The Number 237 Route

Westfield (White City Bus Garage) to Hounslow Heath

Monday August 15^th 2011

With Jo in Scotland, Mary and I had stepped off our key route, the 207, taken a turn round the facilities of the excellent White City Bus Garage and stepped straight onto a double decker 237 – a nice treat after the last bendy.

So it was straight out into Shepherds Bush at lunch-time with people enjoying the sunshine on the Green complete with its children’s playground.  Of course lots of passengers boarded after their shopping trips at Westfield and the outdoor market respectively. The market runs through from the Uxbridge Road to Goldhawk Road and it was the latter we were to follow for the first part of this trip. Just before we left Shepherd’s Bush we noticed 'The Shepherd and his Flock'  pub, rather opportunistically renamed I thought. However for a pub soundscape (and some other West London sounds) click here.

As we edge (the 237 and the 94 both) towards Chiswick, the signs of affluence increase with upmarket branches of Cath Kidston or Fired Earth and not too many Poundlands.  Oh yes, and I forgot to mention the French Kitchen and  Wyndham House – ‘Contemporary English Butchers’ which set us wondering what exactly made a butcher contemporary: a Cath Kidston apron rather than a blue stripy one??  Just set back from the main road at Number 70 you can glimpse ‘The Power House; once the electric source for London’s trams, built in 1901, but more recently flat conversions and housing quite a prestigious sound studio – the second on this route. 

Chiswick also honours its own with a larger than life statue of Hogarth  out on the pavement, and his house (which he used as his country retreat) close by but not due to re-open to the public until November of this year. Chiswick House with its excellent garden was also built for summer parties rather than winter living.

Another Chiswick asset is Christchurch – a fine Giles Gilbert Scott  building on Turnham Green, and even our photo makes it look like a village church. Heading, as we were, towards the roundabout we noticed how road up to the Green offers food outlets and shopping needs for the workers based in the office blocks the other side of the Green. Easy to grab a bite to eat and sit out on the grass – however, the two largest blocks were both very empty and this must impact on the local economy even in an area as seemingly recession-proof as this one.  

The bus continues to amble until it reaches the Chiswick Roundabout with the Flyover heading over the top to the M4. Gillian Clegg, local historian, tells us the flyover was opened by Jayne Mansfield: the US film starlet liked publicity and I guess opening a flyover was as good as anything?

This route does not cross Kew Bridge but does pass the pumping station and the nearby Musical Museum,

though our photo makes it look more like a petrol station than a museum.

No flying over but under for us, and a turn left as if to cross the bridge though in fact the 207 prefers to go along the river through Brentford, and Brentford, while also steeped in history  (Romans, Civil War battles etc) is kind of the cheap and cheerful cousin to Chiswick.

Being on a double decker let us peep over to the water but what you see from here is not the Thames itself but the  Brentford Dock now over 150 years old.  

By the time it /they empty into the Thames, the River Brent (which we crossed back on the Uxbridge Road and the 207) has joined with the Grand Union. The last great lock is also very visible from this route as we reach Brentford town centre.  This part of the route tends to be something of a bottleneck with two courts to service and a narrow bridge for the traffic to cope with.  We were not held up long enough to pop into the wittily named  'The Docking Station' a community resource rather the café I thought it was. Further pause as the drivers changed – I was interested to see that they did not even nod at each other let alone exchange any words!

As we drove on through Isleworth, at a slightly faster pace it has to be said, the over-riding impression was the succession of planes passing overhead, many so low you could easily see the insignia. Inevitably the roads here get wider, the property more uniform and less interesting as we move further west still pretty much in a straight line. There was no shortage of pubs, the finer and better kept ones maintained by the Fullers Brewery, whose patch this very much remains. That it was also a ‘controlled drinking zone’; this seemed slightly incongruous but perhaps necessary.

Isleworth morphs into Hounslow, an area through which we have passed all too often with its drab and unfriendly bus garage. Most buses in fact start on the High Street close by some of our favourite shops that set out their stock so well. I have never worked out the rationale for which buses are allowed through the largely pedestrian High Street and which go round but today we were one of the chosen few to take the chicane bends – this must be one of the most challenging bits for the driver as pedestrians are likely to do unpredictable things as we pass through. Today was uneventful and we re-joined the rest of the traffic and headed towards Heathrow with the continuing air traffic above us. A route which has been consistently busy and very much heading in a straight line at the very last takes a diversion into the back streets, where we hoped the home owners worked at Heathrow as certainly the aircraft noise was inescapable and at times scary.

Still there we safely arrived in just over an hour, having come through some of the livelier and historic bits of West London to the more down to earth or up in the air outer areas.  

The Number 236 Route

Finsbury Park to Hackney Wick

Friday October 8^th 2010

Our key bus for the day had left us at the bus gathering area (not organised enough to be a proper station, nor undercover enough to be a garage) outside the two Finsbury Park stations where we had detoured in order to use the platform toilets, kindly guided there by an off-duty rail employee...

Relieved, there was but a brief wait for the single decker Route 236 waiting in the forecourt. We knew it would be a ‘back-street’ bus from its size and frequency but pretty popular nevertheless taking us through the heart of ‘Gooner’ territory.  It crosses the Seven Sisters road and passes the City & Islington College (lots of students hanging about) and passes the end of Gillespie Road, the site of the former Highbury Stadium, now converted into flats, sadly not at very affordable prices.  By now the bus was heading into Highbury proper where it was clear money was no object – the nice roads are blocked off so are not used as ‘rat  runs’ and the tennis courts were full of ‘ladies who play tennis’.  We just glimpsed a local (not blue) plaque on a substantial home in Highbury Grove referring to a Mr Cruft, whom Jo correctly guessed is the chap who started the dog shows now named after him.

Highbury Grove leads into Highbury New Park and along the way we passed the 'Snooty Fox' which seems to be rated as a fairly amiable local pub situated on a key corner in Highbury. The gentrified theme continues along past Newington Green with a branch of a patisserie/boulangerie – no mere bread shops round here.  After Newington Green the bus takes quite a meandering route to disgorge most of its passengers at the Ridley Road market behind the Dalston Junction station. The market is much beloved by the locals and not much known outside the area, which is perhaps as it should be.

A couple of early birds who had already done their weekend shopping boarded as most got off – we do not usually ‘bus’ (for the blog) on a Friday and there was a real difference in the volume of traffic and passenger power between the beginning and end of the week. Dalston Junction is the end of the NEW Overground line (coloured butterscotch orange on new tube maps) which has transformed crossing London, with new bits to come in 2011.  [As indeed has happened: the East London bit of the Overground now runs through to Highbury and Islington offering even more scope for changing.]

From Dalston we were back in the familiar territory of the Queensbridge Quarter, where the buildings of the first phase look pretty much complete.

The nearby Tomlinson Centre has been unveiled since we last passed this way and fits in with the general attempts to brush up this area. This little bus them detours into a much older estate – the Regents Estate so named because it backs onto the Regents Canal – and then we emerged at London Fields, made very famous by Martin Amis in his 1989 novel, when his particular style seemed at its s most original and attention grabbing. The park was looking lovely complete with either sculptures or plant/topiary things of a seated couple – difficult to see at some distance. 

Roundabout here we passed the Anderson Road car pound – now that may not sound very exciting, but earlier in the day during our travels round Hackney (and truth to tell we barely moved out of the Rose Red Empire *) we had watched the cranes remove an illegally parked car from off our 106 bus route, so this is where we presume the hapless owner had to come to reclaim it.

Once more we approached the ever busy Hackney one-way system and slowed down past ‘Ocean’ – apparently a club but we were moving slow and close enough to see its foundation stone was laid by Princess Christian.  Who she? we thought – the answer seems yet another Victorian princess, this one originally called Helena who changed her name on marrying Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein, which brings us to a whole other question (unsubtle history joke). (I think I may have got something wrong here but you cannot tell with German aristocracy)

Talking of confused, we were not quite sure of the links if any between the Homerton Hospital – more modern lower storey blocks – and (round a couple of bends) the much more traditionally built Hackney Hospital.  The latter was of course the original workhouse, then the first NHS hospital until Homerton was built to replace it, and after some refurbishment (we hope) mental health  services moved into the older buildings. Whatever the client group this bus route serves both. Jo wondered why there was a college in Cambridge called Homerton, but it did indeed start life here in the borough as a teachers’ training college.

A few more bends round the former lanes and a glimpse of the admittedly not very large  Mabley Green, but probably quite welcome bit of park to this very densely populated part of Inner London. 

* ‘Hackney:That Rose-Red Empire’ Ian Sinclair – not an easy read by all accounts?

The Number 235 Route

Sunbury Park (The Three Fishes) to Brentford County Court

Wednesday July 20th 2011

In case you don’t know, Sunbury is just outside Zone 6 along the Thames in a westerly direction. This meant a long train ride and a walk from the station, which allowed us to admire at more leisure the pleasures of Sunbury village – our first pleasure was the use of facilities at the Admiral Hawke Pub where the friendly landlady invited us in.

Hawke actually died in Sunbury on Thames after an illustrious naval career mainly fighting the French or blockading them in the rough seas off Brittany. As a popular hero there are several pubs named after him but this one would seem to have real links.

Talking of pubs, the route 235 starts in the village at ‘The Three Fishes’ – with the smell of fish quite strong we reckoned they were frying today. The bus heads straight back to the railway station (built out of town in true cautious Victorian style) along pleasant Green Street complete with recreation ground, war memorial, RC school and those blocks of commuter flats that developers are so fond of building close to the station.

After the gentle pace of a village street (I exaggerate but you get the picture) it was quite a contrast to hit the major roundabout at Sunbury Cross, which offers one of the main accesses to Motorway M3 – tucked behind was a skateboarding park and a village clock rather dwarfed by the road junction.

We headed straight across in the direction of Feltham, which always offers signs to the The Young Offenders Institute but other routes go closer… For most of this stretch the bus passed a series of request stops and remained fairly empty – the road was bordered by bungalows and a little further on actual fields, which looked as though they had been harvested – Jo’s guess was barley – but whatever it seemed a little incongruous.

By this time we were approaching Feltham and spotted ‘Always & Forever’ – you’ve guessed it: a bridal shop. I started muttering about over optimistic shop names but today happened to be Jo’s forty-somethingth wedding anniversary, thus proving that the most cynical may also be the most faithful.

We had passed a couple of attractive pubs and then just rounding a corner stopped at the Three Horseshoes – we thought the bus might be waiting as he had gone too fast but in fact this proved to be where the drivers changed over and after the usual seat adjustments we were off again and down the road into Feltham; for us back on familiar territory from earlier routes. Feltham has a strip- rather than square-shaped green complete with war memorial and this is where the passengers piled on board complete with two buggies. And standing room only. Given this is quite a straight route, no real twists and turns and wide roads we wondered why they had not gone for a double decker although the singles came thick and fast.
Along the Staines Road we passed the Calen Centre, which offers a display of various aids, adaptations and gadgets to help the disabled remain at home and more independent. Hounslow runs this particular facility, though often these shop fronts are private initiatives. This part of the route was familiar (we had travelled it before on Routes 116 and 117): buses tend to go fast past the Baber Bridge over the River Crane, which is quite walkeable, Hounslow Golf Course and Hounslow Heath once deemed the most dangerous place in England. I suppose this may account for the number of old pubs, of which we passed many today – a refuge for the travellers but probably a hideout for the highwaymen too.

Our transit through Hounslow today was pretty swift and the large number of passengers dispersed, doubtless for the shops, market and trains – all on offer in Hounslow. It also has one of the less agreeable bus stations. Our much emptier bus headed further east towards Isleworth, past Thornbury Park and  West Thames College,  where there was evidence of recent regeneration and new builds. With the academic year about to finish everywhere this week it was a bit depressing to notice the college was already advertising for next year. Have you noticed all those curvy banners on posts that everyone seems to be using for their streetside advertising – we’ve seen a spate this year for everything from house sales to cafes. It will be interesting to see how long they last. Being, as just noted, so close to the end of term we were delighted to see a primary school child enter the bus complete with a home-made but very professional looking mortarboard. We debated whether schools were now holding ‘graduation’ ceremonies for Infants to Juniors or whether this was an aspiring mother who had made an excellent fancy dress choice.

Just after Isleworth station the bus passes the gate of Syon Park,  which in fact none of us have visited, perhaps because it’s a private property not with one of the well known chains (looking on the National Trust as the John Lewis of stately homes). Not surprisingly the streets and homes close to the Duke of Northumberland’s seat look like the remains of a feudal village and the roads become quite narrow, especially on the approach to the bridge over the Grand Union canal by the Brentford Lock. This was the only real delay on this route with a contra-flow system but even that hold up was minimal – first come Brentford Magistrates Court then if released from there you can nip in for a quick tattoo at Ouch before arriving at Brentford County Court and the end of this particular route.

Hounslow has displayed a variety of history boards outside the court telling how the local Catevellaini defeated Julius Caesar whilst en route to Verulamium (not via the 84, or should that be LXXXIV methinks) – later conflicts include locals versus Cnut and an interim battle (Royalists marching from the West) in the Civil War: on this occasion the Royalists won and men drowned trying to escape. Brentford was of course always strategically important and the local borough Hounslow are quite right to help us remember.

This gave us quite an interesting end to our trip which started with a naval conflict (Hawke having fought at sea) and ended with a variety of land battles, and this enlivened a pleasant enough route which took us about 55 minutes.

PS  Several routes to follow this week!!

The Number 234 Route

Thursday 13 October 2011

Mary and I met at Highgate's smart station, Linda being in Italy, and walked along Archway Road to where our bus was waiting at the start of the one way system. The charming driver explained that this was why it was facing the 'wrong' way.  We were off on our single decker journey to Barnet by 10.00.  It was to be a trip through the smart and substantial areas of North East London.  Fortunately most of the streets are quite wide as, despite hardened from gardens, many people parked some of their vehicles on the road.

Even the estate agents were somewhat classy, with fancy fonts and 'poa', that well known code for 'eye-stretchingly expensive'.  The traffic was slow here, though not for any reason that we could see, so we had time for scrutiny.

We turned right off Archway Road into Fortis Green, and then continued our tour of desirable areas by entering Muswell Hill.  Later we learned from our driver that he often had actors on his bus, because a lot of them live round here.  A flavour of life further east came with the name of one of the many pubs we passed, though whether it was named for the Stoke Newington vicar who owned the (now) Park, I don't know. The pub was built on the site of a nineteenth century brewery.

Muswell Hill also has some attractive looking buildings which we thought might be almshouses, but about which I could find no information, and an enormous, Edwardian Police Station, constructed in 1904.  Some of the shops were pretty interesting, too, including 'Art for Art's Sake', which had a controversial time a few years ago.

After passing Halliwick Recreation Ground, we entered a Hail and Ride Section, which swept us past the Bravanese Centre.  Bravanese people come from Somalia, where they are a minority group, ethnically speaking;  they are Muslims, and the Centre is their place of worship as well as their community centre.  Linda has often commented on how many types of Barnet there are (New, High, Friern, East) so Mary and I thought of her as we came into Chipping Barnet.
The houses here, too were large, and often gated;  so was the police station (large, I mean, not gated) and a number of fine pubs.  It seemed likely that the road heading north out of London would have needed plenty of hostelries, in the days when your first day's journey might have brought you this far from the centre.

As we came into Barnet High Street, we noted several more pubs, including The Bull, which is offering a collaboration between Roger McGough and Moliere, as well as a hairdressers that might appeal to fans of film.

Then we rounded the Spires Shopping Centre, and came to a halt, at 10.45.  We had a brief conversation with the driver, who was interested in our project, and said he enjoyed driving the route, just as we had enjoyed travelling it.

The Number 233 Route

Thursday 6 October 2011

It was a bit hard to be happy this morning.  Not only had the lovely weather mutated into cool and windy, but the account which controls the blog has been corrupted.  No I am not in Madrid, and if I were, and had been mugged, I would not have contacted anyone by email.  Grr.  Expletives. And the password has been frozen so we can’t add to our blog.  More expletives. (Perceptive readers - noticing that they are reading a new post -  will see that the problem has been solved, with the help of Google's help machine, which was scary but worked just as they promised it would) Now, on with the bus.

We – Mary, Linda and I - met at Eltham Station, with its fragrant facilities, and were onto our single decker by 10.15, heading to a little known corner of Swanley.  We recognised the chalet style toilets, nestling incongruously by the church but firmly closed, as we headed down Eltham High Street.

Large numbers of passengers came on board here, and indeed the bus was pretty full for almost all its journey.  As we passed Holy Trinity Church, Linda mentioned that she and Roger had been unable to get in to see the Gallipoli memorial window.  Perhaps when it is all refurbished for the centenary in 2015 it will be more accessible.

Once before I was reprimanded by a reader of this blog for commenting upon unnecessary apostrophes, but I couldn’t resist these, as they confirm that misconception about needing an ‘e’ before the ‘s’ to feel comfortable without the apostrophe. 

We ran through areas of pleasant houses interspersed with parades of shops, past New Eltham Station and past the Charcoal Burner Pub.  I have, as so often, been unable to discover if there were many charcoal burning works around here.

A hail and ride section took us past more attractive semis, with well maintained front gardens

(we thought it was particularly the configuration of the porch supports that worked well) and into Sidcup.  

Again, lots of people got on and off our bus, as we passed a shop with a clear change of use and a hairdresser’s with a name to add to our collection;  a number of shops were closed, sadly, including the Sidcup Pound Shop.

We hadn’t particularly noticed going up any hills, but we clearly had, as Sidcup Hill took us down steeply and towards Kent, over the River Cray, along which we could clearly walk one day.

  

The River is a tributary of the Darent and eventually the Thames, and gives its name to various villagey suburbs in the area.

 Suddenly it all felt pretty rural, with fields, horses and a large plant nursery, as we swept round the Crittal roundabout and paralleled  the big A 20 for a while. A guide dog came on board, with its owner and a friend, clearly well known to some of the other passengers.

Many of the passengers got off near the large Asda in Swanley, but we pressed on, through some residential roads, arriving at the end of our journey at about 11.05.  There was nothing much to see there, except some people getting ready to paint lines on the road, so we took the same bus back towards Foots Cray and our next route.

The Number 232 Route

Monday 14 September 2009

Two buses serve the Pitsfield Road bit of the St Raphael's estate, and so we combined the two, taking the 206 in and the 232 out.  Mary and I had the pleasure of Renee's company, standing in for her absent daughter. 

Again, we had barely finished one journey when our next bus arrived.  The 232 driver seemed uncertain, as he approached the stop, whether he was ‘out of service’ or actually going to Turnpike Lane Station (which has to be in quite small print to fit on the front of the bus), but happily we were off shortly after noon.

This was another single decker bus, not surprising, given the residential areas we were going through, and the three of us had only a few fellow passengers as we headed back the way we had come on the 206. To our surprise, we paused soon after setting off,  in Owen’s Way.  The driver announced that he had been told to go ‘out of service’ as far as Brent Cross and then pick up the route from there, but he would take us if we were going to or beyond Brent Cross.  A brief reference to the Project rules (you may recall that Linda said that they were whatever we said they were) brought the conclusion that as long as he followed the route, whether or not he stopped was immaterial, so we stayed on.  A very nippy journey therefore got us to Brent Cross, crossing the 32 route, in about 15 minutes, and we alighted to make use of the facilities at 12.20.

After lunch, we said goodbye to Renee, because the 142 is very convenient for her return journey (and Turnpike Lane isn’t) and climbed back on another 232 at 13.20.  We belted straight along the North Circular, from Brent into Barnet, the graffiti reminding us that we were in Tottenham Hotspur territory, and past signs for the New River Walk.  (which we again recommend warmly to anyone who likes to walk) 

I was getting quite excited at the thought of passing Eliza’s street, but of course we turned LEFT at the Bounds Green Road, where the splendid gas holders loom, for a little tour of parts of Enfield as far as Arnos Grove Station.  Returning to the denominational theme of our previous bus, the 206, we passed the Kingdom Hall of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, before heading south and crossing back over the North Circular at a rather handsome Polish Pub.

All that was left was to complete the slow Green Lanes experience to reach Turnpike Lane Station, where we ended our journey at 14.10.

Three buses today and not a single blue plaque.  These buses were going through residential and shopping areas, which were interesting but not heart-stoppingly exciting.

The Number 231 Route

Enfield Chase Station to Turnpike Lane Station

Thursday September 8th 2011

We (Mary and Linda) had taken a slightly longer than necessary, but still short, walk from Little Park Gardens through bits of Church Street (bustling and with a beautiful fish shop) and then dithered about which side of the road to be on to catch the bus clearly lurking by the station. We crossed to admire the Magistrates Court, at which point the 231 (only four an hour) sailed past on the other side of the road. This would not have happened if Jo were here, they muttered, though worse was yet to come*.

We waited in what looked like autumn sunshine – very unsure of itself – and then boarded the next 231, at 10.51. It continues along the High Street and we were pleased to see a very traditional market with stripy stalls clustered round the Market Cross. We passed through Enfield as quickly as speed restrictions allow, passed our last sighting of the New River and very soon were out along the Great Cambridge Road – a dual carriageway aka the A10.

Once on this stretch the bus went fast, stopping only occasionally by request. The scenery flew past at a speed where it was hard to make detailed observations: the road seemed to be bordered by trading estates interspersed with several allotments and some-one is building a Travel Lodge. The only place of any interest seemed to be the Enfield Edmonton Community School based on large site along the A10 called the Cambridge Campus, though I have failed to find where the rest of the school hangs out. This route plus the rather more frequent 217 must suck up some of the travelling pupils. Further in towards the North Circular (not again you cry) there are houses set back a little from the road, most of which had retained their front gardens – the reason for this we thought was that it would be difficult to drive off the A10 into your front garden. Sunflowers were very evident both here and on the several allotments.

Inevitably we reached the substantial Great Cambridge Roundabout, with little hold-up today, and continued south on the A10 still continuing in its dual carriagewayed incarnation. There were signs to the ‘North Mid’ which is the name locals give to the North Middlesex Hospital: this is the local community hospital that we had seen on our travels last week but it is a way back from this major road. We also passed the now faded flowers attached to a fence along Roundway seeming to spell out RIPOKI – I had struggled with this already and eventually came it the conclusion it said,” RIP OKI” as a more likely memorial. However I have failed to find any local connections for a dead Mr/Ms Oki and feel it may well be a tribute to a  famous horse ?

Once off the dual carriageway that is Roundway we followed the Westbury Road, which seemed by contrast quite narrow and claustrophobic but is actually just a standard inner London road. Amongst the Victorian era homes was a huge Baptist church, and then we were into the back of Turnpike Lane Station to rest up with other waiting buses.

The whole trip was under 25 minutes and that’s about all there is to say!


* See the saga of our misadventures at the start of the 221…