The Number 40 Route

Thursday 30 May 2019
We boarded the number 40 just opposite Dulwich Library, and outside the Plough, with its pretty baskets and window boxes. It was 11.20, our previous Project bus having brought us efficiently to the big Sainsbury's and a prompt gap-filling bus had got us here.

We passed a Southwark 'blue plaque' (voted by the people, it said, words to bring a shiver to remainer bones) for Enid Blyton, writer of more than 600 popular books.  We wondered whether English Heritage had declined to honour her.  We also went passed the last remaining prefab of the many which were once erected here, and admired its pretty garden.

There are not many other ways that people could afford a detached house with garden in this part of the world.

The borough has put up a number of banners with the strapline 'me and ED' and one shows East Dulwich's own (probably) Banksy: the queen riding a Segway with several corgis pulling her along.

We saw signs to the 'Church of God (Sabbath Keeping)' and then came to the Lord Palmerston.  Linda was not aware that the then Foreign Secretary had quoted Cicero about the rights of citizens, while blockading Greek harbours to protect the rights of a Gibraltar born British citizen called Don Pacifico.  Somehow there are B***** references everywhere today.
 

We headed up Grove Vale, past East Dulwich Station, and then down Champion Hill, where my Granny trained as a teacher at the end of the 19th century.

 There are major building works at King's College Hospital, the most exciting of which is the helipad on the roof.  There are hospitals both sides of the road here, as well as the Dental wing

 

 Almost immediately we were at Camberwell Green, passing the former shop of Smith's of Camberwell, now only a ghost sign above a pizza hut, but also a shuttered shop where Woolworth's had pnce been. We paused here for a change of driver, which was a relief, as our new driver turned off the very noisy and over-efficient air conditioning, before taking us on to pass Nollywood, a bar and cafe which celebrates the young a vibrant film industry of Nigeria.  I'm afraid we've all missed Nollywood Week, but you can get an impression of it here.

 

 We came past the edge of Burgess Park and then carried on towards Elephant and Castle, noting the unexpected plasterwork on one of the properties along here, as well as the enormous, and apparently still thriving, Red Lion Pub. We also passed the end of East Street Market, which was looking rather busy.

Then, of course, the route reaches Elephant and Castle, with its enormous numbers of new apartments (and many more to come) looming over the older buildings like Spurgeon's Tabernacle.

 The route goes up the Borough High Street, past the Church of St George the Martyr, dedicated to a Roman soldier who died for his faith having, disappointingly you may think, struggled against the metaphorical dragon of sin, rather than a real one. The church is 18th century, designed by John Price, and its spire attractively mirrors the more modern spire up the road in what appears to be called 'Shard Quarter'.

The war memorial is related to St Saviour's Church. And W.H. and H. Le May Hop Factors was once linked to the huge trade in hops for beer which led to the Hop Exchange being built in Southwark Street.

 Once we had passed London Bridge Station, we went over the River, noting that there is a cruise ship moored alongside HMS Belfast.  This is convenient for customs and border control and, I assume, provides some revenue for the huge warship, actually dwarfed by all that white luxury alongside.


The next landmark is The Monument. Linda did not know that the original inscriptions blamed the Catholics for the Great Fire of London;  and I did not know that those slanderous inscriptions had actually been removed in 1830.

The East India Arms continues to survive, though the merchants who frequent it are no longer ruling India;  then we came along Fenchurch Street, where the passage of public transport was , as happens so frequently, inhibited by building works for private profit. They are calling it Eightyfen, and I am sure that they have checked that London really needs a lot more offices.

And that was the last event before we reached the end of the route at Aldgate Station, after a pleasant journey which had taken almost exactly the 50 minutes scheduled, since we arrived at 12.10.

The NUMBER 39 Route

Clapham Junction to Putney Bridge  

Thursday May 16 2019

This was our third bus of the day, which had started in Vauxhall.  The end points of the 39 make it sound like a gritty urban route but on the contrary it feels a bit like a country bumpkin poddling round the varied and hilly estates of SW19.

This single decker route we picked up just near the wide bridge that carries Clapham Junction’s many rail lines into London and where the pollution verges on the unbearable, so a relief to board this bus which, by its second stop opposite the occluded entrance to the station, was pretty popular.

While the shopping trolleys, their owners with sticks and the several buggies settled themselves the bus itself was repositioning itself as three police vans sped up St John’s Hill with their blue lights flashing; the bus had just speeded up when a 4^th van overtook us. Jo reckoned they were heading for lunch – I wondered about a riot in Wandsworth Jail which might require some input but a news item at the end of the day solved the mystery :an unexploded bomb discovered during a building operation near Kingston University Campus requiring the police to evacuate over a thousand local residents and students.  For the third time today we climbed St John’s Hill, where several passengers boarded who looked as though they might have been using the health centre’s therapeutic services, and took the one way system to pass the Huguenot Burial ground on the way.

Our two previous routes today had covered this particular bit of the South Circular Road and each one had been delayed somewhat by the development overspilling into the road (not the same as road repair works) but speeding up towards Wandsworth Town Hall. The latter is very often glimpsed in TV dramas where both the interiors and exteriors are favoured for locations implying ministerial buildings on both sides of the Iron Curtain. The late 1930s building more than earns its keep and of course is still a working town hall. 

The RamQuarter had been ‘under discussion ‘ on our last trip so it was good to see it nearly completed to include the listed buildings from the now defunct brewery. The somewhat dated Southside shopping centre opposite will doubtless benefit from the newer residents and we admired their planters and the foliage camouflaging the tin huts which serve as ‘street food ‘ booths.

Leaving Wandsworth town centre behind our route started by paralleling the Wandle River – so a somewhat meandering road bordered by smaller cottage-type housing and on the left (river) side a range of industrial units, interspersed with the odd pub.

The passengers were mainly the elderly with their shopping trolleys and parents with sleepy children on the way home from morning playgroup or nursery sessions but from Southfields we took on some random tourists heading for the Lawn Tennis Museum – not Jo’s favourite but actually worth the trip and easier to access from this station rather than Wimbledon itself. Also a station favoured by cyclists. 

The bus however abandons the straighter roads and the swankier homes to climb the hill (which will eventually prove to be Putney Hill – bear with me) and takes a series of twists and turns through the various estates of SW19.  On the whole these are 50 year old social housing, but a few private blocks (behind modest gates) have been squeezed into some gaps – there are some clinics and schools but little else in the way of facilities so this bus route remains a lifeline for all those buggy and shopping trolley users. Wandsworth seems to have planted up the verges with some alliums and other flowers to enhance the 'village' feel? 

Jo and I had been wondering why a rather smart single buggy had an Air France label/logo on its hood and the mother was keen to ex toll the virtues of her choice of buggy – she thought it might signify that the airlines would be prepared to have them in the cabin rather than the hold – it was that rather smart French Navy colour as opposed to the more sedate Navy Blue favoured by the UK.  

Photography was a bit tricky through this part of the route until we emerged , very suddenly, onto a dual carriageway with road signs pointing us to Portsmouth, and all points south on the A3.  But of course the bus, or rather its careful driver, knows it needs to circumnavigate Tibbetts Corner, sweep past the Green Man (been there said Jo) roundabout and start heading for Putney Hill and bridge.

The announcements both visual and oral were not very clear about where the bus journey finished and Jo and I began debating whether it might be an easier and quicker journey to walk back from the end of the bridge to Putney Station and hence into Waterloo.  We were slowed at the traffic lights that cross with the South Circular and admired a cyclist pushing her way uphill, and just failed to capture the first of two sundials in Putney, on the corner office block.  

Past the station and the modest shopping centre and lo: it is a route that actually crosses the bridge and stops as close to the station as it can, which made any decision making very easy – the District Line it would be and somehow the latter’s amiable slow speed made the parochial-feeling Number 39 quite appropriate. 

Apart from some overdue works now completed round Wandsworth unusually so far this trip felt very little different from that of ten years ago, which is what a good local service should be.

As we stepped off an elderly white couple complained the bus was a few inches short of the pavement which they followed up with a nasty chauvinistic remark which marred an otherwise happy trip,

The Number 38 Route

Thursday 16 May 2019
Well, now, this is a strange route.  Although the bus stop at Waterloo says that it terminates at Lea Bridge Road, the front of the bus said 'Hackney Central'. Please hold this thought till we get to the end.

The head stop is actually in the inadequate bus space in front of Victoria Station, whereas our previous bus had abandoned us some was away.  So we headed off at 11.00, and made amazingly slow progress. First it's up Buckingham Palace Road and past the Queen's back garden, and then to Hyde Park Corner, where we had ample time to admire the Royal Artillery Memorial in its brutal splendour and the rather less aggressive Machine Gunners' Memorial.  The quote from the book of Samuel which so annoyed other branches of the army was not within reading distance of our camera s you can read it at the IWM register link.

We turned into Piccadilly, a welcome change from Park Lane, but the traffic was even slower, had that been possible, not particularly because of what appeared to be pavement works. Just the number of motorised vehicles.

 Still, this gave us ample time to admire the green wall at the Athaneum Hotel, and the attractive new look of Green Park Station, as well as the Ritz, the Caviar Shop, the Burlington Arcade, the Royal Academy, the HQ of BAFTA and St James' Church (beautiful Grinling Gibbons Screen inside: we could pretty well have got off, popped in, gazed at it and got back on the same bus).

We were also interested in GROM, a gelato shop whose strap-line is 'Il Gelato come una volta' which we think is sort of 'as mother used to make'. Interesting, they say they contain no flavourings, which I take it means that vanilla is an ingredient not a flavouring. Again, th the costly Boris buses worked as they were intended to, we could have stepped off the back, checked, and got back on.



Finally we came to Piccadilly Circus but this did not mean we increased our speed, because this route next goes along (or parks along) Shaftesbury Avenue. Slowed by works to renovate the Japan Centre, as well as by all the cars and cabs, we passed all the shows and eventually emerged at Cambridge Circus to go left along Charing Cross Road.

Any increase in speed?  Surely you know better than to ask: because here we are in Crossrail land.  As we turned right into New Oxford Street, we had ample time to note that the Dominion Theatre is already advertising its next Christmas Show.  I wonder how many shopping days are left?

 Still, 35 minutes into our journey (15 minutes on a bicycle, by the way) we were finally heading east, to pass the umbrella shop and the Conway Hall. We also passed Swedenborg House. Swedenborg believed, amongst much else, that, for salvation, good deeds were essential as well as faith. I only mention this because in the film of Little Women (the one with Winona Ryder, not the Elizabeth Taylor one) the March family are said to be Swedenborgians, although this is not in the book. But I digress.

Gardens to the right meant that we were passing close to the Inns of Court, and then I pointed out this excellent wheels on a passing shopping trolley: I had seen these in Venice, where delivery people have them to facilitate going up steps, but I have never before noticed them in London.

We passed over a little viaduct, from where we could see that the Mount Pleasant Sorting Office (where the wonderful Postal Museum is) has reduced its van parking area and clearly new apartments are going up.

Up Rosebery Avenue, we reached the gardens of the the Water HQ which marks the formal end of the New River, and then came to Sadler's Wells, which meant we were effectively at Angel.

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The Old Red Lion Pub has pages and pages about it on the internet, but I could not find out why its inn sign depicts a dog.  No doubt an explanation is in the cloud somewhere.  Linda was interested to see the Lime hire bikes, which are electric, as there are not many of them in South London.


So then we saluted Sir Hugh Myddleton and continued up Essex Road, noting a taxidermy shop called 'Get Stuffed' whose website has galleries displaying their amazing work.

A former cinema is now the Resurrection Manifestation centre, and, we assume, religious, while the Walter Sickert Centre is named for a former local Islington resident, though he was part of the Camden group of artists.

Turning right into the Balls Pond Road, we passed the Metropolitan Benefit Society Almshouses, now rebranded as 'retirement cottages' but still with their pretty garden.

I thought the Duke of Wellington'a pub sign was probably taken from the portrait in the National Gallery, a picture I know well as I have it on a mug. 

Anyway, we were now firmly in Hackney, and a series of residential streets brought us to Mare Street and Hackney Central Station. It was 12.25, a bit over the 78 minutes promised by the timetable.  BUT, of course, we were not at the end stop as marked at the start of the route (I asked you to remember this). So when the driver and the bus announcement both said that this was the last stop, we obediently got off. And THEN! the blind at the front changed to read 'Clapton Pond' and the bus rolled on: without us.  So what's this about?  In the olden days there used to be what were called 'fare stages' and the price changed in various places. But this is no longer the case.  So we are baffled, and all we can do is promise that we shall ride from Hackney Central to Leabridge Road at some future date.

It had taken a long time, but it is a rather enjoyable trip, nonetheless.