far back as that. Never knew that.
Good music video btw.
Glad you did this one... I suggested part of it on abandoned roads over a year ago to it's nice to see it come up! Regards. :-)
Good vid that
🙌
Enjoyed this one John. Thanks a lot. I bet Swampy was protesting in the last stage of the M3 construction
In the mid 80s, I broke down on the slip road to Winchester of the dual carriageway just before that bridge. I had been delivering. Today newspapers and the Transit van had some loose wires, which shorted out. Due to the fire under the bonnet, I stopped on the slip road and used 3 cans of Coke to extinguish the fire. I found a police car flagged it down and they towed me into Winchester out the way. They told me that if I hit the back of their brand new Volve estate, he would arrest me for criminal damage. Almost 40 years ago now life was very different.
awesome video
And they made the M3 only two lanes - nuts!
Ah yes, the Hockley lights. Go from motorway speeds, round a corner, to be confronted with a red traffic light. Pants wettingly exciting!
Bizarre watching a little program about something done when I lived in that part of the world - and the cut through St. Catherine's Hill was a huge issue at the time.
Maybe it's an underpass for foxes and deer.
A foxx called John perhaps?
I well remember the A33 south of Winchester as a child - funny enough, I even remember the now redundant bridge as it marked the start of the M3 northwards towards London IIRC. I also remember the ridiculous single set of traffic lights in the middle of it all from 1985 into the 1990's - oh, and there was that new stretch of M3 from Popham to Winchester that we got to travel on shortly after its opening in 1985. I've no memories of the Spitfire Bridge though as the aforementioned new motorway had just consigned it to the history books.
@RedKnight-fn6jr So what did the Winchester bypass look like when the M3 had been partially extended to Winchester byut not to Chandlers Ford? Could you still travel on the bypass northbound or were you pushed onto the M3 from there on? Thanks in advance
@@laurenceblackshaw3369 AFAIK in 1985, the M3 replaced a section of the Winchester Bypass from Bar End Road (J10) to what is now the A34 at the current J9, where mainline traffic continues under the rotary along the new M3 towards Popham with the option to continue along the Winchester Bypass (A34) via the said J9 (still the case today). Non motorway traffic could continue from Bar End (J10) along the A31 (part of the old Bypass, hence the short DC section) and from the roundabout (Petersfield Road), continue along the A272 under what was the Spitfire Bridge (B3404) alongside the M3 towards J9. J10 was a totally different layout utilizing the now redundant flyover along with the former western alignment around St. Catherine's Hill - not sure if that junction had a number back then. All that changed in the 1990's with the Twyford Down section from Bar End southwards.
@@RedKnight-fn6jr thanks for that. If I'm understanding correctly it seems that in 1985 the M3 didn't officially replace anything at that point as the Winchester bypass was still in tact for non-motorway traffic .The parallel Spitfire Link is very handy now that J10 is limited access and I guess this was designed indeed for non-motorway traffic to get around Winchester without having to go through the centre. I'm guessing the A34 extention to M3 J9 was only created when the M3 was built there
@@laurenceblackshaw3369 Almost everything north of Bar End was in place from 1985 including the current A31 and Spitfire Link. The older version of J10 became the terminus for both the M3 and A31 - the M3 simply took over as a realignment of the Winchester Bypass from under the now redundant bridge mentioned in the video. AFAIK, all non-motorway traffic would come off at J10 via the A31 etc. towards J9. As the realignment for the M3 left an old section of DC south of Petersfield Road, the A31 utilized that section before continuing as single carriageway to a new roundabout (A31/A272). The Twyford Down section was added later in the 1990's bypassing the old J10 altogether leaving a short section of M3 redundant. The A31 was redirected into the current J10 then. Here's a link showing J9 in the early stages of construction in the 1980's:
motorwayservices.uk/roads/oldphotos/m3-a33/image10.jpg
Note the original Spitfire Bridge is still intact. At that point, the A33 became the Northbound M3 while more space was required to accommodate the Southbound M3 and Spitfire Link - this led to the online replacement of the Spitfire Bridge (a temporary bridge was provided for the duration). I guess the curve of DC to the left became redundant once the A33 and A34 were tied into J9 in 1985. The A33/A34 fork is visible in the background.
Nice that you included a picture of the Spitfire bridge. Shame that you didn't mention it in your essay.
Remember when the M3 was being built past Winchester. Heading for Portsmouth docks, coach drivers used the A33 and joined the M27 further west which mostly avoided the congestion where the missing bit of the M3 was being built.
We sometimes used to go past the Ford factory on the way home from South Coast trips and I now realise the old man was trying to avoid the A33 traffic lights and get us up to the A31 by other means.
I was born in Winchester I spent my first couple of years living nearish to it. I’ve been in Scotland since I was 4 and don’t have loads of memories of the place, but strangely one key “landmark” I remember well is where the M3 cuts into Twyford Down (not a lot of stuff was growing on the exposed chalk back then)
I enjoyed this video a lot - which is specifically why I watched it 😂
It was often quicker to go through Winchester than using the by-pass, towing a caravan and stuck in traffic on the by-pass one had time to go into the van and make a cuppa before the traffic had moved a yard. Missed a trick there, could have made a fortune
Old enough to remember the dirtbike track there, and my auntie is buried somewhere under that stretch of the m3 but my uncle took the whereabouts to the grave with him.
Seem to remember there were some services where the A33 and A34 met. Nothing appears to remain of them now though.
Jave a sneaking suspicion that red MK4 Cortina was prob mine, I did have a spell of commuting between south London and Bournemouth in the days before the M3 ran through and I did it with my trusty Dagenham chariot which had 3 forward gears, 3 working cylinders and 3 working brakes as one of the rears had seized up but despite this, the old beast motored back and forth until Mr Old Bill one day discovered it was out o' tax and had it towed away... Cortina? What Cortina... dunno what you talking about guv and took the train home. See in them old days south London old bill knew things like mot's, tax and insurance were kinda seen as optional extras, as long as you had a tax in post label in window they didn't care and did more important things like catch criminals, then the ANPR thing hit and well its a matter of when not if your plates gonna light up as not taxed/mot/insured so ensure your motor is all three cos them 'puters will catch thee... (my little 3 wheel van even though its in garage being repaired has been all three since owned her lol)
I had always wondered this
You would never know those were chalk hills without the highway slapped through it. You seein all that chalk, kids?
I think the planners are looking at this one the wrong way. Clearly a lot of people want to travel around the area and Winchester is getting in the way. But there are some nice parts to Winchester that other people want to preserve. So, just move Winchester. Rebuild it a few miles away, with a large adjacent carpark and motorway access. It will make it easier for people that want to visit Winchester to still do so, and much faster for everyone else that just wants to get past it.
Straight out of Compton ! 😂😂😂
Being in Winchester and avoiding saying hello to King Alfred... 😶🌫
It's lovely to see how quickly nature reclaimed what had been taken from it 60 years earlier.