Road in southwest London, and northwest Surrey
The
A307 road
runs 13.2 miles (21.2 km) through SW London and NW Surrey. It is primary at the north-east end; the remainder is non-primary, generally superseded in the mid-twentieth century in two stages by newer alignments of the
Portsmouth Road
, the Kingston bypass and Esher bypass of the
A3
, which runs along a slightly oblique axis.
Route
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London Borough of Richmond upon Thames: Kew and Richmond
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The road begins at the junction with the
A205 South Circular Road
beside
Kew Green
(
51°28′58″N
0°17′13″W
/
51.4827°N 0.2869°W
/
51.4827; -0.2869
(
A307 road (northern end)
)
)
, where it is named Kew Road. It then runs towards
Richmond upon Thames
through the west of Kew. At the junction with the A316 in Richmond it becomes a non-primary A-road through the town centre then heads through
Petersham
where for fewer than 100 metres it kinks west and then travels south through
Ham
. A
B-class road
, the B353, leaves the A307 in Kew and runs around the town centre and up Richmond Hill and by-passing Richmond, before rejoining the A307 at Petersham.
Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames: Kingston upon Thames, Surbiton and part of Long Ditton
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It bisects the north of the town, before becoming the western half of the one-way system in
Kingston upon Thames
. Here it is briefly merged with the A308. It leads south to the northern end of the
A240
, for 200m travels west to the River Thames, and resuming south becomes at last the old version of the
Portsmouth Road
(which is also its name here). It runs next to the
River Thames
, heading through
Surbiton
. It passes a junction with the A243, shortly before exiting the borough at
Seething Wells
there next to
Long Ditton
.
Thames Ditton, Esher and Cobham, Surrey
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The road now follows an almost straight south-west course (losing the Thames, which at
Thames Ditton
curves away to the north). It passes through
Hinchley Wood
, crossing the
A309
at the
Scilly Isles roundabout
. It forms the High Street of
Esher
, crosses the A3 (new Portsmouth Road) by way of a bridge north of Cobham, before terminating near a junction of the A3 in
Cobham
(
51°19′56″N
0°25′04″W
/
51.3321°N 0.4178°W
/
51.3321; -0.4178
(
A307 road (southern end)
)
),
which is generally also known as Portsmouth Road.
History and events
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The A307 follows the old route of the Portsmouth Road, particularly the section south of the junction with the
A308
. Since two major projects of the 1930s and 1960s respectively the Portsmouth Road, the
A3 (Portsmouth Road)
of today, has been diverted away from towns/villages instead through
buffer land
1 mile (1.6 km) or more from urban centres and is a tripled or dualled (duplicated as described at the time) in each direction.
Robert Clive
("Clive of India") diverted it slightly believing it ran too close to his house at
Claremont
, the landscape garden of which remains and which it still borders.
A
watchman
's box that also served as a
village lock-up
, dating from 1787, is next to the Fox & Duck in Petersham.
[1]
Responsibility for the north section, Kew Road and Richmond Road, passed from the crown to the
Commissioner of Works
under the
Crown Lands Act 1851
.
Petersham Hole
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The A307 was closed during 1979 and 1980 for a total of almost 18 months by the repeated collapse of a
sewer
and fresh water culvert in the road's narrowest section which is in Petersham, an ordeal referred to as the
Petersham Hole
. The route has sometimes been used from a few hundred metres south of the Richmond Gate of
Richmond Park
to Kingston as part of the
London-Surrey cycle classic
events routes, depending on the availability of Park Road, Kingston which avoids the hairpin and sharper descent at Richmond Gate.
References
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]