The Number 45 Route

Thursday 13 June 2019

This two-bus trip was rather a Jo-benefit outing, as one started and the other ended conveniently close to me. After a brief walk through the residential streets of Streatham Hill, pausing to admire a handsome solanum, we boarded the 45 just before 11.40. 

We were bound for King's Cross:  but tomorrow will be the last day for this and then Elephant and Castle will be the end point.  There were VERY FREQUENT announcements of this route change, all the way north.

As so often, the main characteristics of this journey were road works and new buildings. We had a longish spell without rain, but then it began to pour.

We came out of Streatham and into Brixton Hill, where there is a wide range of religious offerings, including the Calvary Pentecostal Ministry, and its next door neighbour, the Brixton Hill Islamic Centre. We passed signs to Brixton Prison, but it is tucked away from the main road, unlike Pentonville.

We came into the main part of Brixton, past St Matthew's Church, Lambeth Town Hall and the Tate Library, before passing under the railway bridges.  Brixton has one for loving messages, and the other for more political and, we assume, unofficial material.  Some weeks ago they were rejecting the inflow of yuppies from Clapham;  today the message read 'London's most dangerous gang - Met Police, the system's goons'.

We were able to turn into Gresham Road through a little bus-and-cycle only cut, and so were smoothly to Loughborough Junction, and several new blocks of apartments. Some had inspirational words (like 'home' and 'happy') as part of the decor of the railings, too small to photograph from the upstairs of a bus, but none the less rather endearing.

We noted the Midwives' House, but assumed it was more an office than accommodation.  Also in this area were a couple of bakeries of the modern kind, with special names:  The Bread of Life Bakery is directly opposite Flour to the People. We saw, as we came into Camberwell Green, that there were bus stops the project would never need again, involving as they did the 35,40,42 and 45.

As we came past the Nollywood Bar, which celebrates the Film Industry of Nigeria, almost as large as that of India, we noted inspectors and police ready for action at a bus stop;  but they didn't want the 45, so we weren't delayed.  There are again many religious places in this area, and we passed an enormous funeral just leaving the Walworth Methodist Church, home of the Ghanaian Fellowship. Mourners were climbing into a coach, and others were loading handsome floral tributes into the various cars.

We came past the imposing Red Lion pub, and admired the attractive upper storeys of the parade of shops along here:  more imposing than the shops themselves, unless you factor in Beefy Boys, selling men's clothing in sizes up to 8XL.  East Street Market seemed as busy as usual

Approaching Elephant and Castle always involves huge amounts of building works. We noted especially The Levers, a private development by Peabody; though some of them are for shared ownership, most are for private sale; I suppose this is the way an ancient housing charity has to finance its work.

So we came through Elephant and Castle, glimpsing the attractive Bakerloo Line Station, and the Michael Faraday Memorial, as well as a massive new block with pretty tiling around the Tesco.

We headed up towards Blackfriars Bridge, alongside the North-South Cycle Super Highway.  Linda, living in a car owning household, doesn't really care for the road narrowing effect, though will admit (when tortured) that fewer cars would be better for us all.  The smooth flow of cyclists, not to mention other traffic was, of course, hampered by the belief of van drivers that their needs come first.

As we crossed the bridge, we boggled at the large number of floating cranes, and the huge coffer dam just about visible through the driving rain.  We knew that building a super sewer for London was not going to be easy, but troubles seem to abound.

The road up Farringdon was also very slow, giving me a chance to confirm the van-driver-and-cycle-lane views I mentioned earlier. There is, of course, a solution....

So along past the former Prudential Building, and up the very slow Gray's Inn Road (named, by the way, for the nobleman who owned this area in the 15th century).  

We passed a street completely blocked off for building works, which I suppose never helps the traffic flow, and inched our way up to Kings Cross, where both roadworks and new buildings going up helped slow things down even further.

Eventually, we reached York Way and the end, (literally for this route) at 1.10.  From now on, it's the 63 or nothing if you want a bus from Elephant and Castle to Kings Cross.  On the other hand, both are on the same branch of the Northern Line. 

We had had a fairly straight, if slow, south-north run, with a lot of interest and typical early June weather. The 75th anniversary of D-Day should be enough to remind us that it could have been worse.