A38 passing under M50 in Worcestershire

The A38 is a major trunk road in England. Though formally known as the Exeter - Leeds Trunk Road, it actually runs from Bodmin in Cornwall to Mansfield in Nottinghamshire. At 292 miles (470 km) long it is the longest 'A' road entirely within England, and in the United Kingdom as a whole second only to the A1. It was formerly known as the Leeds - Exeter Trunk Road, when this description also included the A61.

Route description

Bodmin to Birmingham

Starting from Bodmin, at a junction with the A30, the road runs through the Glynn Valley, then past Liskeard, Tideford and Saltash (through the Saltash Tunnel), into Devon at the Tamar Bridge, through Plymouth (named 'The Parkway') and Ashburton to Exeter. The section from Plymouth to Exeter is called the 'Devon Expressway', and serves as a southern extension of the M5 motorway. The current route just north of Plymouth, the 'Plympton bypass', was the location for the first stage of the Tour de France held in England, in 1974 before it was opened to traffic.

Exeter represents a second meeting point of the A38 with the A30 (historically they crossed each other in the city centre), a rare anomaly amongst major A-roads. A driver going from Bodmin to Exeter can therefore travel the entire route on either the A38 or the A30, although since the 1990s the latter is the usual choice as it involves more dual carriageway and avoids the city of Plymouth.

The A38 Gloucester Road at Horfield, Bristol

Between Worcester and Birmingham the A38 follows the course of a Roman road (Icknield Street), or perhaps even a Celtic road, although the construction of bypasses around some towns means the modern-day route deviates somewhat from the original dead-straight road. The Roman encampment at Metchley Fort (near the Queen Elizabeth Hospital) was not far from the course of the road.^[1]

A38 Bristol Road running through Bournbrook, Birmingham

The road passes through Bromsgrove then meets the M42 and the B4096 at junction 1 at Lickey End, and becomes a rat route for traffic for the M5 north. The B4096 can be used as an alternative route to Birmingham. It passes through Upper Catshill and meets the M5 at junction 4 near Lydiate Ash. This was the northern end of the M5 for many years in the 1960s, with traffic transferring onto the A38. From here to Edgbaston, the road is dual carriageway. The £770,000 Rubery Bypass opened in December 1965.

In Birmingham a section of the road becomes the Aston Expressway A38(M) motorway, running from the north-eastern side of the Inner Ring Road through Aston to the junction with the M6 motorway at Gravelly Hill Interchange, better known as Spaghetti Junction.

Birmingham to Derby

From Birmingham the road bypasses Sutton Coldfield and Lichfield, before taking up the route of the Roman Ryknild Street (also spelt Icknield or Rykneld) as far as Derby. The £4.1m Sutton Coldfield Bypass opened in 1974, and the £2.6m Lichfield Eastern Bypass in 1972. The section from Lichfield to Alrewas was dualled in 1958. The £500,000 section from Alrewas to Wychnor Farm near Wychnor Hall, and the £150,000 section from Wychnor Farm to Barton Turn both opened in 1962. At Wychnor, the road crosses the River Trent and enters the district of East Staffordshire. The further section of the route was improved to dual carriageway standard, including the £350,000 section from Barton Turn (near Barton-under-Needwood) to Branston in February 1964, bypassing Burton upon Trent in June 1967 (costing £2.6m, which stretched from Branston to Clay Mills and actually shortened the route – now the A5121 - by one mile), and in recent years many of the at-grade junctions have been upgraded or stopped-up. Later in June 1968, the section from the Staffordshire boundary at Clay Mills to the proposed Mickleover link was dualled – completing the dual-carriageway from Lichfield to Findern. At Barton Turn, near the B5016 junction, the road runs right alongside the Cross Country Route for around . This railway line follows the line of the A38 from Derby to Plymouth. From Alrewas to Burton, the path called The Way for the Millenium follows the north-bound carriageway. At Barton Turn on the south-bound side is [[Travelodge UK|Travelodge], which was the first in the UK, built in 1985.

From Clay Mills, the road passes through the district of South Derbyshire, passing the grade separated junction with the A5132 for Willington. There is the Derby South services at the Burnaston A50 interchange. The road enters the City of Derby borough a half-mile north of the Littleover interchange.

Derby - Mansfield

For nearly four miles, the A38 forms part of Derby's outer ring road, including three roundabouts: Kingsway (or Grand Canyon for the A5111; Markeaton (which was improved in September 1964) for the A52; and Little Eaton (or Abbey Hill) for the A61 and B6179 which are infamous for causing peak time congestion. The section of road between Kingsway roundabout to just north of Markeaton is urban in nature and thus subject to a 40 mph speed limit. In March 1969, the 'Allestree Link Road', from the A6 at Allestree to the former A61 was opened, crossing the River Derwent and Midland Main Line.

Originally terminating in Derby at the junction of Babington Lane with St Peter's Street (formerly the A6), further improvements in the late 1960s and 1970s saw construction of the £5.2m Mickleover bypass to the south-west of Derby opened on 19 February 1975. Although the government had approved the section through Allestree as early as 1974, before the Mickleover bypass had been completed, this section had a lot of objections from nearby residents, delaying its construction (from the A52 to the A6). It was opposed directly by Derby Borough Council and the former Derby Higher Education College. The £17m road was eventually opened on 7 September 1983, known as Queensway. An extension of the A38 northwards, crossing the M1 at Junction 28, and ending in Mansfield was built. The £3m Little Eaton-Holbrook Improvement opened on October 3 1977. The road enters the district of Amber Valley where it passes Drum Hill just north of Little Eaton and is crossed at this point by the Midshires Way and Centenary Way. There is a junction for the B6179 to Ripley and Belper. The £12m ten-mile Ripley-Swanwick Bypass was opened by Eric Varley (MP for Chesterfield) on October 21 1977, although the section from Alfreton to the Hartshay Hill roundabout with the A610 had been opened unofficially since September 5 1977. At Alfreton, there is a GSJ with the A61, A615 and B6179. The section from Alfreton to the M1, the Alfreton-South Normanton Bypass, opened as the A615 in the late 1960s. This section has a GSJ with the B600 for Somercotes and the Cotes Park industrial estate, and where it crosses the Nottingham spur of the Midland Main Line it enters the district of Bolsover.

As a 1970s upgrade to the route of the A61 north of Derby (which became the B6179), the A38 bypasses Ripley passing through former opencast mining land, before joining end-on with the former A615 Alfreton bypass at Watchorn Intersection.

To the east of Junction 28 of the M1, the road used to be the A615 until October 1977. The alignment of this road is relatively modern as the dangerous junction with Berristow Lane was improved to grade-separated in the late 1990s, incorporating access to a busy shopping centre. Into Nottinghamshire, the road bypasses Sutton-in-Ashfield, dropping to a single carriageway configuration of 1980s construction, including multiple traffic light controlled junctions – such as the Mansfield, Ashfield Regeneration Route ("MARR").

The final section of the A38 from Sutton, past King's Mill Hospital into Mansfield is purely urban in nature and is single carriageway, joining the A6009 in Mansfield Town Centre at the end of the route's epic journey through England.

Improvements

The bottleneck through the village of Dobwalls in Cornwall will be removed when a new village bypass, linking the existing Liskeard bypass to the current single carriageway section through the Glynn Valley opens in the summer of 2008.^[2] A campaign to open this road was started by villagers in Dobwalls in 1930, but planning for building the road was not granted until 2006.

See also

• A5127 — road following the former route of the A38 in north Birmingham.
• Gloucester Road, Bristol
• Settlements on the A38

References

External links

• UK Roads: The A38
• A38 corridor developments in Birmingham