Continuing in a straight line, it passed through the hamlet of Adelaide before reaching Highway 81, now known as Middlesex County Road 81, at Wrightmans Corners, just north of Strathroy.

[1][4] At Hickory Corner (at one time an established village known as Amiens),[6] the former route of Highway 22 enters the municipality of Middlesex Centre, with the survey grid turning approximately 45°, relative to Adelaide Metcalfe.

[7] It presses through farmland at an oblique angle to lot lines, travelling through the communities of Poplar Hill, Lobo and Melrose.

[9] Within the present limits of London, the former route of Highway 22 briefly travels through farmland before reaching the rural–urban fringe of the city near Hyde Park Road.

[9] Early European settlement in southwestern Ontario was predominantly focused along the shores of Lake Erie, as water-based routes were the principal means of transportation at the time.

[11][12] Sir John Colborne, the lieutenant governor of Upper Canada in the 1830s, ordered a survey of the lands as well as a road from London to Lake Huron on the shortest line between the two.

While it was expected that Errol would quickly grow in to a thriving port, Sarnia did instead due largely in part to politician and businessman Malcolm Cameron.

That route travelled north from Warwick through Arkona, east through Parkhill and Alisa Craig to Elginfield, then south to London.

Expecting the work to be carried out gradually over several years, paving of 16 km (10 mi) of Highway 7 east from Reeces Corners began June 15, 1927.

[20] Progress was much faster than anticipated, and by the end of that month the contractor had been ordered to continue paving as much as possible throughout the remainder of the construction season.

While some groups advocated the province instead take over the 22.7 km (14 mi) Sarnia Gravel Road between Wisbeach and Hickory Corner as the Sarnia–London highway, the towns of Watford and Strathroy successfully petitioned for the route to pass through them instead.

The mindset of the time was that bypassing the communities would bring about their demise and that tourists would be better served by having frequent access to services and accommodations.

[40] Now largely rendered redundant by the parallel freeway, the route of Highway 22 was gradually decommissioned and transferred to county and municipal jurisdiction throughout the 1990s.

[42][43] As part of a series of budget cuts initiated by premier Mike Harris under his Common Sense Revolution platform, a 16.5 km (10.3 mi) section of the route between the Highway 7/79 junction north of Watford and the Highway 81 junction north of Strathroy was transferred to Lambton and Middlesex counties on April 1, 1997.