The E8 Route

Ealing Broadway Station to Brentford (Commerce Road) 

Friday  April 5^th 2013

Our 10.00 departure plans had been slightly thwarted by the ‘Severe Delays on the Central Line’ that characterised today, but 10.25 saw us boarding the double decker E8 outside the very unimpressive exterior of Ealing Broadway Station. This route is classed as frequent, which sometimes equals popular, and certainly for a cold mid-morning it was full enough.

Just past the station was the ‘Eight Treasures’ Chinese restaurant which led me to wonder what these might be – it seems they represent the most treasured symbols in Chinese Art though it might have been nice for Wikepedia to include the calligraphy too.  

Ealing Broadway, apart from offering us the usual range of shops, has a ‘Civic’ stretch with non-working clocks, Town Halls and Civic Centres all boasting signs saying ‘Council Tax Frozen for Another Year’. I am not sure this is altogether a good thing as underneath presumably will lurk cuts in services (we see, for example, that Wandsworth have axed meals on wheels – on the basis that the elderly can just order in their food via the Internet?) and most people’s wages have also been frozen for three years or so. The other banner was ‘Save Our Hospitals’ with NW London now facing similar struggles to keep A&E services accessible as have already played out in SE London.  This was not our first trip through Ealing so we needed some politics to keep us warm and alert.

At a time when certain sections of the media are talking about the negative aspects of immigration it was interesting to see a very omni-purpose Polish shop offering not just the usual delicatessen display but also accounting services, tailoring and hairdressing all in one, which seemed pretty enterprising to us.

Further along the Uxbridge Road come the two cemeteries, one each for the neighbouring boroughs of Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea.

By now we were heading to Hanwell with frequent signs to Hanwell Locks, almost certainly worth a detour if you are a fan of industrial heritage as Mr Brunel was involved – more recent enthusiasts have installed additional attractions (click here for a gentle giggle ) for smaller furry friends…

We also enjoyed ‘Noah’s Joinery’ thinking he must have had a busy year through 2012; with all that rain we had there must have been customers queuing up for his prototype ark?

By now the E8 had turned down Boston Road, named neither for Boston Lincs, nor for Boston Mass, but for Boston Manor House which somewhat to my surprise now belongs to Hounslow and can be visited. 

Further along Boston Road we were stopped briefly by some road works with a range of hard hats peering hard at something by Clitherow Road – the Clitherows having been the long-time owners of Boston Manor.

Boston Manor merges into Brentford once you’ve passed under the M4, and we approached from what I would guess is the more historic (library/war memorial) end.  Fullers, the Chiswick-based brewery, own several fine pubs along this route and they are always beautifully maintained; I can’t vouch for the beer, but certainly we were charmed by the Beehive, complete with its Griffin delivery lorry, as we approached Brentford High Street.

Brentford has a long and distinguished history as we indicated on our accounts of Routes 195 and more particularly the Number 235. Today, however, although we crossed the Grand Union with grand views we did not stop in front of the County Court but crept round the aptly named Commerce Road at the back which was full of lock-ups, trading estates, spare tyre outlets and the considerable building site for the ‘new’ Brentford.  It was also where this short  (22 minute) route terminated and we immediately boarded the altogether longer E2.