The E7 Route

Monday 25 March 2013

This was to be an afternoon trip, and Linda and I met to take the Metropolitan line to Ruislip Station, in order to get on the E7.  The weather was horrible:  grey and freezingly, face achingly cold, so we were not looking forward to waiting at bus stops.  But as we came out of the station, the E7 glided smoothly from its resting place to the convenient bus stop, and we were aboard.  The single decker was so filthy that I thought it might be an Arriva bus:  but First London has also clearly sacked its cleaners.  So you will be impressed with the photos that Linda managed to produce through the semi-opaque windows.  It was 2.55 as we left.

Turning right into Ruislip’s High Street, we were surprised to see a lot of TfL operatives but we were not clear what they were doing:  perhaps preparing for some rail replacement or other work?

The minute we turned left into Ickenham Road, the cafés and charity shops (though Age UK is now doing so much work which councils used to do that they really don’t fit the 'charity' label) were replaced by  detached and well maintained houses. These continued as we turned left again at the White Bear Pub which has the kind of website all pubs should have, full of history and jokes; and headed gently down Wood Lane to join West End Road.

There were red MoD signs to the Northwood HQ.  In the days of the Cold War, the place was called Eastlant,  and was the NATO base for the Eastern Atlantic.  Those of us who lived in this part of the world were sure that the first bomb of any nuclear war would target this and wipe out the whole area (though I never accepted impending Armageddon as an excuse for incomplete homework).

Next we came to The Bell Pub, one of several healthy looking hostelries we saw today and went over the Yeading Brook to arrive at Northolt airfield, once a significant Defence Ministry site.  The Polish War Memorial was a reminder of at least part of the history of the area. 

Once we were over the Grand Union Canal, the traffic was very slow and we realised that we were involved in the school run:  and the bus was filled with chatty school students.  We had not experienced this for many months, since we usually travel during the later morning.  The reputation that school students have for behaving badly seems to us mostly related to noise, and to be a function of several people together talking in a way that would be unnoticeable if only one or two people were doing so.  We thought we might make a collection of school strap lines: Greenford High School is ‘learning to achieve’, while Brentside High School prefers ‘learning and achieving together’.

It was still fairly green, with Ravenor Park bright with daffodils and succeeded by some allotments, not all well tended:  but as Mary and Eliza tell us, when the earth is either sodden or rock hard and anyway freezing cold, the early season digging is impossible.

Over the River Brent, and alongside Perivale Park, we came into an area of public housing, and signs to Gurnell Grove Leisure Centre, before following Argyle Road to West Ealing Station, noting the council’s polyanthus, or are they primulas,  beds.

At first I read ‘Divine Mercy Apostolate’ as ‘Apostate’, which seemed a bit unlikely and indeed was. The place is run by the Marian Brothers. We also thought that ‘Dents and Chips Away’  might be a food outlet, but it s obviously a car repair place.  We noticed, with an elderly shudder, that the Cherry Pye Boutique specialises in ‘Hen and Stag Night Novelties’, and I don’t think I can put a link to their website on what is, after all, a sober blog, and passed a former depository, now apartments.

This had been rather a residential route, so it was a novelty to see Ealing Cross, some fine new offices available to let: on other trips, especially around Croydon and Hounslow, this has been a staple. 

Finally, we came in a loop around Haven Green to reach Ealing Broadway Station at 3.45, just about the length of journey specified on the timetable.

The E6 Route

Wednesday 10 April 2013

Another bus route, another Tescos, as it nearly says in 'Kiss Me Kate'.  The E6 runs from the Biulls Bridge Tescos to Greenford Station, and I was pleased to be walking the couple of miles from the Toplocks estate to Bulls Bridge.  The only problem was that I was dressed for Tuesday's weather, not Wednesday's, so I was soon carrying fleece and waterproof and strolling along in short sleeves.  There are a lot of swans along this stretch, but I was comforted by the fact that we all know 'they can break an man's arm' and I am a woman.

I thought Linda and Mary might have enjoyed the walk, but I expect they are walking along the banks of the Danube instead.  Anyway, I am not supposed to be writing about walks, but about the E6, so let's get on.

This was another single decker, though slightly larger than the E5, and we were off by 12.50.  For the first 10 minutes of the journey there were few passengers.  We headed out and towards Hayes, round a roundabout planted with reeds, though whether this is a reference to the canal or to the rains we have been having, I cannot tell.

We turned left at The Crane Pub, with no inn sign to indicate whether this was a wildlife, River or building site reference.

Into residential areas, we passed mostly hardened front gardens, though some had planting as well, including some serious Pampas Grass.

The private parking did not mean that there was easy transit for buses, and our opposite number had to occupy the pavement for us to get past.

Turning left to go alongside the busy A437, we were briefly held up by police dealing with a traffic incident, so we were able to see that the daffodils were just about emerging.  As we approached Hayes and Harlington Station, we came at last to a few shops, the first we had seen since leaving the superstore.  No wonder the buses are well used.

We passed the West London YMCA and then popped over the Canal at the Old Crown Inn to  go round the back of the shops before emerging to follow the main shopping road.  There was a despairing litter-picker, dabbing at the heaps of fast food containers and bottles.  The canal towpath had been similarly cluttered, though there was a Waterways boat picking the shopping trolleys and plastic bags from the water.

As we came along to the roundabout by the Lombardy Shopping Park, our tickets and passes were inspected, and then we came to a 'Marshall (sic) Assisted Pedestrian Crossing'.  I am not sure what this is, though I suppose it could be a lollipop-person in term time.

Back into residential areas, I took a picture of some very good forsythia, especially for Andrew who likes other people to grow it, since it takes a lot of pruning and has a limited season, two factors he abhors in shrubs.


There were also primulas on the roundabout as we approached Yeading, and did a loop round the Yeading supermarket, whose name you can probably guess, as well as a shuttered Comet store and a B and Q where a delivery lorry was behaving in rather a silly way and held us up a bit. 

The route takes us past some rather good allotments, almost all of them well dug and just waiting for a bit of warmth, I surmise, before the potatoes go in.  Any attempt to plant them, as traditional, on Good Friday would have been doomed.

The 'Waterfront Developments' seemed to have been rather delayed, though whether by the weather or the banks was not clear.

I realised we were out of Hillingdon and back into Ealing when we passed a banner which read 'Ealing Walks, Why not join us?'

A mixture of homes lined the route at this stage:  a batch of bungalows, a lot of public housing, and some early 20th century terraces, as well as semis.  And then we reached Greenford Broadway, with its range of shops and businesses. I saw that we could get 'nice bites' at the Caribbean takeaway. but we were going quite nippily and there was little time for thought.  Or we could have eaten at Gurkha Spiceworld or, strangest of all, the Bombay Chinese Restaurant. (Need I tell you that I cannot find an explanation for the name?)

There was also the Revolution Centre, which proved to be an accountants specialising in Benefits advice, though I see from the Web that there is also a hairdresser of the same name.

Then we headed on along Ruislip Road East and under the A 40 to reach Greenford Station at 13.45, just less than double the suggested journey time.

The E5 Route

Wednesday 10 April 2013

There is no E4 route, though there used to be until 1997, as is explained here.

I was on my own, the other two Ladies who Bus having popped off to Vienna, where I hope the Danube is being blue and the cream on the cakes sufficiently whipped.  The E5 runs from the Tesco in Perivale to the Toplocks Estate in Southall, and my trip began somewhat later than I had planned, for reasons which I shall not explain, but which are not unconnected with the fact that the Central Line branches after North Acton...

Even someone with my limited navigational skills was able to find the huge Tesco, helped by the facts that we had passed it on the way into Perivale, and that there is only one exit from the station, so there was no risk of my stepping smartly in the wrong direction.

The bus moved from its resting place as I arrived, but then paused for a while alongside the handsome 1930s building at the edge of the car park before moving out along Teignmouth Gardens, alongside the intimidating A40 and crossed by one of those grim pedestrian bridges so commonly used to put walkers in their proper place at the bottom of the food chain.  We took a loop to the Medway shopping parade, where we picked up two passengers, doubling the number that had left the supermarket car park.  The we headed back to the main road, to pass Hanwell Town Football Club and head into Argyle Road alongside Perivale Park.

By now the little bus was beginning to fill up, the  single door slowing things down a little as people got on and we came towards Greenford, alongside the River Brent, past Cuckoo Avenue and so on.

The down side of the letter buses is, I suppose, that we get repeat journeys around an area for several weeks, and all this seemed strangely familiar.  But I did think of Linda as we passed the apartment block of Central West, because she thinks that wood cladding is a bit of a maintenance nightmare.  I also noticed a Salon Fryzjerski, and feel my Polish is developing well.

After we had turned down Greenford Road to pass Cardinal Wiseman High School, with its new buildings on the way to completion, the bus announcement said that we would now wait for a driver change, which we did, for about five minutes.  Then we took a turn around residential streets named for scientists (Fleming, Darwin, Edison) where we picked up a number of Southall-bound shoppers, who greeted each other and chatted as we moved through streets of well maintained properties. I liked the magpie on the bus stop.
 
There was still some green around, but this is a densely residential area, and we were a bit slowed down by parked cars, including those that colonise the pavement (perfectly legally, I know)



House improvements are clearly a major feature of the area, and I admired the various columns, porticoes and replacement windows as we passed.

But once the bus reached Southall Broadway, there was much more to enjoy, including the Himalaya Palace Shopping Centre, and the many sari and jewellery shops, though of course there were also American fast food outlets, hardware stores and so on.

Once we had passed Southall Station, we were back amongst residences, and dropping people off with their shopping.

I am always a bit worried by the huge blue tower with the letters LHR and an arrow on the side.  I thought aeroplane pilots no longer navigated by objects on the ground, though there is a certain 1940s resonance to the idea.

This is an area of many religious and political options, with St Anselm's Catholic Church  tucked next door to a Gurdwara, and the Southall branch of the Indian Workers' Association close to the Sikh Missionary Society. Actually, the Missionary Society is as much concerned with protecting Sikhism as with spreading it.  The interesting link here is about the turban, and the continuing campaign against prejudice and misunderstanding of its significance.

As we came past the Panjabi Centre, with 'Sounds of the Five Rivers' as its strap line, I ignorantly imagined that this was a pop group.  Doh!  of course the word Panjab MEANS five rivers, and this is the HQ of a Panjabi Radio Station.  Our route took us past one more Gurdwara, this one large and handsome.  I also had time to notice that the traffic wardens (parking attendants?) round here are still using paper and pencil rather than electronics.

We then turned into the Havelock Estate, rather an apt, if imperialist, name for an area with such close links to the Indian subcontinent, and having wiggled through the estate, we turned alongside the Grand Union Canal, to finish at the edge of Glade Lane Park at 11.50.

This had been a pleasant and varied route, on a lovely sunny day, and I was pleased that the plan for the day involved walking along the Canal to Bulls Bridge to pick up my next bus.

The E3 Route

Greenford Broadway  to Chiswick (Edensor Road) 

Monday  March 25^th 2013

You might term today ‘travelling under adverse conditions’ as we shivered our way round Ealing on this the third route of the day. Though we had initially been pleased to find ourselves aboard a fairly empty double decker, after an hour of no upstairs heating and late afternoon turning into evening on one of the coldest and gloomiest days of the year some of the charms of West London were wearing a little thin.

At Greenford we had bounded off our rather shorter E1, crossed the road and straight onto an E3, whose driver though not ready to depart was kind enough to let passengers on to escape the biting east wind. This was not a route which penetrated far into Greenford, and one of its first tasks is to cross the River Brent – incidentally it also crosses the Capital Ring, reminding us we had walked this way in rather brighter weather.

Unsurprisingly the Brent gives its name to one of the shiny new schools the bus route passes, by this time already empty of its pupils. We turned right, heading determinedly back into town and passing through Hanwell. Here there seemed to be a mixture of housing with what looked like a cottage style public housing on one side and the same era small semis on the other. Many of the latter had had their windows replaced (for which I am sure they were most grateful today) though one or two had opted for some rather bling-effect gold leaded paned ones.

As the lane approaches the railway lines we passed (again) the Press Gang offering a dry-cleaning service and the Cuckoo Café – there was a notice dubbing this stretch ‘Poets’ Corner’ which is just about admissible as we counted three major poets after which the side roads had been named.  As the route closes in on West Ealing it passes three churches within spitting (I know – an offence) distance of each other: one Methodist and nicely cleaned, one more modern and definitely Catholic and we could not see whose team the last one supported.  In case you were feeling short changed there was a Bible Reading Centre also.

Not far round the corner, Hanwell plays host to cemeteries for two of the Inner London big players, namely Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea, more or less face to face across the road, both laid out in the mid nineteenth century.

This being an E number bus (and therefore full of additives?) we avoided the mainer routes so left the ubiquitous Uxbridge Road soon to turn left into Northfield Avenue which became what we might describe as ‘alternative Ealing’   with the Chinese Medicine outlet, the allotments, Cheddar Deli and ‘The Owl & The Pussycat’.  Mr Cheddar Deli may have a way with cheese but I am not sure he has a way with words, while the Owl & The Pussycat is that ever rarer thing – an independent bookshop.

Less alternative was the sign to ‘The Walpole Collection’ – we thought it might be some documentation or exhibition for the eccentric builder of the not so distant Strawberry Hill but it actually proves to be a very exclusive development, admittedly one of restoration as well as new build 

By this time we were approaching Northfields Station, recognisably on the Piccadilly line by its neat, timeless Holden exterior, even if it is forgettable as ‘one of those stations you pass through’ en route to Heathrow.  The nearby Plough was celebrating the budget with a chalked blackboard giving thanks to Mr Osborne for his penny off a pint. I really think that’s going to save the economy – not.  Nearby Julien Road prompted Jo to say that perhaps he chopped his wife into neat little slices.

Popes Lane brought us into Acton via Gunnersbury and its Park, wherein lies the local history centre and museum. It is a mansion-type home which had been through various owners finishing with a scion of the Rothschilds. Though jointly owned/managed by Ealing and Hounslow boroughs the upkeep required on such diverse elements as the Japanese water garden and 18^th century bathhouse means things are a little less polished than when you can charge an entrance fee, as the National Trust would.

The Popes Lane route into Acton wriggles quite a bit and the traffic slowed noticeably but not absolutely, and we were just catching the tale-end of the after-school passengers. This was not an in-depth visit to Acton but time enough to see that only the façade of the Town Hall remained with a deep and empty building site behind, where new facilities are due to rise in due course.  Though I have trawled several websites I have yet to find an ‘artist’s impression’ of what the rebuild might look like. More passengers boarded at Acton than at any point so far and we turned further south-east through the very desirable Bedford Park area which likes to present itself as the first ‘garden suburb’, though built in various phases the red-brick and uniform height of the homes, some houses, some mansions does give it cohesion and doubtless there are very strict planning regulations in place to preserve the character of the area.  

The E3 then comes out very neatly by Turnham Green station and the Green itself; I was really pleased to be on a double decker to be able to photograph the Giles Gilbert Scott church (St Michael’s) at Turnham Green, but clearly it was already too gloomy. Jo spotted the 27 bus which terminates here and said she could ride all the way home, a sign I think that we were slowly freezing to our seats.  The bus dallied awhile, possibly for a change of driver and gave us time to look down into the side roads, where we spotted a memorial building marked 1914-8, which turns out to be an ex-Servicemen’s Club, now a more open venue and also listed.

Once we had crossed over the A4 (pedestrians need to use an underpass) the bus began to slow noticeably and we soon saw the reason why; he had caught the one in front which was now very visible. The river side of the busy main road is clearly Chiswick and there follow a series of quite significant landmarks. Central to these is the access to Chiswick House which was built mainly as a summer party venue for the then in-crowd, so has no real substance as a home (decorative but not practical) but has lovely gardens, views and the house is a treat from the outside. The local authority maintains the gardens. The nearby avenues are named for Lord Burlington who was credited with commissioning this Palladian Villa and its grand landscaped garden.

Closer still to the river there are more playing fields, allotments and access to Duke’s Meadows before the bus crosses its final main road to finish along Edensor Gardens and Chiswick’s swimming pool.  I suggested to Jo that it would only be a short stroll down to very scenic bit of the River Thames but she gave me a freezing glance that meant we crossed the road and boarded the first of the two other parked-up E3s in place, just to get back to Chiswick Station. The station is countrified to the point of there being no barriers – if we had been quicker we could have leapt off the bus straight onto the Waterloo bound train, as it was we waited in the Arctic blasts for another 20 minutes – no waiting room you see. Still till frigor mortis set in it had been a good trip round the quieter corners of West London.