The C1 Route

Monday 9 November 2009

If B stands for Bexleyheath, then we assume that C stands for Central, and so we had travelled these routes somewhat earlier in the project.  Actually, here's an interesting summary from TfL in answer to someone's question about this.  There are only 5 'C' buses, though in the 1990s there was also a C12, which made its way from Kings Cross to Finchley Road Station.

The C1 is a more West End creature altogether: this was our  fourth route of the day, and it brought us back from the White City Bus Station, in its attractive setting behind Westfields, to Victoria Station, from where it is comparatively easy for both Linda and me to return to normal life. We got started at 14.10, wondering whether it really would take us 60 minutes as advertised.

A single decker of the old fashioned kind with one door, it retraced part of the 49 route, carrying a number of obviously successful shoppers and passing several churches including St John the Baptist, home of the Ripples Montessori School.  We liked the autumn colours in Cadogan Gardens. 

We regularly regret the demise of the Commonwealth Institute, scene of enjoyable times when the children were young, especially the mechanical cow;  but it does seem odd that such prime real estate should still just be crumbling.  It seems that this is all about the change and by the time you read this it may be a whole new world.

We passed a pub called The Prince of Teck.  We have complained before that pub websites never explain the names, and this one is no exception, so I have put in a link to some information about the man.  On we went, along the Earls Court Road, and then along the Old Brompton Road, and the Royal Society of British Sculptors. We assume that by the time this blog is posted, the huge unoccupied house at 88 Queen's Gate will have been squatted in or otherwise restored to proper use. Actually, it seems to be a hotel, now.

Back to South Kensington Station, where the traffic flow has much improved since our last visit and then past the V and A  and the Brompton Oratory to reach Harrods and the forthcoming Moncler shop with an interesting photo in its window.

Our bus was held on three occasions to 'regulate the service', but even so, as we passed Jenny Packham's little shop front. we realised we would be in Victoria in much less than an hour, and we were, pulling in at 14.55.

It is a reminder of how long our project has been going, that we had no idea what this 'love your bank' stuff was about, and were more interested in the window cleaners.  To think that the Metro Bank was justr a gleam in someone's eye...

The B16 Route

Bexleyheath  Bus garage to Kidbrooke Station

Monday February 18^th  2013

By now you know that the B buses belong around Bexleyheath, so you will not be surprised that this bright morning found us waiting just outside the garage for a 4-times an hour single-decker. It arrived a bit before its time but drove very steadily along its East/West course.   Since we were last in the borough of Bexley’s only major retail and administrative centre, someone (the council, presumably) had decided the main roads and pavements needed attention so progress was slow through a series of single lane chicanes. The first stop was at the Clock Tower, which is of course where most passengers got on. 

After that comes the Broadway, part of the old Watling Street,  generally acknowledged to be the Romans’ route of choice between London and Dover, and probably cutting a straight line over the heaths and avoiding the muddier low-lying areas (aka Thamesmead.  For modern-day Bexley this means the approach to the centre where the more individual shops and restaurants can be found. ‘Bel Amore’ is not a cosy Italian trattoria but in fact sells wedding gowns, but the ‘Laughing Buddha’ cheerily promotes a restaurant with its fat-bellied poster boy glinting in the sun. Best of all was the legal firm offering ‘Free Alien Abduction Cover with every Insurance sold’; we approve of this kind of self-publicity.

Just as you might think you were approaching the Crook Log with all its pleasures this route turns off for Pickford Lane and Bexleyheath’s rather far-flung railway station, though to be fair it serves the 1930s  expansion of homes built around here.

After the detour to the station the B route returns to the straight and narrow, which is Welling High Street, still thriving enough to have attracted some big brand supermarkets. This was one of the few familiar stretches on this route as we had passed this way before. However we were to plunge into more residential areas, namely that other 1930s development, Falconwood,  with its property builder referred to as a ‘relentless’. The bus crosses a narrow bridge over the railway and just before the station emerges onto what must have been seen as the jewel in their development: Falconwood Parade and Triangle. It certainly gives this otherwise somewhat bland area a strong focal point and looks well-maintained.  A veritable Tudor village green with only the village stocks missing…

After calling by the station the route heads into the ‘wood’ part of the locality, and we wizzed past several stops passing between Oxleas Wood  and Eltham or Shephardleas woods – really all one but now bisected by the Rochester Way.  Here is where you can join the Green Chain walk, which links open spaces through SE London and overlaps with the Capital Ring. The woods are denser than might first appear and you have to make some decisions about directions taken as you walk through, which is rarely the case in London walking. The bus has to do some serious down, up and down again driving to serve the solid back streets of Eltham and neatly delivering its bus load of regulars to Eltham High Street, quite busy on this Monday morning.

By the time we had left Eltham behind the bus was nearly empty – we lost the last three passengers to the Bingo Hall stop and carried on down Eltham Hill past Sutcliffe Park, its various playing fields doubtless as waterlogged as anywhere else, and turned off to head into Kidbrooke.

What a revelation this part of the trip was. We had last passed this way, that is through the Ferrier Estate, on the 178 in February 2010 almost exactly three years ago and what a transformation. What had been a depressing site of largely boarded-up but not yet demolished blocks was now a busy building site. Almost all the old blocks had gone and a few new ones had gone up, with of course the show homes and commercial office taking pride of place. The whole area has been renamed  'Kidbrooke Village' complete with water features. The film included here would seem to be rather aspirational for as far as we could see  - yes Sainsbury’s local had arrived (presumably so that the construction workers could buy a sarnie) but little else and the station was still in its ‘tired South Eastern train’ neglected incarnation. 

 The bus route calls at Wingfield School and as this was half-term it was difficult to tell whether it was shut for the holidays or closed overall. If remaining open we wondered where its children would come from as the dense population of the former Ferrier Estate has presumably been dispersed and the new residents not yet arrived. Still it was a fascinating tour of a ‘work in progress’ and hopefully the new ‘village’ will avoid the pitfalls of its predecessors on this land.  Key to any area’s success is the quality of the transport links and certainly the B16 should retain its role as one of the bus routes linking Kidbrooke to its neighbouring and longer-established communities in South East London.

The bus comes to rest in front of the low-lying Kidbrooke Station from where we made our separate ways home.  

The B15 Route

Bexleyheath Market Place to Horn Park (Alnwick Road)

Monday March 4^th  2013

It was bright but surprisingly chilly as we found ourselves at the foot of the Bexleyheath Clock tower at the bus stop dedicated to the B routes. As the indicator board had suggested a 17 minute wait we went into M&S to use the facilities and came out to a 6 minute wait for this 3 x hour route. Like most of its sibling routes it was a small single door entry bus.  Also, like the B13 which we had already ridden today, the windows were exceptionally dirty save for the driver’s windscreen.

This would be our last time round the earthworks that characterize central    Bexleyheath; we shall need to return in the late summer to experience the transformation,  which talks of ‘shared space’  the concept originally tried round the Museums in South Kensington. These works are quite extensive and do cause something of a log jam, but the B15 broke free and headed on down towards the turn-off for the station . Much to our joy the office we had spotted some weeks ago was still offering free Alien Abduction Insurance, and the local barbers was sporting a twiddling red pole, In case you had forgotten barbers used to be surgeons too and the pole indicated they  would offer operations hence the blood and bandages logo. Twiddling poles were quite common when I was growing up but it seemed ages since I had seen one. 

Right towards Pickhurst means Bexleyheath Station and we lost the first of our passengers; the station is quite coy and tucked away though a cluster of local shops

(a second  barber’s pole !) has grown up around this stop. The last one in the parade offers ‘Soffits and Fascias’ which are the bits of roofing that tuck behind the guttering and make the roof ends neat – I would guess they do good business round here as  most of this route  was the type and age of housing that would require if not a new roof or windows then certainly replacements of one kind or another. Such is the lot of the home-owner especially in a country where there is often too much wet weather.

After a couple more turns, and avoiding the main roads, we turned down a broad street lined entirely with bungalows; you always see the odd one as fill-in but it is more unusual to have a purpose built road of them other than at the sea-side. With the blue sky today I could almost imagine myself there as these were well maintained and the road quiet.  By now we were entering the first of  several ‘Hail and Ride’ sections with people getting off in clusters.

As we turned into Elsa Road the bus stopped to wait for its opposite number to pass on what was quite a narrow stretch and we seemed to be looking at what was a truncated but not decapitated stink pipe – so half size and surrounded by no less than 6 large round drain covers and 4 small ones.We’re not sure but afficianados may wish to follow up for themselves.(And you thought we had an odd hobby)

Streets of semis continued, some with their garages tucked behind (with a narrow car access every 2 houses) but this did not seem to stop the locals parking in the street or on the inevitable front garden hard standing. The street opened out for the playing fields and buildings of Welling School. A Tesco Metro had opened on the corner and seemed to be doing good business courtesy of the school’s pupils.

Past Welling Station there came a wealth of niche shopping opportunities – hydoponics offering the chance to grow stuff in less soil, and then ‘Bites & Strikes’ a specialist pet shop for those who keep snakes and spiders, or amphibians and arachnids to give them their posh name.  As we progressed along the still quite active High Street it was interesting to note the re-cycling of buildings –  former cinema is now some kind of religious outlet (the Freedom Centre International), while Woolworths has morphed into Carpetright. Further along one of the corner banks is a Tesco Metro.

Leaving commerce behind we sped along Welling Way, noting how for every pair of steep roofed semi-detached homes one had usually had a second floor extension built – ‘waste of all that roof otherwise,‘ Jo muttered.

The bus speeded up along Oxleas Wood, with its sign for the Green Chain Walk, then over the Rochester Way A2 to pass Eltham cemetery. I had never thought much about the name of the local comprehensive school Crown Woods but seeing it perched on a hill looking down to Oxleas I see the sense in the name. I also remember it as one of the purpose-built pioneering Comprehensive Schools that was set up while much of  the rest of London was still rattling around in Grammars and Secondary Moderns so the buildings probably needed renewing; however I was interested to read this memorial  for the old school

Whatever the politics I am astounded that pupils are colour coded by ability??

Just past the school is both a Sports Centre and  Environmental Study Centre, which are slightly less contentious. 

From here the Bexley Road narrows down to turn into Eltham High Street and the pace slows.  As this offers one of the alternative shopping centres to Bexleyheath and Welling there was a changeover of passengers along here as we passed the familiar landmarks of the reservoir, lovely old Library and church at the crossroads, complete with the Eltham war memorial.  

Once past the shops the bus stops are a little more spread out and an older passenger dinged the bell but too late for the driver, who had accelerated along Eltham Hill, to stop safely. She continued dinging and started haranguing him (I thinks he expected him just to let her out there and then) finally getting off at Greenway shaking her fist and threatening to complain. It is worthwhile remembering that every stop is a request nowadays.

Once the B15 joined the dual carriageway that is Westhorne Avenue there was only one more passenger to board (I am not sure why as she looked a bit surprised when we turned off  by Horn park into Alnwick Road and stopped,  some 40 minutes after leaving Bexleyheath). Cleaner windows might have made this a better outing with the earlier relentless rows of homes giving way to the more open spaces of Oxleas, and the contrasts of older and newer Eltham itself. 

  Yes we are close to having sucked the goodness out of Bexleyheath and its environs – reduced as we are to admiring barbers’ poles and possible stink pipes…only 1 Busy B to go. 

The B14 Route

Bexleyheath Market Place to Orpington Station

Thursday January 3^rd 2013

Our (high) number bus had left us in the resting place for Bexleyheath buses but the B14 driver directed us round the corner to the market place/clock tower where he picked us (and a few others) up in his very small single door bus. We had decided to broach the letter buses as Bexleyheath’s station is a considerable distance away from the commercial centre, so our journey home would have been complicated and thus taking one of its B routes elsewhere seemed to make more sense.

We left Bexleyheath to the south out along the Broadway where there were no fewer than three nail salons, a few varied take-aways and – surprisingly – a Turkish vegetable and fruit shop which had folded while the next-door Fancy Dress and Balloon Specialty shop was going strong: no accounting for tastes. I detail the commerce as it was to be a while before we saw anything but residential buildings.

After the stretch of road known as the Crook Log, which has pubs, leisure centres and GP surgeries all named for it, the bus takes the road alongside Danson Park, which has a bit of everything to entertain families open parkland for strolling, boating on the lake, children’s play areas. There is also an historic classic Palladian Villa which, even if the wealth of the original owner was gained in dubious Caribbean trading then lost by successive dissolute generations, makes a pretty centrepiece to the park.  Not far from here is the other historic residence of William Morris and extended circle - the Red House. Both houses have rather unpredictable opening times so any intending visitor would need to check.

The Danson underpass, which signalled the start of a ‘Hail & Ride’ section, was less of an underpass more of a long bridge under the A2. From this point we only stopped once for a lady with a shopper who clearly knew when the bus was due (it only runs twice an hour) while one family who had boarded at Bexleyheath with us got off. The bus does a complete loop round a Thirties era development of mainly semi-detached homes interspersed with a few bungalows, which I take to be Albany Park.   There was a distinct incline to this loop – first down to the modern church, then up again – as we were driving down to the bottom of the River Cray valley, having earlier crossed the Cray’s tributary the Shuttle and in fact we were today following the river back to its source.  Just after we  spotted a load of cranes, but of the mechanical not bird variety – almost as decorative when in a flock. 

In order to serve the older parts of Sidcup where there are larger 19^th century build homes, now frequently divided into flats, the bus does a further ‘Hail & Ride’ dog-leg emerging briefly onto Sidcup High Street (charity shops and the Police Station, closed since we last came this way). By the Green is a large Morrisons but these facts may not be related.

Then just in a quiet (!) nook between the As 20 and 222 is the spread out site of Queen Mary’s Hospital Sidcup, with this route calling at both A and B blocks – the latter’s car park looking more like a water feature or boat pond but then there is nearby Watery Lane, which might account for this. Perhaps the frogs of Frognal were re-asserting their rights? Queen Mary’s is of course one of the three overspent hospitals, which has led to the bizarre and controversial decision to close (downsize) the newly built A&E at Lewisham  in favour of the one at Queen Elizabeth’s Woolwich. 

By the time we come to post this things may look clearer – and more acceptable to most of the population of SE London.(A temporary and compromise reprieve, which is unlikely to hold?)

As is usual with the smaller routes they only use the busy 6 lane highways where unavoidable, so after a quick sashay along the A20 the bus turns off uphill to St Paul’s Cray, which, much to Jo’s surprise, was looking and sounding more like her old stamping ground of SW Herts.  Here we were offered Croxley Green followed by Chorley Wood and Chipperfield and apparently even Breakspear has a Hertfordshire connection. As there was no sign of teleportation we decided it was just one of those quirks. St Paul and St Mary Cray are no longer the villages they once were, and while there is quite a lot of greenery, especially some rather fine stepped rugby pitches, the commerce is concentrated back down on the main roads into Orpington on the Nugent Retail Estate, where you can even find a Waterstones and Debenhams. This all seems a bit back to front as when you then get to Orpington its traditional High Street is now given over to pound shops, closed units and the largest range of charity shops you could hope for. 

Opposite the Nugent is the rather older industrial estate including the Allied Bakeries Thirties building. There was me thinking it was now longer in use but in fact more bread comes out of here than you might think The best thing since sliced bread anyone??

By the time we were approaching Orpington from the Perry Hall end the Cray was clearly re-asserting itself through the park with the ponds looking more impressive than usual in Priory Park Gardens, apparently its source. Talking of 'water' Affinity is what was previously the Water Board, a rebranding I'm just not getting?

After taking on few passengers through the Crays most boarded at this point, along the strangely busy High Street and very close to the end of the trip but presumably as ours was the first bus coming prepared to head up the steep hill to Orpington Station, even the small B14 would do.  Our circuitous trip from Bexleyheath had taken us about an hour for what was largely a trip through early 20^th century housing developments, with pockets of earlier settlements and later commercial and light industrial additions. 

The Number B 13 bus

Monday 4 March 2013

Linda and I travelled by train to New Eltham and then walked up to the library to catch our bus, destination Bexleyheath, at 10.05.

It was a single decker with only one door, and it was absolutely filthy:  excusable if there had been slush, mud and salt over the weekend, but Linda confirmed that London had had the same dry and sunny weather which I had enjoyed in the Midlands.  We don’t usually take much interest in who runs our buses, but this was Arriva, who should be ashamed.  We noted, at the end of our trip, that other bus companies had managed a bit of cleaning.  It is an extra annoyance when the sun is shining and we should like to be able to enjoy the views.

After passing a number of shops and cafes, including Big Boyz Cafe - it seemed to us unlikely that salads and cottage cheese would be on the menu - we were out into residential streets, mostly bungalows with hardened front gardens.  We came to St James Mar Thoma Church, which proves to be a sect Syrian in origin, which has been around in Britain since the 1950s.

The next landmark was Avery Hill College, once a Teacher Training place, but now a campus of the University of Greenwich.  Here. as we hairpinned round to the right, the first 'hail and ride section' began,  ensuring that we kept up a pretty good pace.  We turned to and fro through residential streets, some with bungalows, some with moderate sized semis and terraces;  there were not many businesses around here, though we did note 'Bathrooms Beyond'.  

We didn't know that we were on the outskirts of Sidcup, and we did not penetrate the town centre, but we did see that Stunners Hair Studio had closed and was available with the flat above it.  Along Burnt Oak Lane, almost all the semis had had substantial extensions  and some had replaced their windows as well

The Hail and ride section resumed, with attractive spaces  along the road, and we liked the Royal Oak Pub, with its white weather boarding, but I cannot find any useful information about it.

As we continued towards Bexleyheath, a lady boarded the bus whose Oyster card had insufficient funds.  She proffered a £10.00 note (or maybe even a £5) but the driver said he had no change.  We might have been there for the rest of the day, but a public spirited passenger managed what the driver clearly did not feel was his job, and between us we changed the money down to the required denominations.  Arriva was not impressing us today, as you can probably tell.

By now we were coming towards our destination, and recognised the road closures of the major works which we have been enjoying for the past few weeks.


It was 10.25 when the route terminated outside the library:  the last time that we shall journey into Bexleyheath, presumably ever.