The A433 road is an A road and primary route in Gloucestershire

Gloucestershire

Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean....

. It starts at a junction with the A46

A46 road

The A46 is an A road in England. It starts east of Bath, Somerset and ends in Cleethorpes, North East Lincolnshire, but it does not form a continuous route. Large portions of the old road have been lost, bypassed, or replaced by motorway development...

 at Dunkirk

Dunkirk, Gloucestershire

Dunkirk is a hamlet in the rural north of South Gloucestershire, near the Gloucestershire border, in the parish of Hawkesbury. The hamlet is on an important T-junction where the A46 meets the A433 .Dunkirk in Hawkesbury parish should not be confused with Dunkirk near Nailsworth, also on the A46...

  5 miles (8 km) north of junction 18 of the M4

M4 motorway

The M4 motorway links London with South Wales. It is part of the unsigned European route E30. Other major places directly accessible from M4 junctions are Reading, Swindon, Bristol, Newport, Cardiff and Swansea...

 and 4 miles (6.4 km) northeast of Chipping Sodbury

Chipping Sodbury

Chipping Sodbury is a market town in the county of South Gloucestershire, south-west England, founded in the 12th century by William Crassus . The villages of Old Sodbury and Little Sodbury are nearby...

. It then runs for 16.5 miles (26.6 km) to a junction with the A429

A429 road

The A429 is a main road in England that runs in a north-northeasterly direction from junction 17 of the M4 motorway to Coventry in the West Midlands, by way of Malmesbury, Cirencester, Stow-on-the-Wold, Moreton-in-Marsh, east of Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwick, and Kenilworth.For much of its length...

 just west of Cirencester

Cirencester

Cirencester is a market town in east Gloucestershire, England, 93 miles west northwest of London. Cirencester lies on the River Churn, a tributary of the River Thames, and is the largest town in the Cotswold District. It is the home of the Royal Agricultural College, the oldest agricultural...

  On its way to Cirencester the road passes the spectacular Westonbirt Arboretum

Westonbirt Arboretum

Westonbirt, The National Arboretum is managed by the Forestry Commission. Westonbirt Arboretum is located near the historic market town of Tetbury in Gloucestershire, England, and is perhaps the most important and widely known arboretum in the United Kingdom.Planted in the heyday of Victorian plant...

, and runs through the villages of Westonbirt

Westonbirt

Things named Westonbirt include:*Westonbirt House, a country house in Gloucestershire, England.*Westonbirt School, which now occupies the house.*Westonbirt Arboretum, which is nearby....

, Doughton, Tetbury

Tetbury

Tetbury is a town and civil parish within the Cotswold district of Gloucestershire, England. It lies on the site of an ancient hill fort, on which an Anglo-Saxon monastery was founded, probably by Ine of Wessex, in 681. The population of the parish was 5,250 in the 2001 census.In the Middle Ages,...

 and to the north of Kemble

Kemble, Gloucestershire

Kemble is a village in Gloucestershire, England.It lies four miles from Cirencester and is the settlement closest to Thames Head, the source of the River Thames. Kemble Church is part of the Thameshead benefice, comprising the communities of Kemble, Ewen, Poole Keynes, Somerford Keynes, and...

 and RAF Kemble

RAF Kemble

RAF Kemble was a Royal Air Force airfield that was linked from 1966 with the Red Arrows, the RAF Aerobatic display team; which operated Gnat and laterly Hawk trainers from there...

. The last 2 miles (3.2 km) follow the route of the Fosse Way

Fosse Way

The Fosse Way was a Roman road in England that linked Exeter in South West England to Lincoln in Lincolnshire, via Ilchester , Bath , Cirencester and Leicester .It joined Akeman Street and Ermin Way at Cirencester, crossed Watling Street at Venonis south...

.

History

When the route was first designated in 1922, it finished at a junction with the A429 on the Fosse Way just west of Kemble. When RAF Kemble was built, the A429 was diverted south of the airfield and part of the old route of the A429 became part of the A433.

In the 1930s or 1940s the route was extended from Cirencester to the A40

A40 road

The A40 is a major trunk road connecting London to Fishguard, Wales and officially called The London to Fishguard Trunk Road in all legal documents and Acts...

 just west of Burford

Burford

Burford is a small town on the River Windrush in the Cotswold hills in west Oxfordshire, England, about west of Oxford, southeast of Cheltenham and only from the Gloucestershire boundary...

, on the former route of the B4425. In the 1980s the section between Cirencester and Burford was downgraded to become the B4425 again.