The W16 Route

28 March 2011

We expect to be very old by the time we blog this bus, which is part of a day with the 158, but there we were at Chingford Mount, and this was the bus which starts there and takes us back towards central London, in that its destination was Leytonstone Station. ‘Where’s the mount?’ demanded Linda of no-one in particular as we waited a few minutes (Mary was helping out in Braintree, so we were missing her).

We were onto the single decker shortly after 10.40, together with a substantial number of other passengers, and were immediately into residential areas.  Most of the housing was semis, with narrow shared driveways between the pairs:  garages in most back gardens, but the preference was to leave the car on the hard-coated front gardens.  We glimpsed some wooded areas, which I think may have been part of Ainslie Wood Nature Reserve  and then crossed the River Ching, a very small stream.  According to Wikipedia , it is ‘backnamed’ from the town of Chingford, rather than being the river that caused the name.  

We travelled parallel to the North Circular for a few metres, before turning left along Fulbourne Road to reach Wood Street Shopping Centre.

Among many other shop fronts, we noted the FEI Charitable Trust Shop, though I’m blowed if I can find out what it’s about, and hope that someone with greater knowledge will enlighten us.  We were also surprised by a shop front referring to the USSR:  why is it OK to reference a regime that competes with Hitler’s Germany for top (or bottom) spot in foulness?

With the Duke’s Head Pub (though without the apostrophe that I’ve added) we were more at home, the Iron Duke looking rather rakish in the sunshine.  And we always enjoy a cop shop that really does look like a shop.  

We noted a ‘spy shop’ which guarantees the privacy of its clients, though presumably not that of those they spy upon. Also a handsome building now put to the most depressing of uses: lending money to people who should have access to less outrageous forms of borrowing.

We also spotted the ‘Sense’ Charity Shop. I have met people who imagine that German Measles is a harmless disease and immunisation is not necessary.  Their views might change if they met someone who suffered from rubella in utero. Perhaps by the time you read this, rubella will have been eradicated as small pox was.

Then we were back into pleasant residential streets.  Although this was not a beautiful day, there was enough sunshine to pick up the attractive and eyecatching forsythia and magnolias that embellished many front gardens.

We reached Leytonstone Station at 11.25, only a little later than the suggested time of the bus stop.  So many people had got on and off that it would have been much slower without the Oyster Technology:  I know, having travelled on buses in Milton Keynes over the weekend, and watched the drivers issuing tickets and handing over change.