The NUMBER 34 Route

Barnet Church to Walthamstow Bus Station

Wednesday April 17, 2019

We don’t usually travel on a Wednesday, nor in the afternoon and it was the time of day rather than the time of week which lengthened this already protracted journey. 63 Regular helped with the photography but seemed to have similar problems to Jo with the camera having a mind of its own.  Having got ourselves to one of the ends of the Northern Line we processed up the hill to find the 34 had been demoted to a lower stop which it had to share with many routes, but it came pretty promptly. We were pleased Barnet still cherished its Red Lion…

Never very busy the core of passengers were small groups of holidaying school children looking for fun, though I’m not sure the 34 is the way to go?

Barnet, and much of Barnet borough, is prosperous enough for there to be good sized, well maintained homes slightly set back from the main roads this route follows – in the way the suburbs expanded during the first half of the 20^th century the blocks of residential developments are interspersed with ‘Parades’, rows of local shops with the occasional community resource such as clinic or library or even cinema. The last time we came this way  the Everyman was an Odeon but has recently had a makeover of which the locals seem to approve.

The ‘Parades’ now boast a range of more international fare - Sushi/Sashimi or the Rice Terrace with the Chinese medical centre too.

I commend this well illustrated article by Historic England about the development of shopping parades from the mid-1850s to 1950s, and of course bus routes servicing these suburban destinations remain today, even if the shops have changed. We liked Cocorico for its sound as much as anything.

What had been a straight on route turns left down Oakleigh Avenue into what we learnt was Whetstone , and essentially more of the same – nice enough homes with mature gardens in bloom interspersed with shops – occasionally the ‘Parades’ as seen above morph into Circuses (no clowns or elephants today) such as at Betstyle . By now we were transitioning, or perhaps transiting, from The Barnets to Arnos Grove with its excellent Holden Station ( once the end station ) , and the Piccadilly Line where most passengers got off.

How right they were – from here on the route IS the North Circular Road in all its three lane /heavy traffic/ warehouse bordered persona…

There was a strange pedestrian footbridge crossing the road where there were already several street level crossings and we could not quite suss its purpose?

The road crosses a small stream, part of the Pymmes Brook whose course we seemed to be following but not closely enough to see! The bus stopped infrequently – back beyond the service roads there are terraces and homes and of course they need a bus service but little use was made of the 34 today. Because it is such a key artery the North Circular is stiff with destination boards and information signs – as we approached Edmonton they seemed to be largely for the new Tottenham Stadium. For much of this part of the trip we were the only or one of very few bus options.

Coming into Edmonton the bus diverts from the North Circular briefly and we could peer into Pymmes Park, named after its medieval landowner. It has been a public park since 1906 but suffers from the proximity of the North Circular; it also has the Pymmes Brook running through it. There is a Pymmes Brook Trail for people who like to explore London’s lesser waterways, though we fear it may not be the sort of walk where you could forget you were surrounded by town.

Silver Street is a nearby Overgound Station but looks rather insignificant after the handsome Arnos Grove. More North Circular and more roundabouts follow with our only light moment being a passing Kitkat Lorry . Cue to scrabble in our bag for same.

We did make fast progress east and crossed both the River Lea and its navigation – and we finally left to take the more modest A12 directly into Walthamstow.

So now we were certainly back in Inner London – three Romanian shops (did they take over premises from the Poles who returned home? we wondered) and round Walthamstow itself several examples of street murals reflecting local interests and places. This blogger has captured  many of them better than us and may be one of the reasons why Waltham Forest was awarded London Borough of Culture earlier this year.

We had plenty of time to appreciate a flavour of things as the bus slowed down totally for its last three stops – those in the know got off and walked but of course one of the rules of the Project is to stay aboard until the last stop which is unsurprisingly the bus station where a very modest road work was totally paralysing the buses going in and out and therefore most of Walthamstow!! A mother with a triplet buggy was making better progress. 

This was a good 75 minute trip of varying interest and speed.