Hindhead

infobox UK place

country = England
official_name= Hindhead
static_

static_image_caption= Hindhead traffic lights
map_type= Surrey
latitude= 51.1172

longitude= -0.7348
population= 4,685 [ [http://www.surreycc.gov.uk/sccwebsite/sccwspublications.nsf/591f7dda55aad72a80256c670041a50d/1c602ea59c869c9180256e600054b26c/$FILE/Town%20populations.pdf Surrey County Council census data] ]
os_grid_reference= SU886360
shire_district= Waverley
shire_county = Surrey
region= South East England

constituency_westminster=South West Surrey
post_town= Hindhead
postcode_district = GU26
postcode_area= GU
dial_code= 01428

Hindhead is a village on the A3 in Surrey, about 10 miles south-west of Guildford. Neighbouring settlements include Haslemere, Grayshott and Beacon Hill. Liphook is the next major town southwards on the A3.

The village has been blighted for years by traffic queues, and is now the only place on the A3 route which is not dual carriageway. Detailed design of the Hindhead Tunnel to bypass the village has been completed; construction work began on 8 January 2007. This £371 million project will remove the A3 from both Hindhead and the nearby Devil's Punch Bowl. The scheme consists of a 6.5 km dual two-lane highway and includes a 1.8 km twin-bore tunnel, which will be the longest non-estuarial tunnel in the UK. The target completion date for the project is 2011. [ [http://www.tunnels.mottmac.com/projects/?mode=type&id=3402 A3 Hindhead Tunnel - Mott MacDonald Project Page] ]

Near Hindhead is the Devil's Punch Bowl, a site of special scientific interest. This area was notorious in times past for highwaymen and lawlessness and was only "tamed" in the 19th Century when the London to Portsmouth railway line removed much of the freight being transported by road. Gibbet Hill above the Devil's Punch Bowl is where murderers and robbers were hung in chains to warn others.

George Bernard Shaw, playwright, lived in Hindhead at the current site of St. Edmund's School (Hindhead). Whilst Sir Arthur Conan Doyle lived at Undershaw (which became a hotel and restaurant on the A3, now closed).

References

External links

* [http://www.highways.gov.uk/roads/projects/3832.aspx Highways Agency A3 Hindhead improvement]
* [http://www.johnowensmith.co.uk/books/htw1873855311.htm Hilltop Writers, a Victorian Colony among the Surrey Hills] — documenting 66 authors who lived in and around Hindhead at the end of the Victorian era