The B roads of Britain are for the most part individually unimportant and insignificant. Collectively they form a vital part of the network, but as the great majority are less than ten miles long they are just not the sort of road that inspires enthusiasm. One does not leap out of bed of a morning with the declared intention of doing a road trip along the B4421. You won't get very far and it won't take long. That is not a slight on Ynys Môn!
There are, of course, exceptions to the rule. According to SABRE data (Society for All British Road Enthusiasts) there are 44 B roads 30 miles in length and longer and 15 that exceed 40 miles. The longest is the B6318 that runs the 61.4 miles from Heddon to Langholm. The third longest also goes to Langholm – the B709 at 57.6 miles coming in from Heriot. Curious. In between is the B3227. This 57.9 mile road between Taunton and Stibb Cross in North Devon received a large extension with the opening of the A361 North Devon Link Road, the original A361 being downgraded to B road status and itself the longest 3 digit A road in Britain. The longest B road ever was the B870 which connected Laxford Bridge with Thurso but its 97.5 miles were upgraded in the 1930s.
The thing about data is that when you start analysing it stories appear. I have spent a lot of my life living alongside elongated rural roads. From the age of ten I lived alongside the B4009, its 46.2 miles making it the ninth longest of its species. I then got married and found myself alongside the extraordinarily long A361. Not drunk, naked and in a ditch as the construction of that sentence might suggest, but in the house we there purchased. The B3081 was up next for sixteen years. The move to Scotland took me to the B846, the eighteenth longest, and one that really does go to nowhere – if Rannoch station can be regarded as 'nowhere'. It's in the middle of Rannoch Moor which is about as remote as is possible on this island. Unless one is to change mode of transport, the only option is to turn around and return from whence you came!
But I seemed to have digressed rather. You were expecting a trip along the B3081 and the suspense is killing you. Either that or the road will!
We begin in Dorset at a split grade junction with the A31, that horrendously busy and wholly inadequate link between the mahousive conurbation of Christchurch, Bournemouth and Poole and the rest of the world. This is the edge of the New Forest with its mix of heathland and woodland. We dip briefly into Hampshire but that's the only point of note hereabouts. Cranborne Chase, when we arrive, is delightful and the crossing of this upland really is the highlight of the journey. Pentridge Hill (the Trantridge of Hardy's Tess) has some good walking and an airy aspect. Alas, the road leads to an incongruous fully-lit roundabout junction with the A354 in the middle of empty downland. Do road planners have no sensitivity? Sixpenny Handley is less interesting than its name might suggest but the whole area is full of intriguing stuff. An abundance of archaeological remains fascinated Lt General Pitt Rivers, he of the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford; and explains why the pub at nearby Farnham is called the Museum Inn. He inherited the Rushmore Estate in 1880 and created the Larmer Tree Gardens where he hosted summer concerts for his peasant folk. A relative, Dan Godfrey, decided to form the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. The regal nature of Tollard Royal was supplied by King John who made use of its vert and venison. Ashcombe was, possibly still is, home to some folks known as Guy and Madonna Ritchie. Apparently they are famous although I am not entirely sure for what. Having negotiated the constricted ways of Tollard Royal and climbed for some miles, the road tops out at 863ft in the vicinity of Win Green, at the western end of the Ox Drove, a ridge-top byway coming in from Salisbury. A detour to the car park is highly recommended – the views across to Somerset, Salisbury Plain, Southampton, the Isle of Wight and Bournemouth are not to be missed; and there's some good walking too. By the way, we're in Wiltshire at this point. The B3081 then swings round to the west and heads along the top of the escarpment. Enjoy. Just look around you at the wonderful views. You will wish to stop – there are Ps for the fulfilment of such urges. Next up is the piece de resistance – Zig-Zag Hill! Re-entering Dorset, we dive down into the woods and descend to Cann Common via a series of five hairpin bends. Here, as a cyclist, I can pretend to be on the l'Alpe d'Huez, if only briefly.
Shaftesbury is worth a delay. The B road does go through the town centre but unless you are alert, you'll be sent up the A350/A30 multiplex to the Grosvenor roundabout thus missing out on some pleasant views and the sound of Yorkshire brass bands playing Dvořák, whilst some poor lad toils oop cobbled 'ill, wit' bike, for his 'Ovis.
So far so good, but now we see the dark, menacing side of this road. Not that a road can be menacing. It is simply a strip of tarmac lying inert and inactive on the ground – if it was bouncing, swaying and cavorting there might be an excuse for what follows. Roads, dangerous or otherwise, don't do such things. It's the way they are used and what they are expected to cope with that causes problems. Leaving the aforementioned roundabout the road swings sharply right, descends, right again, descends beneath the A30, does another hairpin and races off downhill towards Gillingham. This is the busiest stretch of road in all North Dorset. It's fast, it's congested, it's winding, it's an accident black-stretch. Cars in the fields, cars in hedges, cars baring their undersides in the most unbecoming fashion, cars intimately engaged; these are a weekly, nay daily, occurrence. It is not for nothing that it is featured in a video on YouTube called 'The World's Worst Road'. The double bends at the Turnpike, along with the junction for Motcombe, are notorious. So bad that the pair of houses opposite the junction are abandoned and becoming increasingly derelict. It is just too dangerous to live there! One might be inclined to ask what the Council is doing about it. One has, but twenty years on the carnage continues unabated whilst Persimmon and friends throw up first-world townships at either end.
And then there's Gillingham – about two and a half miles from end to end but with six sets of traffic lights and another three in the course of installation. Get your timing wrong and it can take 30 minutes or more to get through this pointless, swollen dormitory. When you finally manage to escape, the road rises to the border with Somerset at Tinker's Hill, the fourth county of passage, and meets the infamous A303 at a slightly odd junction. To stay on the B3081 you need to turn off to the left and pass beneath the A road. The default is straight onto the dual carriageway and Exeter, here we come! Then at a T junction it's a left, followed by a right at the Hunter's Lodge, signposted Bruton. Here the lie of the land is just pleasant. Bucolic, verdant, undulating and much more to the liking after the insanity of earlier. And here's another oddity – the B3081 has a 'branch line' into Wincanton. Should you find yourself at a three-way junction with the B3081 going in every direction do not question your optician's competence. It's true. The left turn takes you past the racecourse and around the town centre, the right turn is the onward route. Over there is King Alfred's Tower topping 1000ft above sea-level, here's a dovecot and an art gallery, Bruton is pretty although I am not vouching for its Sexey girls, an ugly factory makes a well-known brand of cheese and eventually the road meets the A371 at Prestleigh and terminates. It is a regret that this road doesn't manage the extra mile or so to Cannard's Grave. This sounds like a more appropriate end to our dice with death. Amusingly, at least to my strange sense of humour, the pub at this location, historically known as Cannard's Grave Inn, has been sanitised and is now known as Cannard's Well. Clearly Cannard wasn't well. Had he been well the grave would not have beckoned. Or a miracle, perhaps. Cannard's well! Perchance reports of his demise were premature and all's well that ends well. And that is the story of the B3081, the eleventh longest B road in Britain.
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