Bassett Avenue?

82 Metres

269 Feet

1st April 2025

Stay In Lane

Available options. So, you can either read this relatively short tale, or, if it’s entertainment you’re after, just skip to the bottom and watch the entirely unrelated 3-minute YouTube video. 

On my way to Portsmouth, and a couple of hours earlier I had pulled into a layby at the top of Corfe Hills, the highest point in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Unitary Authority.

I was now heading east on the M27 having joined it after a pleasant drive through the New Forest, an area I hadn’t been to in decades. I knew my objective. Bassett Avenue, just to the south of Junction 4 on the M27, and according to the internet, the highest point in the Unitary Authority of Southampton. It would be an easy drive-by that wouldn’t trouble my progress for the estimated 5.30pm arrival at friends in Southsea.

The traffic was beginning to increase. I guessed that the rush hour was starting. I know almost nothing about Southampton, other than the old football stadium was the eclectically shaped The Dell, on which the mercurial Matthew Le Tissier plied his trade, and regularly tonked them in from miles out of the box. I had a vague memory of passing through the centre of town sometime in the early 1980’s, but that’s as far as it went.

 The old Dell stadium. I did not take this shot!!

And I was about to not find anything more about the city on this day either.

The traffic slowly but inevitably began to slow and then grind to a virtual halt. Road work signs began to appear at around junction 2. It wasn’t time to panic; yet. I’d noticed that traffic in the inside lane was moving with a bit more fluidity than mine (the middle), but it was too soon to be thinking about pulling over. I stayed in the middle lane but then noticed that the outside lane was doing a lot better, and so did the logical thing and pulled to the right. I didn’t need to be fouling up the middle lane for the locals after all.

When the traffic in the middle lane started to pick up speed, and the traffic in mine began to slow down, signs began to instruct all to stay in lane. Oh boy, this was going to make it more complicated, but there was still over a junction to go, and the road works couldn’t go on forever. Even if they did, I’d just have to pretend I hadn’t seen the instructions and do a bit of lane dancing (just like everyone else!).

Approaching junction 3 and it all went Pete Tong. A solid barrier suddenly appeared between my lane and the two inside lanes (I can’t recall if it was a “smart” motorway, in which case make that three). The lane diverted to the right and now I was moving at less than snail’s pace in the outside lane of the westbound carriageway. Quite disconcerting in itself and made worse by the barrier that made any prospect of a lane change to the left impossible.

The stop start momentum was beginning to take its toll on both my Achilles. I’d already been driving for some hours, and this wasn’t conducive to maintaining the positive vibes. And then, bit by bit, the signs for Junction 4 began to appear. I began to think that my goose was cooked, and of course, by the time I had edged past the slip road, it surely had. And that’s when the traffic stopped. A minute went by. I’d been in a similar situation a couple of years earlier, on the M25, and recognised the modus operandi. I switched the engine off.

When I had stopped on the M25 around 7pm a couple of years earlier, somewhere to the west of Potters Bar, I switched off the engine, recognising that it was going to be a while before we all moved again. After an hour I got out of the car and spoke to other entrapped road users. There had been a major crash a mile down the way. It was going to be another hour or so. Fair enough.

Another hour or so, and it was now going to be 11pm. Not great news. I still had another two and a half hours’ worth of driving after we eventually got clear. I tried to sleep. Impossible given that all I was thinking about was getting home, and the constant noise of traffic in the opposite direction. I may have eventually nodded off for a bit but was woken by the increasing cold, and chatter from just outside the car. A couple of mechanics from a nearby van were trying to get the huge gas guzzler next to mine started after its battery had gone flat from keeping the lights on, and no doubt the heating and a multitude of gadgets. A lesson learned perhaps, but the lesson I was learning was that from now on I was going to always keep a sleeping bag in the car.

At just before midnight, the helpful informants in the nearby car (they had been on a lovely long weekend in Liverpool, and were just two miles short of home, which made me feel worse for them than me), bore the very depressing news that the latest estimated release time was now going to be 6am! I can say in all honesty that up until that point I had retained some sympathy for whoever had been involved in the incident ahead, but now my shallower side surfaced. I said nothing but got back into my car and started to mull over what sort of irresponsible driving had contributed to my entrapment. Lane dodging at speed, tailgating, using a mobile phone, drink or drugs – they all met the threshold, with the lane dodging and tailgating in particular being rampant on the M25. I settled for a combination of all the above, plus a random other, but it wasn’t going to get me to sleep. Even if I did get any sleep, I wasn’t going to be in great condition to drive on if woken in the hazy dawn.

Unexpectedly, twenty minutes later, police officers and highway operatives were walking towards us. Maybe they were bringing water and some biscuits. Instead, and to everyone’s relief, the good news was that we were being turned around, from the back, and heading west to the previous junction. It took a while, and another vehicle in front was going nowhere, having also drained the juice. Once pointing in the opposite direction, we were each instructed to drive at no more than twenty miles an hour, which seemed eminently sensible given how disorientating the situation was. But guess what? If I said that one in three of the returnees ignored this instruction, and bolted off at fifty plus, would you believe me?

Once I eventually rejoined the M25, an hour and a half later and south of the river (this will only make sense if you know east London, but the Blackwall tunnel was also closed due to an accident, with a consequential diversion further towards central London and then back out again), I was a frazzled bunny. An hour on, and within ten miles of home, the ultimate kick in the bollocks. My road was closed, with a diversion to the east and through miles of deer strewn country lanes being lashed by wind and rain. It almost finished me off.

Fortunately, because by now I was totally wired and knew that sleep was a million miles away, when I eventually arrived home, sometime around 3am, there was a large glass of red wine calling out to be quaffed. It was, and minutes later I was gone. I learned a lot that night. The next day a news item mentioned the closure on the M25, with some out of focus images. Multiple vehicles involved. No-one seriously injured (I was relieved). Multiple tailgating most obviously. There was no mention of the emotional carnage for the hundreds of others. If something similar had been on the railways it would have been a major incident and would have received national coverage and scrutiny. But it’s okay. It’s just the roads. It happens every day and we don’t care.

Back on the M27 and forty minutes had passed by. At least I had the sleeping bag in the back. All the traffic in the two inside lanes was moving relatively smoothly but I’d long since given up any ambitions on reaching Bassett Avenue (ha!). Eventually, bit by bit we started moving again. Any movement was now a relief. Soon I passed a stationary vehicle squeezed tight to the left barrier. I already knew I was going to see something like this. The car had just broken down, nothing more. No-one to blame but another hour of life lost to the roads.

And so I missed out on the highest point in Southampton and have since rationalised that it will be quite a while, if ever, before I come this way again. It had gone unnoticed by me, but later, upon inspecting the map, the A33 on which Bassett Avenue lies, then becomes the A27 northbound and runs over the M27 on an overpass. If the M27 had passed over the A27, technically I would have been above the highest point, and may even have been able to see it to my right. However, there is one last twist. My claim to Bassett Avenue is obviously highly tenuous, but the trusty BSG Geology Viewer, when scrutinised closely, shows an anomaly. Online sources tell you that Bassett Avenue is the highest point at 82 metres. And indeed, on checking the map viewer, and at the junction of Bassett Avenue and Bassett Heath Avenue the land is indeed 82 metres. But move the mouse just to the north of the M27, and between the first and second junctions on the first roundabout at Chilworth, the land shows as standing at 83 metres! Well, fancy that. If there is an anomaly at all, (Bassett Avenue is the highest point as claimed by Wikipedia and other sources such as Peak Bagger), I think it may be due to an assumption that the council boundary ends at the M27. But it doesn’t. It goes just beyond the motorway and literally ends at the northern point of the Chilworth roundabout. It’s just my hunch but I feel I may have made a very important discovery which I will do nothing about (unless at some point in the future I literally run out of other things to do). Does driving between the two highest points count? Debate (or don’t).

Eventually I was travelling on one of only two roads into Portsmouth. If there is any value at all in this bloated account, it’s the advice I am about to give. DO NOT enter Portsmouth in the rush hour. I’ll say no more. I was a monstrously late guest, but it was a lovely evening. Bassett Avenue. I never saw you, and I probably never will (cos I’ll go to Chilworth roundabout instead, if….).

Anyway – cop a load of Matt instead