The 68 Route

Thursday 27 September 2018

This is, I think, the only pair of routes which I travelled alone in 2009, so Linda and I did them the other way round this time: from Euston to West Norwood first, and then back to Marylebone as you may already have seen.

We came out of the inadequate bus area of Euston, past the scrap of green called Euston Gardens, at 10.05.  I can see no sign on the plans for HS2 of an improved facility for bus users, though of course by the time you read this it may all be perfect.  This is what it seems to say now, with the words 'bus station' applied to a tiny sliver of land.

Anyway, off we went down Woburn Place, past the 'new' St Pancras Church, and Tavistock Square, where the 30 bus exploded on 7/7, killing 13 people.  Of course the main memorial to the victims is in Hyde Park.

Our progress south was very slow, giving us ample time to admire the various building styles, including the 30s style former garage, now 'business storage', and the ornate hotels and mansion blocks

Rates of progress were also affected by slightly strange behaviour by other vehicles, and the congestion outside Holborn Station, spilling out people unable to change onto the Piccadilly line because of strike action.  This is part of an area logoed as 'MidTown', though it seemed to us that 'Kingstown' might be a better name, as King's College now owns a lot of it.  We were able to spot more of the pictures of alumni and others with links to the institution, before finally arriving at Aldwych 30 minutes after leaving Euston.  I suppose a comfort for public transport users is that all the people who had paid £11.50 to use the road were equally slow.

So, we turned onto the Strand, past the former Aldwych Station. By the way, you can visit it virtually here, or actually on a guided tour.

There are more King's people on the walls here, including Macadam (roads) and Florence Nightingale, neither of whom actually studied here. 

At 10.40 we turned onto Waterloo Bridge, and progress became a little less slow.  The Old Vic has a show called 17c which at first we thought might be the temperature, at least where the sun was shining.




All this area is pleasingly familiar to us as we trundled past the coal obelisk at St George's Circus, and reached Elephant and Castle, where building work continues, and strap lines and logos abound.  Linda says that some of the attractive planting started life as guerrilla gardening, but it seems that the local council has adopted much of it.

South along the Walworth Road, we passed a number of charity shops, including the Shaw Trust, which is about education, and the Geranium Fund, which helps people with visual impairments, to reach Camberwell Green, where even more new build flats are going up, then past the matching hospitals the Kings and the Maudesley.

As we came to Champion Hill, we waited for a while opposite Ruskin Park, 'to regulate the service'.  I can only assume that the timetable takes into account the amazingly slow traffic north of the river, as I would have guessed we were running slow rather than fast.  My granny trained as a teacher in Champion Hill (she qualified in 1902, I think) It is now part of King's College.....

We passed Cross Court Flats.  It  seems likely that these are still in the hands of the borough, as all the replacement windows are the same. 

This area of road has those signs that light up if you are breaking the speed laws, and they did seem to be slowing down some drivers. It also has a large sign saying 'welcome to Herne Hill' as we passed Herne Hill Station and Brockwell Park.  We also went past the South London Botanical Institute, which we visited a while ago and much enjoyed.

Once the bus reaches Tulse Hill, with the enormous Tulse Hill Hotel, we felt we were almost into West Norwood, as indeed we were.

St Luke's Church marked the beginning of the shopping area which led easily to the bus station, where we arrived at 10.25.  Perhaps not the fastest way to get here from Euston, but very enjoyable on this sunny day.

When we explained to the driver why we had been with him since the start, he said 'that's beautiful'. What a nice way to finish the first leg of this South London safari.