Wickham Road

With all the urbanisation which occurred along the south coast in the 20th century, Wickham Road became the one (or the only important) road, which allows you to truly escape the urban area. Or until Wickham, at least.

It was once the main route to London, but when the roads were numbered in 1922, Fareham wasn't worthy of having a dedicated number from the campital, so it became part of the A32 which heads due north to Buckinghamshire instead. Signs out of Fareham proudly promoted the destinations "Winchester, Alton, Reading". As these towns, along with Fareham, were all officially classed as having "major importance", all of Wickham Road was designated a primary route in 1964. This status revoked in 1984 following a regional review.

Despite that demotion, most of Wickham Road is still the important-sounding A32. Hampshire County Council have become increasingly keen on treating it like a quiet residential street, to the point where one wonders whether they have forgotten they can change its number any time they like. A further review saw Alton have its "major importance" title taken away in 2009, meaning Fareham is now the only place on the road that is officially regarded as being of any significance.

Forgotten Section

The southern end of Wickham Road is somewhat overlooked and sometimes forgotten. When the name was adopted, it extended along this previously unnamed road down to the High Street, at the crossroads with Osborn Road and Wallington Hill. It was a proper crossroads at the time (and a busy one at that). The High Street Post Office stood in one corner, and Leggs / Yvery House was in the other, which was expanded into the Old Manor House. This was built in the 18th century for the Bennett family.

Whether you were coming through Fareham on the High Street or taking your chances cutting through Wallington, this was now your main route north. It was a rural road until a short row of terraced housing was built in the 1880s, which would have probably belonged to potters. There is an alleyway which provided access to Fern Cottages and what was the County Primary School (closed in 1978 when its virtually unchanged 100 year-old buildings were re-built, previously a girls' board school which cost 2p a day) and to Church Path. Both paths are now known as 'School Path'. There was an alehouse here.

Fareham's new road network outlined in 1968 suggested a new dual carriageway be built roughly along the line of this alleyway, allowing cars and lorries to skip the sharp bends on Osborn Road and the busy crossroads at Walligton Hill. The owners of the closed Travellers Rest pub were among those who were frustrated that they didn't know what was happening. The plan was officially abandoned in 1982 on the basis that the opening of the Wallington Link Road, and the right turn ban at the end of Osborn Road, had made the crossroads much safer. This meant the Travellers Rest pub could be converted to a house, though it kept its distinctive frontage.

The junction with Southampton Road was added in the 1870s. The steep hill to the right had playing fields (and a caravan site at the bottom). When the Wallington Link Road (now Wallington Way) was planned, residents of Southampton Road were among the objectors. They were assured that restrictions would be put in place to stop people using Southampton Road as a short-cut; this likely explains the short one-way section.

The Wickam Road Roundabout was added in 1981, with Fareham Point taking over some of the land in the corner, as well as a 1950s hall which was opposite the Travellers Rest.

London Road

Serpentine Road is a 1920s addition, next to Paddon's almshouse and what was a gravel pit in the 19th century. The four older properties are named. Between Sainsbury's and the allotments (and hidden by the brick wall) is where all of this area's rainwater is supposed to drain down to the river; this was a major concern for the cottages down at Broadcut, and the rainwater here still causes issues. Sainsbury's opened in 1993, and they paid for the crossing.

Historically, the road would have bared left here, on to what is now Old Turnpike. In 1872, or thereabouts, the Gosport and Bishops Waltham, Wickham and Chawton Turnpike Trust built the new road to London to provide a more direct route which avoided the challenge that was North Hill. The new road was called London Road. At this point, the turnpike was moved from the top of Old Turnpike to the new junction. The turnpike building sold refreshments, and stood roughly where the Turnpike Garage is today. It would have been removed not long afterwards as the railway had made the turnpike unprofitable and the road was adopted by the council.

The terraced housing appeared at the start of the 20th century, joining the Fareham Union Workhouse, which moved here from Union Street in 1836. It had four accommodation blocks for different classes of inmate. It became a council office in the 1930s, then became part of the new National Health Service in 1948, when it was known as St Christopher's Hospital. There was an on-site church, which became part of the hospital. St Christopher's Avenue was built around it in the 1990s, over a tennis court. The hospital closed in 2008, with the building being nearly 200 years old, and was replaced by houses.

To the west was a clay pit and a large brickworks, which closed in the 1950s and is now an industrial estate and The Potteries. Buildings called Hugdon House and The Potteries survived, but one called The Bungalow was demolished.

The cemetery was added at the end of the 19th century and grew in to neighbouring fields. It has a lodge building at the top. Giles Close was an Edwardian villa owned by the Giles family, split in to plots of land in the 1950s and demolished altogether in 2000.

From here the road gets a bit more leafy, as it was surrounded by clay pits. The Furze Hall Brickworks on the right closed before the 20th century. Next to it were a builder's yard, Park View and Coral Pits: The Park View name lives on as Park View House is the name of the office there. A gap between these and Furzehall Farm formed the entrance to Furzehall Avenue in the 1980s.

On the left was Midget's Cafe, a classic roadside café for people heading north. It became part of a garage after the motorway opened. Behind it new developments were slowly added, including North Lodge which became Whiteley Lodge and High Drey. There were then two properties called Furzehall Cottages.

The farmhouse and barn at Furzehall Farm were listed buildings in 1975, but they lay derelict. They were converted by Hedley Greentree Partnership to become their offices. This was the start of Furze Court business park which was built next door.

After this the road turned north, merging with North Hill and going back to being the historic road to London. This was a leafy, rural junction with a classic Fareham 'fingerpost' sign in the corner; it was also the edge of the urban area, where the 60mph speed limit (unlimited at one stage!) returned. Unsurprisingly, this idyllic setup was desecrated when the motorway was built in 1976.

As was policy at the time, the part of Wickham Road that was impacted by the motorway was turned into a dual carriageway 'just in case'. North Hill was shunted from its alignment and plugged into one side, though the original line is pretty obvious, with Wickham Road joining roughly where the bus stop was.

At the very bottom of North Hill was a swamp (formerly a clay pit), called Mitcherer's Pond, which was popular for skating during the winter. It was punctuated by five tall trees. This was lost when the motorway was built, and the associated change to the drainage is a factor in why the new underpass often floods. This amused residents, who had argued that the M27 should be built further north.

The North Hill junction was converted into a roundabout when Furze Court opened in the 1990s. The roundabout was then removed in 2026, turning it back into somewhat what it looked like in 1976.

Bring On The Cars

The odd layout of M27 J10 (which was officially called Roche Court Interchange, but that name seems to be forgotten) may not last much longer. It receives a lot of criticism for not facing the right way, which kind-of proves that it's doing its job: if it was easy to use, people would be complaining about all the traffic going through Fareham.

In truth, M27 J10 is pretty much redundant. When it opened in 1976, the M27 finished at Bursledon and the M3 pretty much didn't exist in Hampshire. As a result, this was your exit if you were heading towards London or North Hampshire (via Alton), or Winchester and The Midlands (via Bishops Waltham). Without this exit, anybody wanting to go to those places from Portsmouth would need to drive through Cosham and take the Southwick Road from there. It was a useful addition, but it doesn't matter now.

In addition, at the time the junction was built, there was no Wallington Way, so if you were going from Wickham to Gosport you'd have to go round the one way system in Fareham town centre. The choice of slip roads here allowed those people to use the motorway instead, but again this no longer matters.

When all of this was designed in the 1970s, the ethos was to keep traffic moving at all costs, and to future proof for traffic growth. The free-flowing loop from the M27 towards Wickham has kept to this brief for exactly 50 years, but this was not without challenges: Hampshire County Council were never sure how to safely end it, and various layouts have been tried over the years. Secondly, the UK now has some very strict (and often bureaucratic) engineering standards, and that loop is now too sharp for a 70mph speed limit, so there has been pressure to replace it. Thirdly, these wide roads and sweeping bends encouraged people to drive very fast, which sadly led to fatalities at the increasingly busy right turns. It seems wild now that the dual carriageway section would have had a 70mph speed limit when it opened, but it was designed to be fast, even with all the hazards.

All of those points are reasons that this area is to be completely redesigned as part of the Welborne 'Garden Village' concept. Political spin means this work is being called an "improvement scheme", but a more accurate term would be "re-purporsing": the under-used loop is being closed and is being replaced by a new road for car drivers who live or shop in Welborne. Bizarrely, the southbound side, which has its own safety issues, will be largely unchanged.

Since it opened, the motorway has marked the edge of the Fareham town's urban area, with open farmland beyond here. The grand vision for some 30 years has been to change that, by building across both sides of Wickham Road. In around 2010, detailed plans were published for a new road from Wickham Road to M27 J11, creating a new route for traffic while also opening up all that farmland for development. That is no longer on the agenda, but the west side will be all built up by 2026.

Many people who read this will be aghast, because if you're interested in history then you tend to want to preserve what's here, but that's unfair: Welborne is no different to all the other housing estates that have been built over Fareham's farmland, and if you're angry about one then you ought really to detest them all.

Having said that, some of the finer details of Welborne should pique a historian's interest. It has been sold as an environmentally-friendly project of the future, but the infrastructure: car parks and roundabouts, has a strong stench of the 1980s. It's not the '60s: that was when we were building flyovers and one-car households, it's the period after, where the optimism had faded and the aim was to accommodate cars while spending as little money as possible in the vain hope that people would eventually stop driving. This was the mantra at Whiteley, and that is a curious model to be copying.

For Wickham Road, Welborne means there will be two new roundabouts. That's par for the course: most British housing estates start with a roundabout. The new Broadway Roundabout will be a little different as it will also be the access to the motorway. In the likely event that the town spills over to the east side of Wickham Road, the middle of the town will be two main roads meeting at a busy roundabout. Future historians may be surprised to learn that such a complex wasn't built at the same time as the ridiculous Quay Street Roundabout in Fareham town centre, but actually 40 years after we had learned from that. They may wonder why we encouraged people living next to it to have multiple cars, or they may ask why government policy made it impossible to even consider designing the new town around a tram system. Or perhaps they will just thank us for giving them so much to write about.

The Classic Route To Wickham

With that out the way, it's back to the road to Wickham as it is at the moment. The stretch between Fareham and Wickham was regarded as being dangerous even then, but mainly because of highwaymen.

Pook Lane, which now has a slightly diverted course, formed an alternative and undesirable route to Fareham for people not wishing to use the turnpike. In the corner with Pook Lane was Pooke Farm, but most of the buildings were demolished for the motorway - two remain on the corner.

On the left was Dean Farm, converted for business use, and further up was Charity Farm, now a depot. On the right was Roche Court, a medieval estate with an impressive gatehouse that most people won't be aware of. The estate was used by the military during From World War II and then became Boundary Oak School.

The area here is mostly old chalk and clay pits. The road was straightened in the 1980s, with the old alignment surviving as Chalk Lane, which is now attached to the Knowle Roundabout, which was added in the 2000s. This was part of the conversion of the former Knowle Hospital into a village, another place that was designed only for cars, with virtually zero public transport (despite being next to a railway line) and a long and lonely walk to the nearest civilisation.

The Old Vine Pub - now a house - dates back to the 18th century and is situated on Crocker Hill. It is sadly best known for the murder which occurred there in 1924, when the landlord took his and his family's lives.

Crossing in to Wickham (and technically Winchester) by the water tower, the road becomes Hoad's Hill, which gained houses in the 1930s. Much of this hasn't changed: a three-lane climbing hill arrangement was introduced back when this route was used by lorries. As has become the theme for Wickham Road, Hampshire County Council have been wanting to change this arrangement since 2010, on the basis that it's no longer a main road and they want people to slow down, but the funding has never been made available.

At the bottom of the hill the road split in two, with the arm to the left being Fareham Road. This explains the petrol station in the middle. Until the motorways were finished in 1994, Fareham Road was the A333 to Winchester, and most people still know it's the short-cut to use when the motorways are playing up. A tiny roundabout was provided in the 1980s, becoming larger when Wykeham Vale opened in 2020.

The other strategic point in Wickham is the crossroads with the fast Southwick Road. It was the A333 to Portsmouth, from 1935 until the motorway first opened - that's the looped junction in action! Between those two periods there would have been a lot of HGVs coming into Wickham, hopefully avoiding Wickham Square.

Much of Wickham was expanded in the 1980s. Its railway station on the fast line to London opened in 1903 and closed to passengers in 1955, and to goods in 1962. The track began to be lifted in 1973 after having been unsuccessfully used privately to demonstrate a new type of rail vehicle.

North of Wickham, the A32 continues its journey to Alton and on to High Wycombe and London, though proper countryside and small villages. This website won't be taking you there, and Hampshire County Council would rather you didn't use it, hence out of Wickham it just says "Droxford". But the route is there if you fancy the historic option!