The Number 360 Route

Friday 13 July 2012

What a very enjoyable route this was!  For the first time for some months, it took us into London itself (or at least the western end of the place) It's not that we don't enjoy Essex, Kent and so on, but a change can be fun too.

We set off from Newington Causeway, Elephant and Castle, just after 11.00.  We had noticed the bus was a single decker, obviously, but it took a while before Linda pointed out that we were riding a hybrid bus.  Unsure of the implications of this, we wondered if the strange graunching noise we heard from time to time was the engine switching from one mode to the other.  The TfL website does not mention strange noises, however.

Heading along St George's Road, we turned left to pass the Imperial War Museum, with the large naval guns outside.  They are a reminder that before ships were seen as helipads, they were seen as gun emplacements.  Around it is Geraldine Harmsworth Park, named for the mother of the Daily Mail proprietor, Lord Rothermere, and dating from the 1920s.  We turned left at the Three Stags pub, to head south along the Kennington Road.  I was a little worried about this (not the way I would go to the Albert Hall, myself) but Linda reassured me, and sure enough we headed towards the river at Vauxhall Bridge. We went along Black Prince Road, named for the pub which in turn is named for the oldest son of Edward III, who died before becoming King, thus causing Richard II, the Wars of the Roses, and a lot of Shakespeare plays.  I would not normally mention this, but it's hard at the moment to turn on radio or TV without a dollop of bard-based history, so I thought I would.

The advertisements recommending staying at home this year for all the culture and sport were presumably commissioned before the jet stream got going.

Actually, today was comparatively bright and rain free, as we headed past the Ethelred Tenant Managed Organisation.  This is a Lambeth way of dealing with ex-Council properties.  We also enjoyed some fine brick and plaster work as we headed towards the river, reaching the Albert Embankment and turning left along it.


We were pleased to note the Duck Tour setting off with a full cargo of passengers.  It's some time since I enjoyed this tourist experience, and I recommended it to Linda.

The turn into Vauxhall Bus Station and out again is one we have not done for some time.  We were amazed to see that a tower block is being added to the large complex of riverside flats, though I doubt if 'tower block' is the term that the marketing materials will use.

Anyway, over the river we went, before turning left into Lupus Street, to serve the people of South Westminster.   As we passed St George's Square, we were interested to note that Pimlico School has become an academy, with fine new buildings, conveniently near to the equally new library.


We also passed some blocks of the Peabody Trust's flats.  I have a friend who lives here (she was in the Women's Land Army during the Second World War, but that's another story)  This brought us to the area around Chelsea Harbour, and we made a little loop round a roundabout to reach the Lister Hospital, and then the Royal Hospital, and the building site where the Chelsea Barracks were:  blighted, as you will recall, when the heir to the throne announced that he did not like the design, and the Middle Eastern owners pulled the project.

Next we were up to Sloane Square and round behind Peter Jones to get to Cadogan Gardens.  We were interested to see a large building named for Nell Gwynn.  This proved to be a block of serviced apartments, and you can see the prices here.  I am not going to speculate at all about why apartments available for short lets should be named for this particular friend of Charles II.

We were surprised to see a statue of Bela Bartok the composer, but we learn that he did live in this area on a visit to London, and that there is indeed a blue plaque to him, which we missed, so here it is.

All that remained was to head up past the Islamia Centre and into Exhibition Road, the only bus to serve this newly traffic calmed road.  Museums, a huge Mormon Church, Imperial College, and then the Albert Hall, destination of the 360.  But we didn't actually stop there, heading past it to use it more or less as a roundabout to reach the bus stand at 11.50.

A really enjoyable trip, we thought;  we shall not be back in central-ish London till the 381!

The Number 359 Route

Addington Village Tramway Interchange to Selsdon Library

Thursday June 28^th 2012

Lovely summer’s day, and we would have been quite happy (me at least) to sit in the sun for a while for this twice an hour service, but as Jo and Linda stepped off the 353 and located the 359 stop it was clear we only had five minutes to wait. While we were photographing the bus stop a waiting passenger offered to pose and it transpired he was a former bus driver, who had inadvertently been, I think he said, on the ‘last single decker RM’ – help me here bus people: did Routemasters come in single mode (leaving aside the odd arson attack I have read about)?  His story was spoilt somewhat by failing to remember the route number but he said he was besieged by spotters all keen to take the last ticket machines and ticket rolls off him. I do remember as a child if you smiled nicely at the conductors as they came to change ticket rolls they might give you the end of the roll, which had a magic turquoise stripe running through it!

Enough with the memories and back to the very pleasant Addington Village Interchange. Three of us boarded the Number 359 and in fact after the non-team passenger got off we had this little number to ourselves. It essentially goes to Selsdon, which is only up the road and according to TFL Journey Planner a 26-minute walk if you do it directly, which of course the bus does not.  Before the bus takes a right turn to serve the estate (big on hills but few shops or other amenities) we passed the substantial John Ruskin School, now a 6^th form college but in existence since 1920 and formerly a Croydon grammar school, numbering no less than England Manager Roy Hodgeson amongst its old boys.   The estate’s properties were built in the post-war period but some of Selsdon pre-dates this with larger pre-war homes.

As noted, rather than the straight route the bus takes a more scenic route, essentially via the combes and hills of the Monks Hill Estate.  Croydon’s website tells us:

In December 1945 Mr. Riesco entered into an agreement with the Corporation under which the latter would buy the estate for £83,000. Monks Hill was bought from the Estate immediately and was developed for housing and schools..   

We were a bit surprised the route was not a ‘hail and ride’ one but as it happens no-one else got on, so we could be as indiscreet as we liked. At this time of year many of the front gardens offered excellent displays of classic English garden varieties.

As we rejoined the Selsdon Park Road we crossed the London loop walk, the 152-mile walking ring which circles London roughly in the Zone 6 belt. Jo was muttering something about Conservative politics and she was of course remembering the dreaded ‘Selsdon Man’ who in 1973 pledged to promote and uphold a free market economy. Unfortunately Selsdon man turned into Selsdon woman in the shape of Margaret Thatcher and all the evils she begat but I suppose we cannot blame an area (or a bus route that crosses it) for their politics?  

This bus route ends at a newish Sainsbury’s and is actually what you might term a ‘circular’ route as we suddenly, after barely 20 minutes of trip, found ourselves trying to get out as many shopping laden passengers boarded.

We suspect that Sainsbury’s had received permission to build provided they gave some added value, and we liked the older persons’ community centre and library which form part of the same building as the shop – and all air-conditioned.  

The clock, a fairly recent (2007) addition gave the accurate time of our arrival at the end of this short trip.  

PS I love a person who loves public clocks. 

The Number 358 Route

Orpington  to Crystal Palace

Monday August 16^th 2010

If ever passengers on a bus route deserved a drink – it was us. This route was in fact the book end of a marathon 5 bus day which had seen us out at Dartford and Bluewater, where waiting for a non-London route had cost us nearly an hour. Still, what had started as a very autumnal trip had burst into warm sunshine on this our last route of the day. 

But back to Orpington – trouble began ten metres out of the bus garage where a motorist was blocking the route, refusing to move and the bus driver quite correctly if a little crudely, was asserting his right of way. Jo maintains buses should have cowcatchers, like the old Western trains, (carcatchers?) to deal more effectively with such situations. Um.

The silver sports car owner (why am I not surprised?) backed down, and we turned out of the station (I always forget how far it is from the High Street) to the War memorial and High Street. The last two times we had been this way were first in the January snows and then in the spring when the local authority gardeners (Bromley) were planting up the floral displays we could enjoy today.

The 358 makes a little foray down the High Street and round the corner to pick up shoppers from Sainsbury’s, then backtracks – this whole exercise took over 20 minutes, so makes you wonder if Sainsbury’s contribute to the drivers’ salaries? In the High Street there had been changes too – Yo Bo seems to be a Chinese restaurant though as no-one has posted a review either means it’s very new or not worth it. Next door or nearly is Mystic Brew, which is indeed a recent addition to the High Street, much praised by NetMums.

The bus now head due south, through fairly affluent-seeming Orpington, almost to Green Street Green, which for once is aptly named, as there was quite a lot of greenery on this route.  It then turns sharply north again, cleverly avoiding the A21 for as long as it can. Somewhere along Farnborough Hill the drivers changed, though we could not quite see where they had come from (? hidden garage). Close by is a pub called the  'Change of Horses' so while the drivers don’t have to haul passengers up hill as the horses would have done, they obviously needed refreshment.  This seems to be a venue for folk singing, a focus for the village and as the sun was shining it looked  every bit as good as its publicity.

I gather it is also related to ‘Ye Old Whyte Lyon’ which is close by where Farnborough Common rejoins the Hastings Road.  I fear someone overdosed on the letter ‘Y’ in their Letraset/font collection.  This pub has Shepherds Neame, which I am reliably informed is the oldest still-working brewery in England.

Not sure we will get to Faversham on our London travels so there is the link anyway.

The A21 route in and out of Bromley Town centre is pretty familiar and we made good time along here – the larger family houses then give way to the ubiquitous modern flats which characterise areas close enough to stations for commuters.

Affinity Sutton would appear to be a conglomeration of housing associations with the tag-line ‘Helping People Put Down Roots’.

By now the time was getting close to 5PM, so not surprisingly we picked up significant numbers of passengers both at Bromley South station (oo the temptation to leap off here and take a First Capital Direct all the way home) and Bromley North, which marks the end of the High Street and where the happy Glades shoppers board laden with their parcels. Indeed the bus filled up with wispy blondes and soon there was nowhere to sit and almost nowhere to stand – this situation was not helped by two passengers of a similar demographic to ourselves who, so absorbed in their chat, did not move away from blocking the exit doors and the back area of the bus where most of the space was, thus proving that selfishness is not just a juvenile trait!  

That tempers were not fraying was remarkable, especially as the bus ground to a halt on the steep descent to Shortlands Station. It was not clear why other than volume of traffic, but it shows how slowly everyone was progressing that we caught up the previous 358 that we had just missed at Orpington.  As quickly as it had clogged it cleared past Shortlands, and the bus headed into the lesser roads, a mixture of magnificent older houses and substantial family dwellings – not many bus users round here I would guess.

My notes at this point totally degenerate and become even more unreadable.  I suspect I had lost the will to live (having been travelling for nigh on 8 hours – under other circumstances I could have been in Chicago). Fortunately I know the route quite well and after the Chinese Garage, which does what it says on the tin (and is now quite appropriately an outlet for Kia motors), the 358, God help us, dives south again heading for Eden Park. Uninterrupted urban housing indicates to us this area was largely spared significant wartime bombing and feels as settled as it looks, with wide roads and enough garaging to help sustain the front gardens intact. I suspect one of the reasons for the bus detour is to serve the two Langley schools, much sought after by local residents in search of Bromley Education . Along towards Elmers End, this route joins several others and poor Jo, on recognising the terminus of the 54 and signs to Bromley, thought she would never see her home again. And there wasn’t even any Turkish delight to sustain us.

At least the 358 does not serve the whole of Beckenham but just the cinema end, and soon worked its way along to Penge past Clockhouse and the tramlink and crossing the River Pool. Here is where most of Beckenhams’s civic amenities are to be found – library, pool gym plus Spa and even a small theatre are ranged along here.

And so to Penge, very much the poor and sometimes forgotten relation of Bromley borough, having really more in common with neighbouring Lewisham in its demographics. By now we had lost most of the passengers to their homes or their last minute shopping and there was now so much space two small children could play ‘walk the dog’ with their yo-yos on the bus floor. In case you’ve forgotten here’s how:

Today we were spared the normally very slow Penge High Street and could head to Crystal Palace (‘I see the Tower!’ said Jo rather desperately) meaning we could finally spot our destination – the highest point in South London, the Crystal Palace transmitter.  I don’t know about changing horses but all the buses take Anerley Hill in a very low gear as it climbs past some rather desolate shops, some potentially fine properties, a bit of religion  and crosses two railway lines before reaching its final destination.  

It had taken 100 minutes to complete this trip, admittedly advertised as 80 something, but we were well weary and pleased to be off what is actually quite an attractive and long-distance Kent ‘once they were all villages’ type route, now studded with housing leisure and Waitroses galore.       

The Number 357 Route

Whipps Cross to Chingford Hatch

Monday July 2nd  2012

Today was one of those ‘bus days’ when we did more accessing and waiting around than actually being on our ‘key’ buses, so what felt like a long day for short routes... Getting to Whipps Cross roundabout involved South Londoners trekking onto the Victoria Line and then finding the loos at Walthamstow Central had been vandalised, meaning a further expedition was needed to the Selborne Walk Shopping Centre. As Mary said, all the classical music in the world does not make up for either catching the vandals or repairing the damage.

We had a choice of three routes to get us onto Whipps Cross roundabout, where we thought we had last been when catching one of the 56 family of buses. Though a fine double-decker, the 357 runs only 4 times an hour so we had a short wait. A young woman asked the way to Walthamstow Central so we pointed at the buses, but she said she wanted to walk though there was a fine drizzle – hence the blurry photos. For a Monday morning there seemed to be fair bit of traffic, but that gave us time to note the various shop names that stood out.

'Hydroponics' have a very large shop front and seemed to be doing well – clearly growing your crops under lights indoors must eventually prove cost effective.

'Bravissima' turns out to be an estate agent and not an underwear shop for the fuller figure, however 'Fu’nicha'  had folded – furniture stores being one of the first victims of a recession. I hope some one adopts the name though! Conversely, between Whipps Cross and Walthamstow there seemed to be a lot of building and cranes looking hopeful…between the older buildings such as the former Tramways Office.

Also pretty unique is the ‘Shoelaces’ Pub perhaps – if the reviews are to be believed – to be admired for its name from the outside only. By the time we turned at the Bakers Arms into Hoe Street we were slowed down by a slew of police vehicles and several officers on the pavement – some seemed to be staring into the grass surrounding a block of flats so it all looked a bit aimless. 

We did the expected in-and-out back at the Bus station and continued along Hoe Street, crossing by the Bell and along the Chingford Road – I have included some websites which have captured Walthamstow and Chingford then and now as our rainy photos make it hard to distinguish.

Crossing the North Circular was impressive as the road goes below plus numerous pedestrian and cycles pathways – little did we know that within the hour we would be walking there ourselves. 

Of course once over the North Circular the whole character of North London changes from smaller streets and redbrick terraces to the post war and altogether more expansive building.  The main sight along here is the sadly defunct Walthamstow Dog Track with its arresting red and while decorative ironwork. Saving the Stow as the campaign is called is still very live, and it is not clear what the current position is in terms of refurbishment or demolition – surely it is a listed building? Though I suppose that does  not preclude change of use if you think of what happened to Highbury Stadium.

The run on to Chingford Mount was slowed by some road works, and we took on several more passengers who had already done their shopping. Heading right towards Chingford Hatch (from the Mount) necessitates a right turn along New Road – it looks wide on the map and is a double bus route but with cars parked on both sides the driver needed some nifty threading to get by. Larkswood Primary School complete with its    'Comic Sans' font is named for local open space Larkswood Park and soon after we arrived at Hatch Lane, 40 minutes after leaving Whipps Cross. 

With sections of Epping Forest just the other side of the roundabouts and the River Ching close by we had come about as far as we could on this route. The shopping parade where the 357 stops has a fine LCC (London County Council) blazon over the stairwell indicating that these dwellings were put up for the Inner Londoners displaced and made homeless by the bombing on the East End; it must have seemed very far away for them as they stood on the edge of Epping Forest.

Waltham Forest council may be dragging its feet over the disposition of the dog track but we were impressed with its hanging baskets – this year’s colour scheme of pinks and purples was consistent throughout our trip. Additionally we thought the underpass for the North Circular was well maintained and in full flower making a change from the usual litter blown/graffiti strewn smelly stairwells we have encountered elsewhere so I shall enclose a series of floral pictures to counteract the gloom of this particular July day. 

(Why we had to walk under the North Circular crossing and wait an hour will be for Jo to relate some 20 odd buses down the line.) 

12/7/2012 We hope you saw the dog track featuring in this week's episode of  'Twenty-Twelve'  with the fictional campaign ('Hounded Out')  being offered the Olympic Stadium as part of legacy or do we mean sustainability? Way to go... 

The Number 356 Route

Monks Orchard Road  to Upper Sydenham

Monday July 25^th 2011

A beautiful summer’s day found Mary and Linda walking through the Shrublands Estate from the end of our last route to the start of the Number 356, which waits snugly at a grassy corner of Wickham Road and Monks Orchard Road. We were just crossing said grass when the bus moved off and although we ran the driver either did not or did not want to see us. So we settled down on the bus shelter seats for our 20-minute wait for this 3-an-hour single-decker one-door buslet (New word: buslet = baby bus).  It duly came and left with us on the dot of 12.00 noon, with the Bethlem Hospital as its first stop, though no-one much wanted it along here. We had a little reminisce about patients we had known admitted here, mostly with positive outcomes.

The Bethlem is the ‘country branch’ of Camberwell’s Maudsley Hospital, both tertiary centres for mental health treatment. 

Up until Eden Park we were the only passengers with the bus whizzing along past several request stops. Again this is a largely residential area though with more modest housing than Shirley and West Wickham – here the homes were in fact terraces though cunningly constructed to look like semis, at least along the main road.

The roads, and I think this is probably true of not just the main and bus thoroughfares but also the side roads, are generously wide and often sinuous, interspersed with floral roundabouts.

However, once you arrive at Elmers End modesty goes out the window and the Tescos, which to be fair is tucked in on what must have been ‘railway land,’ has an approach which makes it look like a small airport, with a flyover to the car park and an underpass to the station. Here many passengers got on, some flinging open all the windows and several with bags and luggage. I suppose if you want a quieter approach you need to follow the Waterlink Way. This is mainly a cycle path so depends on how pushy the cyclists are if you are planning to walk it…

The 356 heads up Elmers End Road past the Beckenham Cemetery and Crematorium, which has no very grand gates or obvious lodges and looks a little neglected (at least the gravestones do) from what can be seen from the road. See the 354 for famous burials.

At this point a passenger asked “Was this bus going to the big Tescos?” and we had to tell her she was going the wrong way (no more Tescos – only Sainsbury’s) so off she got at Penge.

Elmers End and Birkbeck stations serve the Cem & Crem like bookends and neatly show how the Victorians speculated and built railway lines in a rather ad hoc fashion – the stations are very close but on different lines – and the housing would have followed the railway.

Just past Birkbeck Station the bus turns off down the side streets, which form the ‘hinterland’ of Penge.  The housing stock is quite old and for the most part well cared for, and though far from other shops there was a corner-shop fish bar remaining, looking quaintly old-fashioned

As it emerges into Croydon Road the 356 joins several other routes so at the main Penge crossroads many passengers got off to join more serious bus routes. The 356 continues its backstreet way, this time along the rather attractive Kent House Road which cuts through to Lower Sydenham. This ended our travels through Bromley Borough, which calls itself the Greener borough though its main claim to fame should be that it covers the largest area of any of the London boroughs. Neighbouring Lewisham is a little less green and more tightly packed as to housing and people…with a new development going up rapidly. (Nearly complete July 2012)  

As with several recent routes, we called into what many still call the Savacentre, but what is really a giant Sainsbury’s, which has its own bus area, and another chance to access the Waterlink Way.  However, this time instead of heading up (Sydenham) High Street we went – equally uphill – along Perry Rise and Vale (both very aptly named as the bus climbs then drops a little) past a mixture of some newer built flats and a few shops, most notably ‘Hektik hair – we are for the individual,’ with several  older properties.  Most noteworthy are the so-called Christmas houses, built in the early days of the 20^th century, doubtless soon after the railways arrived. Less commonare a few remaining Kent style cottages. 

This route approaches Forest Hill station from behind, never a lovely sight, and then swings round very briefly to join the South Circular and a clutch of other key bus routes, (stopping outside the former Capitol cinema, before leaving it all behind by taking a turn off opposite the Horniman Museum. This is Sydenham Rise where a row of Wates-built homes face a play park – the myth when my children used to play there was that it was an unmarked Plague Pit but there is little to substantiate this. 

It is a good escape when the more worthy delights of the Horniman Museum opposite pall and was beautifully upgraded some years back.

From here on the ride is a slow roller coaster – up to the crest of Sydenham Rise and down Kirkdale where the views back towards Croydon and Kent are stupendous, then passing the old fountain the bus takes a right hand turn along Wells Park Road from which of course you can access the park.  The name recalls some medicinal springs found round here in the 17^th century, and there is still both a water feature and a water play park; while I cannot vouch for the healing properties of the water it does offer a green space for local people. The bus has to do a final 1^st gear only climb up along side the park and a corner of  Dulwich Woods  to come to its final resting place (I think it might have expired if not allowed to pause) just past the Dulwich Wood House pub on Sydenham Hill and a handy connection to take us both home.

Actually this was an entrancing ride taking in as it did so many of the smaller and less well known corners of outer SE London, mostly green except for some Penge interludes.

The Number 355 Route

Brixton Police Station to Three Kings Pond (Mitcham)

Wednesday August 3^rd 2011

This was part of a memorable trip, as it was the journey that led us to the Number 200 route and thus another landmark. We were also on that occasion accompanied by the Press, who were getting together an article for ‘Completely London’ – a magazine published by estate agents Kinleigh, Folkard and Hayward – and had arranged a photo-shoot at Brixton Bus garage. 

The bus garage was busy and the photography took longer than expected as we posed between dodging the buses, which needed to park in their tightly allocated spaces and then drive off again – we admired the skilful reversing and careful driving off but we were essentially IN THE WAY of such vital routes as the 59, 137, 319 and even the 19 run by ARRIVA. A garage manager (Lee) gave us some vital statistics like 7% of the force are women (in South Croydon at least). Even after losses last year ARRIVA currently holds close to 19% of the market. Our guide had been working for 26 years and said that many of the drivers stayed in the job a long time (we have met some with over 30 years service) and  with some seniority they can specify which routes they might want. In any case they get 48 hours notice of shift and route, which seems fair enough.  He knew the history of all the routes out of this garage and a whole host more when  we mentioned the more recent changes (extensions) to the 159. From Lee’s helpful email:

In addition to the above, in most cases a driver must take a 30-minute meal break after 5.5 hours on duty. In London it is accepted by all the major bus operators that because of extenuating circumstances this should be extended to 40 minutes minimum, but this is concessionary. There are certain exceptions to the 5.5-hour rule, which will vary from company to company, but these are the general stipulations. Suffice to say that driving hours regulations are a field of knowledge in their own right. (And just to complicate matters, there is a completely different set of regulations for coach drivers and buses used for private hire and in my job I occasionally have to mix them).

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Photography complete we headed back to Brixton itself to pick up the 355, still accompanied by the photographer and now joined by the journalist.  Peter** was a ‘friend of buses’ having written columns on routes 1-60 for ‘Time Out’; after that he feared boredom and repetition, which I said was a factor we recognised but tried to combat.  It is indeed a challenge: for example, today was probably our ninth or so trip past Brixton Station, which is now the real hub of this part of London, with the market just behind in Electric Avenue. This route goes down, past the Ritzy with its pavement tables out on Windrush Square, to the one-way system round St Matthew’s Church where we noticed they had put in some swings in the bits of the churchyard not used for burials – presumably open for all areas of the community not just the congregation. We then turned left in front of the Town Hall and noted the nearby Unison Office – handy for those inevitable negotiations and liaisons that take place between public employees and their masters.

So grandiose it would not fit into the churchyard is the family mausoleum for the Budds, now in the final part of the one-way system before the 355 turns into Acre Lane, 

By the station the bus had taken on a fair few shoppers who had clearly been to the market and as we approached different sections of the Clapham Park Estate the passengers descended with their purchases. There are some older houses between the blocks but also recent demolition and  new builds coming. 

Just before we turned into Balham Hill, and not long past the very pretty Clapham Police station, the bus was boarded by two inspectors. Peter thought this was quite unusual on such a small bus where it is hard to get on without passing the driver, and they were certainly on their way very soon. As we joined Balham Hill we passed the Majestic Winehouse, which has in its time been a cinema – an inevitable loss I suppose but at least they have preserved the building’s exterior.

Nearby is the ‘Gateway Hotel’ to make sure you had not forgotten the memorable Peter Seller’s sound travelogue for Balham. 

This part of the bus route doubles up as Cycling Superhighway painted of course ‘Barclays Blue’ just in case we failed to honour the sponsors.  The cyclists amongst us have little faith in this kind of tokenism – where there is insufficient road space (and there are no bus lanes here) cycles will inevitably get dangerously sidelined and squashed.   

Peter, who had grown up not far from here and whose mother was born in Tooting, knew well the urban legends about Du Cane court, though to be fair he has found a couple of swastikas in London (see his blog )

Sometimes you have to reclaim old symbols for what they were. Although his memories go less far back than mine we both wondered at the gentrification of Balham as evidenced by the Waitrose midway along the High Road – and those of us who remember when Bedford Hill was a red light district to be avoided are still somewhat bemused to see estate agents describing it as desirable.

From Clapham South the bus follows the Northern Line south – usually by a much slower route but in spite of the heat (or possibly because of it) we were nipping quite smartly though the stations with an inevitable slowing round the Broadway. With Ramadan just started the clothes shops were displaying new models for the Eid festivals with shops such as ‘Wed in Style’ or ‘Western Jewellery’ which looked pretty Eastern to us. We had to dissuade Mary from getting off to buy three boxes of mangoes for £10. The bus stopped just short of Tooting Broadway Station to allow the drivers to change – as ever very punctual with minimal delays.

Turning left at the Broadway crossroads meant we were heading for Mitcham, not a surprise given the destination of the bus The Mixed Blessings bakery indeed proved to be mixed blessings today with quite a large funeral just finishing at the big catholic Church (complete with wicker coffin, we were pleased to see) and an older persons’ home named after a Presbyterian Divine called Joshua Oldfield  (is this like a saint if you are not RC?? Help me somebody). I think he sounds more like a progressive rock guitarist. To complete the religious interlude on this trip we of course pass Amen Corner (which was a pop group) before approaching Mitcham from the north and passing Figges Marsh. Sadly, though Mitcham has more than its fair share of greens – Mitcham Fair Green AND Upper Green West – the overwhelming impression is of traffic and buses, no longer the village idylls.

The 355 finds a quieter spot to park up – not the most original of routes as it duplicates its relative the 155 for most of its route and fails to offer much that is new.  The Press left us to take our Number 200 and headed off to whatever…

** You will all know Peter better as ‘The Great Wen’ and once the next edition of ‘Completely London’ had come out he published his article for them on his blog – a much more topical and eclectic  blog than our own. The photos were exceptionally nice but have their own copyright. We thought his piece  exceedingly fair and accurate.  

Lee is based usually at South Croydon and spotted us a few months later when we went too far on a 412 Route, but that’s another story. Helpfully he updated us on the arrival of newer (hand me down) buses when we opined the ones we had ridden seemed past their sell by dates. Since April the Route 19 now runs out of Stockwell, which to me makes little more sense than running it out of Brixton (Battersea Bridge to Finsbury Park??)