South Circular Road, London

The South Circular Road (formally the A205) is a road in south London, running from the Woolwich Ferry in the east to the Chiswick Flyover in the west. Together with the North Circular Road and Woolwich Ferry, it makes a complete ring-road of Central London. The South Circular is largely a sequence of urban streets joined together, requiring several at-grade turns and is frequently congested.

The South Circular was originally a proposed new build route across South London in the 1920s, and a small section of the road near Eltham was built. Despite various improvement plans since then, little has changed and the road is still regularly criticised for being continually congested and unfit for purpose.

Route

The route starts just south of the Woolwich Ferry where the A2204 Ferry Approach road meets the main east-west road through Woolwich, the A206.

The route goes south, climbing up John Wilson Street, a section of dual carriageway, until it meets Grand Depot Road when it becomes a single carriageway and travels south west along Woolwich Common and Academy Road past the former Royal Military Academy. After crossing over the A207/Shooters Hill Road, the route goes along Well Hall Road until the roundabout junction with Rochester Way, when it turns slightly more west onto Westhorne Avenue and becomes dual carriageway again. It passes under the A2 at a grade separated junction, one of only two on the route, and continues south westerly as a dual carriageway, crossing Eltham Road (A210 road) and Sidcup Road (A20 road), until the junction with Burnt Ash Hill when it becomes single carriageway again – which it will remain for most of the route.