The NUMBER 48 Route

Walthamstow Bus Station to London Bridge Station

Wednesday April 17, 2019

Our turnaround at Walthamstow Bus Station was brief as the toilets seemed to be closed --- and there was a large crowd milling rather than queuing where we were waiting to board - the 48 was the third number to arrive so we were off (at a standstill because of the road works just at the entrance to the bus station) in a pretty full bus. We did not get our front seats until some way down the line.

Having seen the narrow streets of Walthamstow entering from the north we now headed out southwards passing a similar range of small ‘arrival city’ type shops – businesses set up by incomers for their own and eventually everybody in the community, thus several Romanian shops (one called Transylvania), barbers and a joint enterprise selling vaping and fireworks – this could be an explosive mixture..

A corner outlet called the ‘Hornbeam café’ was indeed named for the side street with these splendid specimens prompting me to recommend a smart new publication called ‘London's Street Trees' .  The aptly named author Paul Wood calls the hornbeam ‘a true London tree’ – appropriately for the week leading up to Easter their shape is reminiscent of an egg in an egg cup and very tidy too.

More puzzling were two adjacent nail parlours ‘Holy Nails’ (as in the Crucifixion – I think not) and Crystal Nails – did a partnership fold, was the first enterprise so successful they expanded next door?

No time to ponder as we drew alongside the Bakers’ Arms so called for the Almshouses which were built between 1857 and 1866 by the London Master Bakers' Benevolent Institution. Threatened with demolition to build a Tescos they are now listed but no longer function as homes for retired bakers – though the name remains in a series of roads and bus stops.

By now we were pushing on through Leyton towards Lea and the Lea Bridge road and Lea Valley Ice centre, where there were signs of significant building going on. These three blocks would seem to be a Waltham Forest /Peabody collaboration and promote the nearby Lea Bridge Station – a reopened train station with 2 trains an hour; you might just be better off catching a bus?

So there we were arriving in Clapton with its series of ponds looking very appealing in the spring sunshine, and with little traffic to detain us.

Hackney, like many boroughs now, has a 20 MPH speed limit but I doubt you would get along Mare Street much quicker anyway – the civic and community buildings (theatre, cinema, library) come quick and fast and give a real focus to the heart of the borough even if the shopping, away from the markets, is a bit patchy.

On along Mare Street the bus stop for St.Thomas Square was a bit puzzling: :recently back from France where they take their squares seriously this is more of small garden than anything, pleasant enough at this time of year – and who knew St Thomas’s Hospital owned so much land here?

Martello Hall proves to be an all-day cocktail venue rather than a defence against Napoleonic invasion and soon we were leaving trendy Hackney and Victoria Park for the length of the Hackney Road complete with very many handbag outlets – it’s not clear whether they are importers or manufacturers but they certainly all congregate here .  Still standing (at least the street facing façade) though re-purposed is the former Queen Elizabeth’s Children’s Hospital closed in 1996 and after a long period of lying desolate now developed as flats. There are still marked contrasts between all the new ‘biscuit blocks’ (think of shortbread fingers on their ends) and the much older town houses but whatever the dwelling trendy Scandinavian Lighting have moved in displaying their wares.

Also located hereabouts is the quaintly named  'Barn the Spoon', which (see above) might be yet another trendy wine bar or some such but proves to be a spoon carving workshop where you too can learn how to carve a wooden spoon Nearby is the Green House which calls itself an ethical development ethical development but with a name like that will get lost amongst a welter of other green issues.

Hackney Road delivers the number 48 to Shoreditch and thus into the City of London – by the time we got to Broadgate and passing Liverpool Street station it was just after 5PM and all the city workers seemed to be on the streets heading variously to the Underground, boarding our bus or walking resolutely to London Bridge, which may just have been a faster option than staying on the 48 – we did make progress but in fits and starts some of it hampered by two major building works that annex large parts of the public highway while they erect yet more tall structures.

The view down to London Bridge is grossly incoherent and the saddest thing is the poor little Monument squeezed out of all recognition – it does not benefit from protected view status as St Paul’s does.

London Bridge was heaving with pedestrians, and at this point the camera, used only to taking one bus at a time (see what I did there) went on strike so a wobbly Thames view was the last shot it took. Actually the 48 sidled into London Bridge which has not quite completed its makeover - there seem to be a few missing links between rail and Underground but maybe that’s just me.