The Number 47 Route

Bellingham to Shoreditch

Thursday June 27 2019

If ever a bus route was worth repeating after ten years this was it. As a former Lewisham Borough employee, and this route is mostly in that local authority, I thought I knew it quite well but there have been tremendous changes since we last rode this way.

Jo had Thameslinked her way to Bellingham where this route starts, just past Catford Bus garage, and it trundles its way up the Bromley Rod with substantial houses, end of terrace with little pointy towers, on the one side and flats or industrial units on the other and then stops at various points through Catford Centre where the main employer, even after cuts, remains the Town Hall and Laurence House – the theatre had been spruced up for a royal visit some years ago but was now looking a little shabby.

The huge pub opposite, previously the ‘Black Horse & Harrow’, had been painted over into 

Ninth Life which seems not just to offer a pub but promises events and immersive theatre – no wonder the Broadway opposite looks a little tired in comparison . Nine lives also are linked to cats of which Catford still has one...  The stretch of road from here to Lewisham has generous grass verges continuing past the War Memorial and hospital until it reaches Lewisham shopping centre . This remains popular in spite of local rivals and online shopping – the number of bus routes helps bring in passengers who change buses and there are always inviting fruit and vegetable stalls and this combination just about bucks the trend.  There are some plans  for improvement to keep up with the very modern police station.

The biggest changes are round the station and in the intervening years the roundabout has been transformed into a T-Junction of sorts and where buses used to wait now boasts several new blocks of flats. The Glassmill Leisure centre was one of the first new builds and its chequerboard exterior remains jolly. As the bus has to negotiate one river and its tributary plus one overhead and one ground level railway this necessitates a lot of weaving, and allows you to see how close to the railway developers .

now build. 

But then there are the older cottages too..

Talking of the river, this part of the route effectively follows the Ravensboure as well as Deptford Creek, which is currently undergoing some gentrification against the wishes of well-established locals. Also very evident here were the Tideway Works (sewers to you and me), partly blocking the road but also obscuring the view of the usually very visible St Paul’s Church.

Once turned left into Clyde Street the 47 does effectively follow the turns of the Thames but of course it is not really visible, even from the top deck , due to the density of the building – most of it social housing that went up after WW2 destruction, but with some of it now coming down. The area’s rich heritage is reflected in the various names of streets and schools – Grinling Gibbons (the master wood carver), Pepys of diary and naval career fame was always walking up and down here , and John Evelyn was another diarist.

Someone along here has had fun with the road signs substituting Malibu and Laurel Canyon for the correct destinations Like many others I have often passed this way and not noticed.

The 47 of course does the obligatory detour to enter the Surrey Quays Shopping area, where the shoppers and passengers congregate and board, and then pushes on to Canada Water.  Most of the building round here belongs to a previous wave of regeneration namely the 

transformation of defunct docks into housing but one or two more homes have been squeezed in , and the area has won a very handsome library.

On into Rotherhithe where again building and development predominates though social housing along Jamaica Road has a longer history. The church of St Olave’s remains though less of what once had grown up around it: an infirmary then hospital plus a Nurses’ Home (who knew Michael Caine was born here?) all now due to be redeveloped.

This history might explain why there is still a large undertaker close to the roundabout, after which we were heading through Bermondsey complete with its transformative Underground station.

By the time the 47 is on Tooley Street the gentrification of this part of Southwark is very obvious; it is the kind of gentrification that now attracts overseas visitors so pedestrians added to the volume of traffic ( and the narrowness of the streets) helped slow us somewhat. New to us was The Dixon  (ah, I thought, a former police station perhaps named after the first TV copper PC Dixon ) but no it was a former magistrates’ court and Dixon refers to the architect of this handsome Edwardian building.

We were of course approaching London Bridge and for some treason I thought we were due to finish at the station but Jo reminded me we had a way to go yet so I uncollected my things and enjoyed the slow river crossing.

Once into the City we had a fairly straight run past Bank, various towers of variable quality, up towards Broadgate and Liverpool Street before it did that disconcerting wriggle that means we totally lose our sense of direction. Coming towards us down the very crowded Bishopsgate were all the route numbers we have already completed and after today there will be quite a long gap until we reach the mid 100s and upwards…

The street/wall art in Shoreditch is always lively though I was surprised to learn that Adore & Endure has, well, endured for nearly 10 years now.

The route actually finishes at St Leonard’s Church, which Jo reminded me as I stepped off blithely one stop early at Shoreditch Town Hall – still we walked to within sight of the church and rather than tangle with Great Eastern Street and crossings at Shoreditch we headed north for a different Overground station.

This was a route absolutely worth repeating as so much has changed, especially at its southern end, since we last took it.