The Number 110 Route

Hounslow Bus Station to Twickenham (Rugby Club)
Monday October 18th 2010

This turned into rather an epic day, which started 2 hours late. The rendez-vous was Hounslow East at which Jo arrived on time, and where she then waited for over an hour. When approached by a passing police officer (they had parked on double yellow lines so it must have been urgent?) they enquired if she was OK : ‘My sister in law has been abducted by aliens on the Jubilee line’ she explained ‘I think not madam, there’s been a power failure’ – this was indeed the explanation but troubles never come singly as TfL knows, and other lines which I finally boarded were also subject to delays. To add insult to injury, the Hounslow operative with the key to the toilets had left so we needed to seek alternative relief at the Treaty Centre. A final straw of delay was waiting for a bus as there are only 3 110s an hour. What a build up for what is billed as a 17 minute journey! It was a single decker to cramp our style even further.

The Treaty Centre is a perfectly respectable shopping centre that turns its back on both the High Street and Grove Road, which runs in front, but still accounts in part for the rather dejected air in all but the green grocers shops in those streets.

With the usual relentless sequence of planes overhead , nicely captured by Jo, we headed southwest out of Hounslow, along the Hanworth Road and once past the cemetery turned down Powder Mill Lane towards Twickenham. Then we doubled back on ourselves through Whitton, passing the unimaginatively named Fifth, Fourth and Third Cross Road. The mill would of course have been a gunpowder one located sufficiently far out of town, in what was essentially a market garden area and far from areas of population . Not so now as Whitton was much built up post-war. If you would rather walk this stretch, alongside the River Crane, it is altogether possible.

 Having had Nelson and Wellington Roads earlier (always tells when the houses were built) we suddenly ran into the ‘Prince Blucher’ pub – being the ‘other guy’ from Prussia who might just have had a hand in the victory at Waterloo. 

The bus itself was consistently busy though the roads were fairly quiet – we were delighted to spot some fine autumn colour  and more key, possible ‘soul-mates’ or kindred spirits in the shape of a white van belonging to  'Ladies Who Plumb'

As we approached Twickenham it became increasingly village like with a well kept village green, pump topped with a light and village church, with a few village type shops to match.

Once through the rather mundane Twickenham High Street the bus goes tantalisingly close to the river, just by Eel Pie Island but not close enough to see it from the bus. It stops at what was billed as the ‘Twickenham Rugby Tavern’, the ground floor of an office block, but has now been renamed ‘The Garryowen’ which I took (wrongly ) to be a reference to ‘Take That’ WRONG – Mark Owen or Gary Barlow not Gary Owen. Jo told me it’s a nifty kicking manoeuvre in Rugby named after its most famous proponent.

[When I mentioned our destination to 63 regular he assumed it was a reference to the 7th Cavalry who ‘Died with their Boots On’ in Custer’s Last Stand, and for whom this Irish type jig was the regimental song. For a very Hollywood view of how Erroll Flynn as Custer came to adopt ‘Garry Owen’ see this YouTube link

Personally, I think ‘They Died with their Boots On’ ie on a bus with pass in hand comes closer to our mad project than a fancy rugger kick.]

PS This was a short route (closer to 35 than the promised 17 minutes but still short by our standards)  but to make up for it we will be posting Routes 111-113 before next week’s outing.