- A420 road
UK road routebox
road= A420
length-mi=
length-km=
direction= east/west
start= Old Market Street,Bristol
destinations=Chippenham Swindon
end=Headington inOxford
construction-date=
completion-date=
junctions= ukroadsmall|4044
ukroadsmall|4320
ukroadsmall|431
ukroadsmall|4017
ukroadsmall|4174
ukroadsmall|4175
ukroadsmall|46
ukroadsmall|350
ukroadsmall|4
ukroadsmall|3102A4321 road
ukroadsmall|419
ukroadsmall|417
ukroadsmall|415
ukroadsmall|338
ukroadsmall|34
ukroadsmall|4144
ukroadsmall|4158
ukroadsmall|4142The A420 is a road between
Bristol andOxford inEngland . BetweenSwindon and Oxford it is aprimary 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 theCotswolds , to the north of Bath, to Chippenham inWiltshire .The second section starts at a junction with the A419 east of Swindon. It then travels under the
Great Western Main Line at theAcorn Bridge and by-passesShrivenham (the road originally went throughShrivenham , but the by-pass was built in the mid 1980s) andWatchfield , then on towardsFaringdon in theVale of White Horse . A new section by-passes Faringdon, just south ofFolly 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 pastLittleworth , Buckland andLongworth . Adual-carriageway section by-passesSouthmoor andKingston Bagpuize , on its way toOxford .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 theOxford Ring Road , through the suburb of Botley and down theBotley Road . It crosses theRiver Thames onOsney Bridge and reaches central Oxford. Within Oxford, it is routed along Oxpens, then Thames Street, parts ofSt 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 crossesMagdalen Bridge to St Clements andEast Oxford and ascends the notoriously steepHeadington Hill to the suburb ofHeadington 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 andSwindon 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 ofRAF Lyneham and its limestone ridge, it became the B4069. From Lyneham to Swindon it became part of the A3102. From Swindon throughStratton 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 fromHarrow, London , was clocked at 172 miles per hour (277 kilometers per hour, or 77 meters per second) in aPorsche 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
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