The Number 6 Route

Thursday 25 October 2018

Our previous bus having dropped us conveniently round the corner, it was not long before we were on a 6, heading for Aldwych.  Willesden Bus Garage is spacious, but the buses pull out and around, so Linda thought we were heading in the wrong direction at first.

The weather was again splendid, with cloudless blue skies and, while there was a nip in the air, the bus was pleasantly warm.

The Global Co-operative University seems to be based here, but I have found it quite difficult to discover its actual status. It seems to have something to do with the actual Co-operative Movement.

The Willesden Centre for Health and Care was more identifiable, and we thought it might once have been the Willesden Cottage Hospital.

 We were pleased to see the green space around the Sports Centre, the more so because almost all the residents have hardened their front gardens.  Nobody designed these neat terraces for privately owned vehicles, nor indeed for the amount of traffic that pours past them at all times.

We passed the Lexy Cinema, with its message 'I am a Cinema: Love Me'  and then were able to add to our collection of witty hairdressing names.  We were clearly in a healthy area, what with Ayurvedic offerings and a vegan cafe, and we also passed Franklin Primary School, now an ARK Academy.  It was named for the scientist Rosalind (DNA) Franklin.

 

 After some very congested streets, we admired the pretty cottages of Kilburn Lane and went past the Fierce Grace Hot Yoga Centre, which struck us as a fairly terrifying concept.

Once we got into Maida Vale, we were back among what seems to be the single significant marker for these revisited bus routes: new build apartments in huge numbers, stretching along road after road.  Some are occupied, some about to be, and some just starting.

Down towards Warwick Avenue Station, we came to the attractive Sheepdrove Organic Farm shop, and then we were into the Edgware Road, for the second time today.  We had time to notice the interesting, and possibly political statement outside a restaurant serving BOTH Iraqi and Kurdish Food.

After Church Street Market, we came to more new build.

Linda and I are fairly sure that we saw this development being...well, developed, last time round in 2009, but the answer may be that it is a very large area. We are also pretty sure that the prices would not have been quite so remarkable back then.

 After this, we made quite rapid progress, under the elevated road, and past Nutford Place, where something rather small is being built by the interestingly named Deconstruct Company.  It seems to mean that they do the Project Managing.

Once we got to Marble Arch, we headed down Park Lane, past the monument to the Animals of War, with glimpses of Hyde Park across the many lanes of fast traffic.

 

 At Hyde Park Corner, this bus makes a left along Piccadilly, past the Royal Academy, and the many tourists at Piccadilly Circus, to turn down Haymarket and get to Trafalgar Square.

The fourth plinth has an Assyrian statue made out of syrup tins at the moment, which we glimpsed as we went past. Then it's only a short distance, though quite a long time, along the Strand, past the Church of St Mary, to turn up into Aldwych and end our ride, 75 minutes after we left Willesden.