The NUMBER 63 Route

King’s Cross to Honor Oak

Monday October 28 2019

After two bus routes taking us in and out of exceedingly slow Edmonton by the time we reached King’s Cross Jo was keen to head home (nearby) while I was happy to do likewise but on the familiar 63.  However sitting upstairs at the front refreshed my perspective and the trip went well…

Leaving the two major stations behind us but taking on several passengers with baggage (the proper sort not the psychological burdens of the past) we headed down to Farringdon and Clerkenwell.  The buildings that line the bus route are mainly modern and only when you peer down the smaller side streets are you reminded that this was one of Dicken’s stamping grounds.

There have been changes since we last passed  this way I was interested to see that the Courtauld Institute of Art (following SOAS’s departure) has moved into Vernon Square which towers over the route as the bus dips south.  The art historians must have experienced quite a shock on moving from their classical riverside splendour to this more utilitarian building – the galleries of course remain.

Another major change is to be seen at Mount Pleasant, once the largest postal sorting office in London.  Some working areas remain and the newish  Postal Museum with its own underground railway is a total delight to visit, but the rest of the site is poised for development , already dubbed POSTMARK.

Talking of Dickens this pub sign takes up the theme..

The 63 is the only route that threads its way, when permitted, down Farringdon.  For most of the last ten years (or so it feels at times) this section has been off limits due to various building projects , Crossrail primarily, but then with the expected office and some residential blocks that have been squeezed in – I say squeezed as the road was too narrow to tolerate builders and buses and it was generally the buses that lost out.  There is still something going up and just along Charterhouse Street, and Smithfield too is awaiting a makeover.

If you are on the top deck at this point you can look straight ahead across the river to the towers at Elephant & Castle. Not all is unfinished as one large block that also closed the route on the right is now complete 

with some slightly mean planted areas – it looked a bit anonymous with only a sturdy guard to indicate where the entrance might be and no ground floor windows.

If you want to explore Clerkenwell and a historic and vibrant part of London the 63 will take you close, and even tourist-mainstream St Paul’s cathedral is just up the hill.

Not all is still a work in progress – Blackfriars station with its platforms on the bridge is quite a joy to use.

Our river crossing today was Blackfriars and the tapered No 1 Blackfriars Development is also now complete – rather out of place and very tall (guess who gave consent against many objections?  Yes, it was London’s last mayor now messing up on an even bigger scale).  There were lots of chaps in hi viz jerkins planting or possibly tidying round its base.

St George’s Circus (another tall office and residential block) on the roundabout and much of the next stretch of the London Road is given over to the South Bank University thriving and still expanding, putting up new buildings and renovating existing ones.

In spite of the number of bus routes congregating here we made a swift exit with many school students now heading home. This route of course has to crawl round the full curves of the Bricklayers Arms road junctions as you watch the 363s sail past overhead on the flyover.

Passing the DOVER flats , in case you needed reminding about which direction we were heading, and then both the old and the new Fire stations, the next stop favoured by many passengers is the huge Tesco store.  They should make the most of it while they can: the proposed route of the Bakerloo Line extension (as of course the last STATION you currently pass on this route is at the Elephant) takes it along the Old Kent Road with a new stop destroying this huge shop !

We all know from the arrival of the Overground 10 years ago the impact new lines and stations can have on an area so even the 63 bus route could become redundant in time??

The right turn which takes this (and the 363) down past a densely populated area abutting Burgess Park sort of follows the route of the old Croydon, or  Grand Surrey Canal joined at Rotherhithe to access the Thames 

But it was never very financially viable.  The 63 is always well used down this stretch with most passengers preferring to get off as we enter Peckham as walking is generally quicker!

Peckham’s prizewinning library has been joined by a more pedestrian-looking building that is the  Mountview Theatre , a major addition since our last 63 trip. The backdrop to Peckham Library stop was at one time a series of black and white poster-size photo portraits of black actors and I rather missed them when they came down and building works commenced so I was really pleased to see that a few had made it back into the window niches, which had been looking a little untidy storing as they did props and scenery ‘flats’.

Snaking through Peckham on a bus has always been something of an ‘edgy’ experience with pedestrians spilling off the pavements at busy times and several routes competing with delivery vans.  The range of fruit and vegetables remains impressive, and there are now several shops offering to make up clothes with strong West African prints.  More unsettling are the huge snails I once spotted all ready to escape.  Not so much on this bus route but elsewhere in Peckham there are new bits of residential development and with an increasingly younger population indications of gentrification can be seen on the High Street too.

We managed to get through Peckham reasonably quickly – it’s always the slowest part of this route – and the road then opens out onto the delights of Peckham Rye: mostly an open space where in the summer or winter you can do your own thing, kick a ball, throw a stick for a dog, mooch or just cross to the other side; there is the occasional visiting circus but on the whole people appreciate its unstructured appeal.  In one corner lies Peckham Park , which offers a more formal park experience.

The side the 63 follows is bordered by very gracious and spacious homes which look out over the welcome greenery. The north end of the Rye is marked by a cluster of useful shops surrounding the doctor/dentist/pharmacy services, and it terminates opposite the ‘Watson’s Telegraph’ Pub so named as the hill the route stops short of used to have a transmitter to send/receive telegrams from coastal shipping. The pub customers will disturb few as their neighbour is the Camberwell Old Cemetery.  I had completed a most enjoyable, even if very familiar, trip from King’s Cross to here within the 62 minutes suggested.