The Number 484 Route

Lewisham Bus Station to Camberwell Green

Monday February 28^th 2011

This was our first bus of a day of a 4-bus ‘daisy chain’. The 484 along with three other single decker routes starts from the access road to Lewisham Train and DLR stations as befits its modest status, but it seemed to be no slouch in the punctuality stakes as we had no wait to speak of.

Any Lewisham route will do a circuit to by-pass the market area, which bustles less on a Monday than later in the week. Interestingly the German sausage man, who arrived for Christmas one year and stayed, was open even at this early hour.  I know the Germans are always ready for a beer or sausage by 11AM, but they do start work a bit earlier than us, so passing him so early in the morning felt a bit ‘full-on’. Talking of meat eaters we had a dog on board but he was very unobtrusive and well behaved.

Our first landmarks are the old Coroner’s Court in Ladywell Road followed by the station itself, but then the 484 peels off uphill to the right passing the attractive Victorian houses along Vicars Hill. The bus skirts aptly named Hilly Fields which reminds me of listening to Ian Wright reminiscing about playing childhood football hereabouts, and how a sloping pitch affected the game – the challenge of playing uphill must have stood him in good stead though!  

The most intriguing part of the journey is through and past the roads that indicate that maybe this hilly bit of Lewisham was once a quarry – Quarry Road, Fossil Road and Shell Road – not to mention that adjacent roads overlook one another at quite different levels like some alpine village, though more densely built up.  I am sure the residents must be very grateful for their local bus service.

The route also passes two secondary schools – the rather venerable buildings of Haberdasher’s Askes (the South London one usually known as Aske’s), now part of a federation of schools  and the much newer build Crossways Academy, which offers 6^th form courses only.

The network of streets round here are largely Victorian, some Edwardian with more modern fill-ins so altogether a healthy mix of properties – there is quite a strict (and confusing) series of one-way systems which of course the bus does not need to adhere to and at one point Jo was rather horrified to see the 484 bearing down on a very narrow bicycle contra-flow.  The 484 may be small but it is still a lot larger than a bicycle.

Having served Brockley station  (we noted the seven road junction at Brockley Cross was having some roadwork attention) the route continues to take on passengers from the large Honor Oak Estate, at this point being joined by the more substantial but somewhat unreliable 343.

Ivydale Road and Limesford Road, both of which the bus follows, in fact back onto the wonderful  Nunhead Cemetery, which unfortunately is not visible from the bus but really very close and well worth a trip . Not so famous as Highgate but just as evocative.
 

Mary was not with us today, on extended half-term break, but we know her allotment is just up the road and certainly did not need watering today.

The 484 just goes close enough to Peckham to pick up passengers but not so close it has to tangle with its inevitable traffic problems, heading instead straight from Peckham Rye (the lungs for this part of London) towards Goose Green and East Dulwich and then up the steep Dog Kennel Hill and past the very low level Denmark Hill station – by the time you come to read this Denmark Hill too will be connected to the London Overground service. It is a lovely station so I have included some additional pictures. Close by is the George Canning pub; this erstwhile foreign minister and then briefly Prime Minister seems to have had several pubs named after him though we are not entirely clear why?

 

The run into Camberwell is pretty familiar and served by rather more mainline routes than just the modest but pleasing little 484. There are the two mighty hospitals King’s College on the left and the Maudsley on the right dealing with every known ailment of the body and mind surrounded by a wealth of small food outlets offering a range of healthy and not so healthy options.

So there we were, arriving in Camberwell after a most enjoyable trip across Lewisham and Southwark lasting barely forty minutes, and directly at the correct bus stop for our key route of the day, the 148. 

The Number 483 Route (Not)

The best I can do for finding  out about a 483 bus route is that it used to be the 403A and commuted around various mental health hospitals from West Croydon to Warlingham Park and Chelsham. In 1973 it became the 483 but whether it runs still is not clear.

Of course you all know, because you have been paying attention , that the old mental health services (known originally as asylums) were dotted around London in what was then countryside. So it would have been a day out to visit anyone, which is why many patients were forgotten. 

Markets

When I came to write this and research the pictures to reflect the markets we had passed on buses over the last few years I concluded that ‘market’ was really rather an elastic term, embracing anything from two fruit stalls to a major wholesale enterprise, guarded with secure entrance.  They certainly come in all shapes and sizes.

In London the big wholesale markets have on the whole relocated – Billingsgate for fish

used to be close to the Tower of London, our old-style fortress, but has now moved just outside the differently fortressed Canary Wharf  Development.  The fruit, vegetable and flower market moved away from the picturesque Covent Garden to the very utilitarian Nine Elms. This leaves Smithfield

 the meat and poultry wholesale market just about hanging in there.  Nowadays these are designed for van and lorry rather than pedestrian or bus access. Longevity is the other characteristic of these markets – Smithfield has an 800 year old history. 

The more local markets are dotted around with some clearly well-established – for example Enfield Market Cross dates from 1826 (not so old then) but the market itself has a longer pedigree. Another clear criterion for a market must be the ability to shop at your pace, hurried or leisurely, free from traffic fumes and the like and without risk of being mown down by horse and cart or automobile or bus. The more self-contained markets are therefore well tucked away, often under cover and normally pedestrianised, and so not that visible from a bus, which is why our glimpses are so tantalising.

  Romford Market - on certain days only  ^

< Rathbone Market, near Canning Town, no more...

On the whole London lacks the market squares you find in traditional market towns (Enfield is one exception), and many of London’s are linear along streets on certain days of the week. Most are open-air but the East Ham ones are undercover.  Even the ones that are overtly trying to sell arts and crafts or antiques tend to have food outlets somewhere in the vicinity and the food speciality ones can become places of pilgrimage, Borough Market for example. Prices should be lower as the theory is without buildings to maintain the overheads are lower than conventional shops, but this does not always seem to be the reality experienced in some of the trendier venues.

For a comprehensive if not exhaustive list see Wikipedia.

What often catches our eyes, from a bus, are the fruit and vegetable stalls and others which spill out onto the pavements – not strictly speaking a market but enticing nevertheless.  

 Shepherd's Bus Market - near the railway arches, as in Brixton  

Church Street off the Edgware Road - a cheaper option to the main road stores?

Camden Lock, between road canal and railway --- a runaway success...

Roman Road in Bow

East Ham going down the High Street  >>

and from the back 

Croydon is tucked away 

 Apple Market in Kingston, where are the apples you might ask? 

Hildreth Road , Balham >

Bruce Grove , Tottenham >

The Number 482 Route

Heathrow Terminal 5 to Southall Town Hall

Tuesday August 10^th 2010

Having broken our 5-bus odyssey with a lunch break on the ground floor of Terminal 5 we were ready to set off again. It was interesting to note quite how many cabin staff were buying lunch and food in M&S. Not sure whether this reflected something they know and passengers do not about the in-flight food or – to be more charitable – they were just shopping to take home after their flights arrived?

Because of course T5 was designed with bus and train access and arrivals in mind, it is very easy to locate the bus you want/need and before very long we were able to board a very new and as it happens ‘green’ double decker – unusual when you are up in the 400s as we were.  It’s a service that only runs 3 times an hour so we were lucky not to wait long. 

The bus groped (being underground it was like night-time) its way round lost and jet-lagged passengers and long and weaving stacks of abandoned luggage trolleys being wheeled back to base before emerging into daylight and this time a tour of the Southern perimeter of Heathrow – the central reservations are nicely aquatic and landscaped and in places the perimeter fence is a significant concrete wall, rather than a mimsy fence.  I thought this was probably due to discouraging terrorist ram-raiders, but Jo thought it might be more about protecting the various cargo areas.  And cargo depots there were in plenty the length of this part of Heathrow, with the 482 making little forays into them twice before diving into Terminal 4 – still the departure point for most long-haul flights.  The planes are vast close to, and there is even a repair bay, where they need stacks of scaffolding just to reach to clean the windows. At Terminal 4 those boarding were more staff than passengers, since T4 is served by several of the valet parking firms that collect near the bus stops.

And then it was back to Hatton Cross (for us for the 3^rd time today) and again a popular point for joining the Underground, though quite why there are more cars than buses in this photo is not clear?

In quick succession the bus crosses the A30, the Bath Road A4, and even the M4 of which we had an excellent view seated upstairs.  Oh – and did I mention the Piccadilly line and the River Crane, quite impressive hereabouts.

The bus heads north, not distracted by all these crossings, skirts Heston and spends quite some time round the Norwood Green estates; these it seems are managed by Ealing and I am not quite sure when we slipped from one local authority to another … For those of you who may think I am obsessed with local authority boundaries believe me if you have worked for one, there is no way you ignore the borough boundaries and dream of offering a service to someone who does not ‘belong’ Anyway Ealing seems to be taking good enough care of the range of housing on offer, and the trees were certainly mature enough to be banging on our roof. 

 

We were heading into Southall, which is very firmly situated around a clear High Street/ Broadway crossroads. Today however it was so busy the traffic was at a standstill and it took us 20-25 minutes to get to our end stop – Southall Town Hall. I have to say the Town Hall is not the first thing I would notice in Southall, which was pretty vibrant even on a rainy day with the streets densely packed with shoppers. This is the place to get your Asian speciality vegetables and of course your wedding finery. Southall is essentially Punjabi, and very well established, though other Asian communities have joined at many points since – a shop front reminded us of the forced exodus from East Africa of huge numbers of families in the early to mid-Seventies. 

The pub on the corner is the Glassy Junction – what you might term a ‘fusion pub’: classic English building with Indian décor and beers and food – what’s not to like?

Much though we might be quite happy window gazing through Southall even we felt today that perhaps we had sucked the goodness out of Southall so were quite pleased when the bus let us out at the now defunct Himalaya Palace cinema, all ready to catch our last bus of the day. 

This was a bus to remind of the development and history of transport – from the old country lanes through the early canals, more advanced road and rail transport (both underground and overground) the Motorways of the Sixties and finally air travel at its most dense and intense round Heathrow, and who’s to say what’s best.

The Number 481 Route

Friday 5 November 2010

While the weather was not good for Linda and me on this six bus day, in other ways we were lucky.  The 481 runs only once an hour between Kingston’s well-equipped Cromwell Road Bus Station and the West Middlesex Hospital, so we were pleased that our previous bus dropped us there with only 25 minutes to wait.  Time to visit the convenient -  er - conveniences, and then eat our sandwiches before  setting off at 13.00.  We thought we should be the only people on the bus, but the driver paused for another passenger, and then a bus operative got on, so we were four.  Things changed as we reached the enormous John Lewis on the waterfront, and many more people got on, some having clearly got cracking with the Christmas shopping already. 

Over the river and left then right, we could see the autumn colours in Bushy Park.  Having seen a pub named for Queen Adelaide on a previous bus, we were surprised to pass another.  It seems that her popularity with the ordinary people – despite her hostility to Parliamentary Reform - and the fact that her husband William IV was not as unpleasant as his brothers may explain this.

Through parts of Teddington, we were the only bus.  We supposed that most people around here have cars, but our bus was well used, nevertheless.  The Teddington Memorial Hospital may have been saved from closure, but now has only limited services.  The Red Lion Pub had a very silly sign, and the Old Goat Pub was called Brouge, which we eventually realised was a sort of joke about Belgium because they serve beer and mussels.  We went past Squires, the garden centre which (on a previous trip) we had discovered was opened in 1937, and to Fulwell Park, crossing the River Crane yet again.

Two churches had chosen Canterbury saints:  the C of E was named for St Augustine  and the RC church for St Edmund.

As we came into Whitton, we saw our first low flying aircraft, demonstrating that we were yet again close to Heathrow, but more interesting was Kneller Hall, built for the artist Kneller, but now home of the Royal Army School of Music.  Will such historic and ceremonial aspects of the Forces have survived the cuts and still exist when you read this, I wonder. 

Now we were into Rugby Union land, passing a statue of players at the lineout, William Webb Ellis House, the World Museum of Rugby  and the Chase Bridge Hospitality Village  which clearly ‘does what it says on the tin’.

We also had a fine view of the stadium itself before heading along Mogden Lane and into Isleworth, past Redlees Park and a (sort of) blue plaque for Vincent van Gogh, who lived here for a few months when he was 23 years old and working as a teacher.  We had seen some attractive houses, including one that looked a bit Dutch, but I doubt if there is any connection! 

The next and final feature was the West Middlesex Hospital, which we reached absolutely on time, at 13.45. 

All in all, a very pleasant journey, with good looking housing, plenty of green and a number of interesting landmarks.

The Numbers 478, 479 and 480 Routes (not)

The history of the 478, like that of many non-routes, goes back the 1960s and London Country Buses.  It ran between Wrotham and Swanley. This route disappeared in the ’60s and the number  was reused in the Crawley area in the ’70s for a service running between Pound Hill and Broadfields, before these areas ceased being served by buses with London in the name,

By the way, if you were in Mumbai, you could take a 478 bus all the way from Vikhroli Depot to Borivali Station.

Route 479 was similarly a London Country route, running around (literally, it was a circular route) Crawley.  The number is now used for a Surrey bus, between Guildford and Epsom.

As for the 480, in the 1950s, before everyone in Kent owned at least one motor car, this was an important route running daily between Erith and Gravesend. (I bet Erith had less public art then than it does now) It was a very busy and frequent route and hardly changed at all over the years, which explains why the first “E” plate is rather old and weathered.  According to the Eplates website, which we so often quote, one did occasionally see a red London Transport bus covering the route, rather than a London Country green one.

As we move towards the end of the number buses, I though I would mention how sad we are that Ben thinks finishing his novel is more important than blogging about buses, and recommend his blog before it gets mothballed forever.  We look forward to reading details of the novel when normal service is resumed.

The Number 477 Route

Monday 16 August 2010 

 

The latest London bus map shows that the 477 has turned into a GREEN service  and is no longer a London bus, though we are pretty sure that it was when we took it, or at least, sort of.  So, while we could ignore it, we won't: here we go.

This was the third bus of a four bus day.  We were, I suppose, carried away by the long days of summer. And anyway, once you are at Bluewater with no intention of serious shopping, you have to do something.

We had a long pause at Bluewater: first of all, buying a sandwich, and then waiting for the 477, which is, to say the least, infrequent. When it came into view, it was only to park so that its driver could take his break, so we were not on our way till 2.50, more than an hour after stepping off the 96. This was not a red bus; nor did it have an Oyster reader. Not that it matters to Linda and me, since a supposedly cash strapped government lets us travel on any bus anywhere for nothing. But it did cause us anxiously to check that the 477 – THIS 477 - is actually on the London bus list, and it is (and wasn't then in that odd section at the end of the list). Indeed, once we got out of Kent and into a London borough, the bus stops reverted to the type we are used to. 

We headed onto the dual carriageway and then off again to travel along Watling Street, green on both sides, with Bluewater below us. We turned into the Darent Valley Hospital and then out again. We were going towards Dartford Town centre, noting that there appeared to be plenty of room in the Watling Street cemetery. We went over the motorway that leads to the bridge, the first of several motorway and main road crossings of this route. There are attractive linear gardens along the Darent Valley, as described in the 96 blog, and we again admired the clock in the centre of Dartford. If I have a weakness for cycle tracks, Linda, it must be said, loves a public clock. Huge numbers of people got onto our little bus in the centre of Dartford, and reminded us how slow it all used to be before the Oyster.

We also watched, but did not report, some young men hand their ticket out of the window to a friend so he could board without paying.  Traffic was slow as we left Dartford, and travelled through residential areas, where we gradually shed our fellow passengers. Then we were into Heathland, along a very lane like road, with countryside between the villages.

 In Wilmington, we admired the bus shelter, roofed with tiles somewhat like a lych gate. Then we were in the country again, until we reached Hextable. Linda, amazingly, has visited many of these places: some years ago she supervised a foster placement in Hextable. But she had not visited the Row Hill Hotel and Utopia Spa.  We took a loop to get to the huge Asda in Swanley, where many people got off, and admired the war memorial . We have since learned that the first officer to be killed in the First World War, Staff Paymaster Joseph Gedge, is commemorated among others here.  The Lullingstone Castle Pub is named after the local stately home and garden in Eynsford. 

 After turning into Azalea drive to drop people off in their estate, we were back onto the main road and into the country. As we left Crockenhill we were the only people on the bus, and our arrival into the borough of Bromley was signalled by the London type bus stops mentioned above. At this stage we met a 477 going in the other direction: the only one we saw, confirming our view that a bus from Bluewater to Orpington does not get many takers for its whole route. We were joined by various ‘R’ buses on the road, and a couple more passengers in the bus, before picking up the 51 route and reaching Orpington. We were delighted by the flowers around the war memorial roundabout, because we had seen it being planted up when we were on the 51. We reached Orpington Station just before 4.00pm, after a journey of over an hour, and with just about enough commitment to climb onto one more bus, the 358.

The Number 476 Route

Northumberland Road Station to Euston Station 

Thursday May 31^st  2012

  

Our previous journey had taken us to the Angel Road Superstores where a huge Tescos goes face to face with London’s newest IKEA, which opened with  controversial publicity in 2005 due to too many customers. Everything looked very quiet today and we had not time to linger as we took the 341 back about four stops to Northumberland Park – unfortunately Jo was unable to find her Freedom pass and paid for this very short journey, which we only needed to get us to the start of Route 476 – a double decker. Of course by the time the 476 arrived her pass had turned up…

This is not an area any of us had visited previously so it is quite interesting that it had been chosen as a research area for looking at population changes – I guess a microcosm of many inner London areas.

The Route 476 is very direct, and from Tottenham High Road onwards it follows a straight north to south line. This part of London is not particularly well served by the Underground until you reach Seven Sisters but there are a series of rail stations and of course a wealth of buses. This route marks our last passing this way.  In spite of the range of alternative buses ours was very popular and, reflecting one of the local communities, we had an enthusiastic Turkish speaker on board.    Tottenham High Road has had a poor run of luck and the council is trying hard to move things on and perhaps by the time you read this there will be some visible improvements. The 19^th century buildings both domestic and public are handsome but need some TLC.

In Woodberry Down Estate Stamford Hill has one of the largest council estates in London – by some weird synchronicity I watched the 1952 Coronation in one of the new flats, where friends of my parents had bought one of those ‘new’ television sets, and here we were passing just before the 60^th Jubilee celebrations.  Today the flats are still going complete with raised vegetable beds in the communal grassy areas. Hackney has always been a socially minded council; some of the local flats are named after post war Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell  From a privileged background himself he was always to the right of the party. Talking of privilege, a local school is named for William Patten who was successful as a teller for the Exchequer until a check up showed monies missing and he lost his job, status and lands round Stoke Newington. Just desserts seemed to arrive more quickly in the 16^th Century.   Daniel Defoe, who also lived round here, similarly has a school named for him. Stoke Newington Church Street, part of which is covered by this route, continues to be a delight with a diverse range of quirky shops and eating places: ‘Two Wheels Good’ which is a bike shop and ‘Mudfoot and Scruff’ a shoe shop entertained us between the gems that are the Town Hall and  Abney Park Cemetery, one of the Magnificent Seven – for a more leisurely enjoyment of this stretch try Stages 12-13 of the Capital Ring walk. If Newington Green looks better than it did it is thanks to such local groups and hard work behind the scenes.

Leaving Stoke Newington behind,  the 476 carries on down the entire length of the Essex Road until it reaches the Angel Islington (Angel to Angel route?).  The Essex Road gains over Upper Street in its lack of pretension but still maintaining an attention to detail – we spotted a couple of ghost signs and more interesting shops – the  the Architectural Forum+ and unfortunately our third ambulance of the day.

We trundled through Islington faster than we often do (memories of being stationary on the 73 and 38 routes when they were bendies linger) and noticed the Walkabout pub had closed and was turning into a ‘Rattlesnake’ ?

Lord Clyde seems to have a pub named for him but as there are several generations of this name it is hard to know whom the Essex Road establishment is commemorating! Elizabeth Garrett Anderson is easier to identify as this building used to house the medical school  and  hospital she set up for women. 

An easy right turn took us along the Pentonville Road past the two great North London stations – Kings Cross, its transformation nearly complete, and St Pancras, now a well oiled machine. It is quite fitting that the Rocket pub should lie between them. We turned round the back in order to park up in front of Euston Station and its Doric Arch. This was a straight and uncomplicated North to inner North London run and none the worse for that.