A350 road

Starting at junction 17 of the M4 motorway north of Chippenham, the first three miles are a dual carriageway to the northern outskirts of Chippenham, where a partly light-controlled roundabout splits traffic between the bypass section and the road into the town centre. The Chippenham bypass is punctuated by six more roundabouts, the last being at the Lackham College. In so doing it crosses the A420 to Bristol and the A4 for Bath to the West and Calne to the East.

It then goes past the small village of Lacock before reaching Melksham four miles later. The road then follows the Semington bypass,[2] opened in 2004, to Westbury, crossing the A361 between Trowbridge and Devizes. This section of the road has two light-controlled junctions to connect the road to outlying areas of Trowbridge before reaching the Yarnbrook roundabout. This section is approximately 5 miles long.

The road takes a winding route through the town centre of Westbury before heading towards Warminster, where it splits from its original route at a light-controlled junction along the Warminster bypass. Where the bypass meets the A36 Bath to Salisbury road, they merge for about 3 miles, before the A350 continues south towards Shaftesbury, passing through Crockerton Green and Longbridge Deverill and beneath the A303.

The section between Shaftesbury and Blandford Forum is almost completely unimproved and in at least one location the road is not wide enough to allow two lorries to pass safely, with the remainder of this section being narrow with several dangerous blind corners, that could be described as resembling almost B-Road status. The road passes through the hamlet of Cann and the villages of Compton Abbas, Fontmell Magna, Sutton Waldron, Iwerne Minster and Stourpaine before reaching Blandford Forum.

At Blandford Forum is another bypass built to ease town centre traffic where the A350 crossed and merged with the A354. The bypass still merges the two roads for a short stretch. There are four roundabouts on this section, the last of which sees the two roads go their separate ways. The road then passes through the villages of Charlton Marshall, Spetisbury and Sturminster Marshall before crossing the A31 via a roundabout.

Before reaching Poole, the road joins the A35 at a grade separated junction before separating again at a roundabout at the north east end of Holes Bay. This section is a dual carriageway as far as Poole Railway Station. The final section crosses the Black Water Channel by the Poole Bridge before terminating at the roundabout on New Harbour Road where the Ferry Port is located.

When first designated in 1922, the A350 ran only from Warminster to Poole.[3] By 1948 the road had been extended north from Warminster to Chippenham on the former routes of the A363 and the A364.[4] In the 1990s the road was extended north from Chippenham to the M4 motorway by renumbering the A429.

The Chippenham bypass was built in the 1990s as a single carriageway and was designed for future widening to dual carriageway. Work to dual the section between Chippenham Golf Club, where the original dual carriageway from the M4 motorway narrowed, to the Badger roundabout was completed in 2014, and the section from Brook roundabout to Bumper's Farm roundabout, the junction with the A420 Bristol Road, was completed in 2016. The remaining sections, as far south as the junction with the A4 Bath Road, were completed in the following years.[5]

In 2004, the route between Melksham and Semington was replaced by a new road that bypassed Semington and, like the Chippenham bypass, was designed to be dualled at a future date. The New Semington Aqueduct carries the Kennet and Avon Canal over this section.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to A350 road (England).

• 1948 Ordnance Survey map
• Wiltshire CPRE
• White Horse Alliance
• Westbury Bypass scheme information
• SABRE page on the A350