Wallington Hill and Broadcut

Once the important path through to the industrial estates, these two roads no longer form a continuous route. They are designated W489 and U495 respectively.

Wallington Hill

Documented throughout its life as being too steep for large vehicles and novices, this road starts at a wide turning on the High Street, being the main access in to Wallington. It was used a lot by army vehicles accessing the fortresses during the war, and in 1957 it was briefly closed having been declared redundant without a war to support it.

Yvery House was at the top of the road, being expanded to become The Old Manor and Old Manor Cottage.

Despite this, Wallington Hill became a useful shortcut for cars trying to avoid (or escape) Fareham High Street. A better route was needed, and the bottom of the hill was closed in 1981 to make way for Wallington Way, built over a nursery at the bottom. After this a new business park opened at the bottom, and The Old Manor was extended.

Wallington Bridge

Wallington Bridge was built in 1715 as a red-brick crossing of the river at its highest tidal point, providing access to the central region of the village. In the 1970s it was due to be rebuilt to reduce its contribution to flooding, but a local village organisation was formed to stop this and in 1976 it became a listed structure. The organisation still runs and the village still stands, as both a symbol of the village and, at high water, its flooding problems.

The bridge's narrow width made it a major bottleneck. As road traffic increased, two vehicles would struggle to pass side-by-side. Pedestrians had to use the little wooden footbridge to the side of it. The steps to the road bridge were aligned to feed into the wooden footbridge, but the wooden footbridge was removed shortly after the road was closed. To the left of the bridge is evidence of the original fording point, and the reason Wallington formed. It now serves as only a footbridge, meaning that these days it would be called an "LTN", but as the road was closed in an era before social media, it happened without any of the hysteria you normally get with them.

Broadcut

Originally a small side-turning at the bottom of the hill, this junction is now consumed by the ramps for the footbridge over Wallington Way, as is most of the bottom of the hill. The original alignment of the road can broadly be traced by that of the footpath along the river.

For much of its length Broadcut was a dirty track which ran level with the river. Until the motorway was built and the roads were rearranged, Broadcut was a dead-end for traffic, with no industrial estate to cut through.

Now busier and slightly cleaner, it's still broadly level with the river, but this is difficult to appreciate given the huge flood defence which was built alongside it. For many years, after the flood wall was built the road remained dry, but recent changes to the river bed mean it now comes up through the drainage.

The start of the road was diverted to meet the A32. A roundabout was added to access Sainsbury's, which used to be Manor Gardens Caravan Park and had a stream running through it. Council records say that the Sainsbury's roundabout is actually named 'Old Manor Gardens Roundabout', though nobody would know this.

Sainsbury's opened on 6 July 1993. It claimed that it offered relief for drivers who were getting stressed trying to access their Thackeray Mall store, but added that both would remain open. The bronze wall sculpture, which has been moved around a few times, was by David Backhouse and illustrates children throughout the ages.

A number of changes were made before the original plan came to fruition: two revolving doors were replaced with a smaller lobby to make room for a coffee shop (which became the restaurant in 1995 anyway); there was originally going to be space for a bus to turn around on the service road (a bus stop was later built in the car park, but the service didn't last long); the roundabout on Broadcut was added to allow people on Broadcut to turn right; a roundabout in the middle of the car park was removed; the ramp at the back was added.

The Sainsbury's store was "modernised" in 2010, with the addition of the depresing grey cladding and the removal of most of the bushes from the car park. The anti-pedestrian layout was reinforced by the addition of the coffee shop in 2019, where diners can enjoy an al fresco lunch next to the roundabout.

The Dreams and gym (née Staples) building was a factory and six properties called Riverside Terrace, plus two buildings called Broadcroft and Lowermead. Those houses were pulled down in the 1990s, and we had the Schweppes factory, White & Loch Ltd and a concrete plant, which used some of the cottages as offices. The whole area was left derelict for several years having been purchased by Sainsbury's. When Sainsbury's was built, they wanted this bit to become a single-building retail park. A later plan (1995) was for it to become a warehouse, while another (1997) was for a Halfords and a drive thru.

Before all this, Wallington Tannery was the first point of interest on the road. Its access point is now the access to Luckett's coach yard. Shortly before here the road 'changed sides': as the river sprouted a small tributary, the road dog-legged to cross it. Now only a small stream which lies underground you would be forgiven for not noticing it, but crossing it was once a feat in itself.

A pathway on this side of the stream was once known as Watery Lane, and is perhaps the pre-motoring route of the road. The layout of the engineering building on The Gardens, and some of the other industrial units on this side, suggests they are hiding an old through-route.

The 1950s saw various industrial units come to use here. Buildings included The Villa, Clapgate House and the coal yard.

Wallington's permanent village hall was built in 1995, replacing the tin hut. Its car park replaced parkland.

By here, Broadcut begin to run out of energy and went back to being a quiet lane, until the industrial units sprouted up in the 1980s - the initial ones were so popular they were expanded, and many eventually moved to Whiteley.

The industrial units nearest Broadcut, mostly forming Bridge Industries, required building on most of The Watermeadows. The whole area of land, including the industrial estate and what's left of The Watermeadows, is owned by Standard Life, the pension company that turned into a land developer.

Just beyond the council depot, a small bit of grass space appears on the west. This is where the road has been straightened as part of its development. A pond is also shown here.

The actual end of the road at Standard Way sees a footpath continue beyond, and the former Watery Lane appear on the far left. These together form a straight-line route which merges with Pook Lane and heads towards Wickham, passing Clapgate Cottages and Augustine Farm which are now part of The Meadows.