Old Kent Road Old Kent Road Old Kent Road is a major thoroughfare in South East London, England, passing through the London Borough of Southwark. It was originally part of an ancient trackway that was paved by the Romans and used by the Anglo-Saxons who named it Wæcelinga Stræt (Watling Street). It is now part of the A2, a major road from London to Dover. The road was important in Roman times linking London to the coast at Richborough and Dover via Canterbury. It was a route for pilgrims in the Middle Ages as portrayed in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, when Old Kent Road
New Kent Road eastward for a few hundred yards to the junction of Great Dover Street and Tower Bridge Road, known as Bricklayers' Arms, where it joins the original route to the south-east Old Kent Road (the A2). The road forms part of the London Inner Ring Road and as such forms part of the boundary of the London congestion charge zone. New Kent Road is designated the A201 which, to the north-west past the Elephant and Castle, becomes London Road. In 1878, historian Edward Walford noted that the New Kent Road was formerly named Greenwich Road, and explained that "[it] is a