Editing A30 road (section)

===17th–18th centuries===
[[File:Ogilby - The Road From LONDON to the LANDS END (1675).jpg|thumb|left|''The Road from LONDON to the LANDS END'' (1675), [[John Ogilby]]]]
The road appeared on [[John Ogilby]]'s 1675 [[Ogilby's "Britannia"|map of Britain]],<ref>{{cite book |chapter=Roads |title=A History of the County of Wiltshire |volume=4 |editor-first=Elizabeth |editor-last=Crittall |publisher= Victoria County History |location=London |year=1959 |pages=254–271 |url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/wilts/vol4/pp254-271 |access-date=11 August 2016}}</ref> as "The Road from London to The Land's End in Cornwall", where which he described that "The Post-Office making this one of their Principal Roads", and opined that the section through Surrey and Hampshire was "in general a very good Road with suitable Entertainment".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.geog.port.ac.uk/webmap/hantsmap/hantsmap/roads/r3notes.htm|title=Old Hampshire Mapped : Ogilby Routes|publisher=Geography Department, Portsmouth University|year=2003|access-date=11 August 2016}}</ref>

The route described by Ogilby started at [[Hyde Park Corner]], and closely mirrored the modern route as far as [[Exeter]], except for three sections from [[Knightsbridge]] to [[Bedfont]], [[Basingstoke]] to [[Salisbury]] via [[Andover, Hampshire|Andover]] and [[Exeter]] to [[Penzance]] via [[Ashburton, Devon|Ashburton]], [[Plymouth]], and following the Cornish south coast via [[St Austell]].<ref>{{cite book|title=The Traveller's Guide: Or, A Most Exact Description of the Roads of England |first=John|last=Ogilby|year=1699|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=twFQAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA205|pages=202–203}}</ref>

The road was known to attract significant postal and coach traffic along its length by 1686.<ref>{{cite report|url=https://www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/transport/trunkroadspaper.pdf|page=6|title=Identifying the Trunk Roads of Early Modern England and Wales|publisher=The Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure|date=May 2017|access-date=28 March 2020}}</ref>

The route is described as the "Great Road to Land's End" in the ''[[Magna Britannia]]'', published in the early 19th century.<ref>{{cite book|first1=Daniel |last1=Lysons |first2= Samuel |last2= Lysons|chapter=Geography and geology|series=Magna Britannia|volume=3 |title= Cornwall|location=London|year=1814|pages=clxxxi–cxciii|url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/magna-britannia/vol3/clxxxi-cxciii|access-date=11 August 2016}}</ref> As the coaching road to Land's End was a major route, it was a popular place for [[highwayman|highwaymen]]. William Davies, also known as the Golden Farmer, robbed several coaches travelling across [[Bagshot Heath]]. He was hanged in 1689 at a gallows at the local gibbet hill between [[Bagshot]] and [[Camberley]]. The [[Jolly Farmer]] pub was built near the site of the gallows (gibbet), a junction.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ot6AzT3fO6AC&pg=PA114|title=Green Men & White Swans: The Folklore of British Pub Names|first=Jacqueline|last=Simpson|publisher=Random House|year=2011|isbn=978-0-099-52017-7}}</ref>