The H12 Route

Thursday May 30th 2013
South Harrow Underground Station to Stanmore Station

This was half-term and Jo was walking in Italy while Mary was on grandparent duty so I decided to travel alone, having arrived at South Harrow via an Uxbridge route and the Piccadilly Line. This is a well-used and frequent service thus justifying a double decker and without hesitation we rolled out of the small bus station. While this may have been a pleasant enough route the bus itself was dirty – you stuck to the floor in various places and the handrails were not for the faint-hearted. The driver too seemed to think he was handling some kind of sports car on a race-track as he threw the vehicle round the numerous bends that characterize the route, so not altogether a comfortable trip capturing a corner of NW London. Thus the photos are pretty fuzzy too..

This route leaves the High Road very soon, just long enough to note the South Asian flavours of the area, including the Hyderbadi Nawab Indian Restaurant – a name I thought stood out from the usual slew of Taj Mahals, Agras and Koh-i-Noors. Whether the food matches the name I cannot comment.

The bus takes a ‘back route’ to Rayners Lane, passing initially more established housing but towards the Rayners end there were signs of newer commuter flats (2 beds) and promises of  'The Spectrum'.

 I thought these might be homes to buy or private rent but it seems they may be Harrow council revamping some of its social housing?  This route touches on the High Street area long enough to remember this is where the Zoroastrians have their UK HQ, seemingly housed in the old cinema, and that Mr Sydney Hurry is keen to help you move onto the next world, with his undertakers business.

Village Way takes the route towards Pinner (named for the River Pinn, which runs through the village),  another North London ‘village’ if you will, and another lane for the driver to swoop along – this time Cannonbury with 2 ‘ns’ to distinguish it from the Islington variety of Canons. By now the trees were so leafy (and heavy with rain) that we were being battered by branches as well as thrown about – it’s a wonder I can read my notes.

Amongst Pinner’s independent shops I spotted a sign saying ‘The Meat Like It Used To Be Company’ which seems neither a good name – hardly snappy, not strictly grammatical – nor that enticing a concept, as perhaps we remember fatty gristly meat that appeared at school dinners (to be replaced by the even unhealthier turkey twizzler?). I presume what they mean is a traditional butcher’s shop.  

I only caught a rather tantalizing glimpse of the very splendid Art Deco blocks, which make up Elm Park Court, still looking fresh with their eye-catching green and white finish. From there it was back onto the altogether busier Uxbridge Road; at the risk of sounding like an estate agent (it has to be said these letter routes are substantially residential in nature so we are reduced to commenting on the housing stock which gives each area its character) the homes here are of the ‘luxury block’ variety, small and often gated.

The next announcement said we were arriving at Hatch End telephone exchange…? I was not clear why it was such a landmark, but realised Hatch End had never been on my radar thinking it was somewhere in Hertfordshire or Essex; now it proved to be another ‘village,’ its High Street having excellent vertical and horizontal planters, and even a little station tucked away below street level. That this is now on the Overground must increase property values even further. It also boasts the sizeable Harrow Arts Centre – planned productions include ‘Teechers’ – and a swimming pool also. 

The Letchford Arms Pub had been shuttered up though its namesake Letchford House is a listed building along Headstone Lane*, which gave our driver his last opportunity to swing the bus sharply to the right and take the curve to serve what is ostensibly a large area of social housing also blessed with the Overground. This being half-term, a large group of girls got on the bus for quite a short distance.  This little detour off the Uxbridge Road allows the bus to call in at Harrow Weald Bus garage where the drivers changed; they obviously knew each other as they swapped holiday accounts. The stop was long enough to observe that any hungry driver would have the choice of Waitrose on the one hand or KFC on the other.   The driving became noticeably smoother thereafter and we were soon back on the Uxbridge Road heading steadily via a series of planted-up roundabouts to Stanmore.  Some recent German visitors had been very complimentary, and shown ‘roundabout-envy’ about the English love of vehicle management and how much traffic sense they made, so I suppose we should stop taking them for granted. More Uxbridge Road meant more spacious set back properties, and green verges with low hanging trees. Harrow Weald Cemetery adds to the general aura of open greenness.

Just as we approached Stanmore the traffic slowed to an almost standstill – time to admire St John’s Church which is picturesque if not distinguished, and to catch the H12 in front. The Broadway, though so called, is not very so traffic, by now consisting of several double decker routes, always slows through Stanmore but today there were even more delays due to road works further up outside Stanmore Station, the resting place for this NW London criss cross bus route. 

 * co-incidentally diamondgeezer has been visiting an ancient barn in Headstone  diamondgeezer.blogspot.co.uk - see here for his account of the Harrow rarity 

You may remember that we did some filming in late April for the  London Councils – you can now find the excellent results on their website or via Youtube   http://www.londoncouncils.gov.uk/services/freedompass/news/pressdetail.htm?pk=1622

 and on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIYqBtqi9hY

There is also a Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/pages/Freedom-Pass-The-Movie/260496180755941

The H11 Route

Thursday 5 June 2013

A bright, sunny day saw Linda and me on two brief but enjoyable bus trips around Harrow and Wembley.  We began at Mount Vernon Hospital, a place of less than pleasant memories form me, though I suppose one has to say 'all's well that ends well'.

We were off at about 10.20, and turned right and then left to head back towards Northwood Station, where we had arrived.  This bit of Northwood is very leafy and pleasant though, as we have said before, it does house the HQ of the armed forces of this part of the world.  We came past some attractive greenery before reaching Northwood High Street, with a dry cleaner called 'Pressed for Time' as well as a number of other interesting shops.  


We were impressed by the fine alliums growing outside Waitrose.  

We also noted the Sapnay School of Dance, though this seems to be a branch of the main enterprise, which is based closer into Harrow.  Bhangra dancing would certainly be a way to keep anyone fit, if only we had not left it too late!

There was a certain amount of grandparental child care on the bus, which we were able to admire as we passed into predominantly residential areas.  The houses were neat, with lovely hedges, almost up to the standard of the Hampstead Garden Suburb, even if most front gardens had been hardened.  We did see some wonderful ceanothuses and japonicas, as well as wisterias passing their best.

This was all very familiar to me, as we used to drive into London this way when we lived in Croxley Green, and heading under the blue metal bridge on the outskirts of Pinner was a nostalgic moment.  More recently, we have walked the Celandine Way, which follows the course of the River Pinn, and takes you from Pinner Park for 12 miles to join the Grand Union Canal just short of the Thames.

On through Pinner, and back among its residential streets, we passed what had clearly once been a pub and is now Sync, a bar which has not updated its website yet in 2013.


Next we came to Elm Park Court, a collection of apartment blocks with a sort of chinese entry gate, which still looked as 'desirable' as it did in the 1970s.  Sure enough, it is Grade II listed for its remarkable Art Deco-ness.

Once we had passed Pinner Station and Pinner Park, we felt we were heading fairly straight towards Harrow;  we were the only bus along here, and so the bus was fairly full, with few people getting off.

We went past the huge brick Church of St Alban, and reached Imperial Drive to go over the railway.  A growing number of offices to let signs indicated that we were getting into the middle of Harrow, and having passed that large unfinished building (we cannot remember how often we have remarked on the lack of progress in the work since we first bussed this way in 2009) we reached the new shiny Morrisons, as well as a way into the St George's Shopping Centre, where a lot of our  fellow passengers got off.  

We stayed on for a few more minutes, to arrive at Harrow Bus Station at 11.55, having enjoyed this small slice of the North West suburbs on a beautiful spring - or early summer -day.

The H9 and H10 Route

Wednesday 22 May 2013 

There appear to be no routes numbered H4,5,6,7 or 8, so here we are jumping to H9 and 10.

These two circular routes  are numbered differently simply because they go in different directions.  So the rules committee agreed that we should do the pair only once.  Of course  one way systems may mean that we do not cover every inch, but that is the decision.  

Mary and I met at Harrow on the Hill Bus Station at 9.30.  Linda was, we hoped, having a lovely time exploring the east of England with German friends.  We headed out of the bus station, and over the railway, passing what had clearly once been a pub but was now a kebab place.  We caught a glimpse of Harrow High School, and also of a hair dressers to add to our collection.

But perhaps the most interesting name was the Estate Agents  since Lingam is the personification of the male aspect of the deity, and is how Shiva is often represented, while Gold is a pretty standard English/Jewish surname.   Our co-passengers similarly reflected the ethnicities of the area, and so did the various places of worship we passed.

Mostly, though, this route was through the semis and detached properties of Metroland.  Almost all had hardened front gardens, some with three cars on them; but this did not stop the residential  roads being lined with cars, making some of the route quite difficult.  There are no little parades of shops, except when the route touches on a main road, and the H9/10 is the only bus through here, so the heavy car ownership is explainable.

Effectively, we took a loop East and then North, round Harrow, before heading South to Rayners Lane, and then back to Harrow.

We visited Northwick Park station, with signs to the hospital, and then sped along the road towards Kenton.  We were, actually, literally speeding in a couple of places, as we activated those ‘slow down’ signs which some boroughs have, on our way through Headstone. 

On a trip that was to be heavy with religious buildings, we passed St Mary the Virgin, Kenton’s C of E Parish Church, Kenton Methodist Church, a large brick structure, and then a Wealdstone’s Evangelical Church.  After Harrow Leisure Centre (I am not going to say anything about fitness being a religion) we came to the Siddhashram Shakti Centre.

  

Passing North Harrow Station (it is on the Overground, so of interest since all three of us are Overground people) we found the bus filled with the perfumes of Araby and, sure enough, there on the right was the Dubai Mall, not to be confused with the huge place in Dubai, but with a remarkable range of interesting products.

Harrow’s enormous Crown Court brought us back down to earth, and then we passed the Kodak works.  This used to be the heart of Kodak’s operation in Britain when we all needed film, developing and printing for our photos, but digital put paid to that in an amazingly short period of time.  The site  is to become a new community,  with almost 1000 new homes.  The planning reports mention offices and shops but not other forms of work.   Sic transit gloria industriae .

After that brief flurry of commercial interest, we were back into semis, some with wonderful wisterias and ceanothus bushes. We also passed signs to Headstone Manor which houses Harrow’s Museum, and which we shall certainly visit some day.

Heading on south, past Rayners Mead open space, we came into Rayners Lane, the tube station’s design making it clear that we were on the Piccadilly Line and then passed the Zoroastrian Centre, once the Grosvenor Cinema. 

Continuing south and west, briefly, before turning east, we crossed the Roxbourne Brook - a stream so minor that all Wikipedia has to say is that it joins the Yeading Brook – we came to  Heathland School and then to Eastcote Lane’s attractive cemetery.  This brought us to South Harrow, where the shops again reflect the ethnicities of the locals.

We noted a women-only class for both Zumba and belly dancing, but were not tempted.  It was here that our bus had a fairly long pause, and we guessed that we had got ahead of ourselves with our nippy rate of travel.  Then, to maintain the religious buildings theme of this route, we came to the Welsh Church, one of several in London.  We also looked up the hill to the private school at the top, before passing a house which had clearly suffered a serious fire. Our last religious building of the trip was a synagogue, before we were back into the middle of Harrow, noting that ‘those’ flats, or were they offices? are still not built, but that St Anne’s is due to be regenerated.

We were back into the bus station at 11.20, after a 50 minute loop around the borough, and ready to look for our next pair of buses.

The H3 Route

Golders Green Station to Finchley Top End Circular Route

Thursday May 16^th 2013

Apologies for this late posting – a combination of overlapping holidays and house guests plus an elderly mother means that there has been little time to ride many routes and even less time to blog them, so some 2 weeks after the event here is the H3.

Red writing on the bus maps, we learnt as we reached the higher numbers, means select and infrequent service so we had to time our arrival for the once an hour departure (mid-day only) that characterizes this route.  This would also be our last departure from Golders Green Bus Station.

Like its companion bus this was a small vehicle (too small to be taken from its mother, we thought). Bravely it circles the clock tower war memorial (‘Justice Honour Loyalty Courage’ being the key words) and then started its journey up Hoop Lane, doubtless to offer transport for folk headed either to the Jewish cemetery or the crematorium. Three of my four fourbears (or do I mean forebares?) are buried on the left hand side and I’ve been to several cremations on the right hand side; the red brick is quite startling and also forbidding but actually quite harmonious. It was the first purpose built crematorium and thus set the model for many to follow. In comparison the Jewish cemetery is rather flat and a bit featureless with plots at a huge premium.

Enough with death and disposal and back to Hampstead Garden Suburb – we are most grateful for the comment informing us that garden hedges have to be retained as we certainly enjoyed the greenery today. Unlike its companion route the H2, once we had come past the wisteria-laden roundabout at Meadway we headed off uphill along Hampstead Way * and what is effectively the Heath Extension. (Meadway is the answer to another obscure question - its first three letters being the original pre-numbers only dialling code for this area.) Given today's trip perhaps they (BT's predecessors) should  have gone for WISteria as a possible code.

The Heath Extension is altogether another beast from the much better known and more popular main hilly heath with its famous views over London. This part was more lately acquired and has several designated sports areas, where we were taken as pupils to play rounders in the summer; certainly the most pleasurable of compulsory school games.

As is often the case in prime residential areas the higher we went the larger and more detached the properties became, so the more modestly-hedged properties of Meadway (thanks for explaining about the building/gardening restrictions) gave way to the altogether grander double fronted detached drives-holding-more-than-one-car homes along Hampstead Way* (see below) and Wildwood Road. The route does a brief sortie out onto a more main road with a chance to visit Kenwood House, currently having a makeover, before diving back down the Bishops Avenue, where electric fencing smacks of ambassadorial and similar abodes. Needles to say most of this section is ‘Hail & Ride’ and we reckoned many of those travelling were ‘servicing’ the big homes in on way or another.

Unlike the H2 this route strays out of post code NW11 and into both NW3 and N2 to merge the other side of the busy trunk routes at East Finchley Station complete with its lone rooftop archer (not to be confused with a lone assailant assassin) and renowned Phoenix Cinema currently running, it must be said, a rather mainstream choice of film.  We briefly shared the road with a couple of other bus routes before peeking off into the unknown (for us) territory of East Finchley’s hinterland. The other landmark to be spotted from the bus is the Bobath centre, offering physiotherapy particularly for those people with cerebral palsy.  After the ‘dry’ stretch that marks out Hampstead Garden Suburb as an alcohol free zone (presumably also part of Dame Henrietta Barnet’s vision of ideal living) the ‘Five Bells’ pub with its flaming orange frontage could have been more attractive.   I cannot actually establish that her town planning was as explicit as that but as a woman who set out to rescue young women from prostitution (and put them into service) she would surely have advocated gardening over drinking as a pursuit?

This and the Old White Lion were the only pubs we saw on this trip, and East Finchley had two sets of shops – those round the station inevitably offering fast food and dry cleaning, those two staples of the Underground user, and the few further opportunities towards Ossulton Way.  We enjoyed 'Amazing Grates' and  the later 'Dr Hunger Cafe'. This part of Hampstead Garden Suburb seems to be of a somewhat later build and includes some more modernist houses as well as the more ‘stock in trade’ Arts and Crafts homes – lots more hedges of course!!

As we reached Hill Top the bus indicator board briefly flashed up the message, ‘Hesitation Point’, which proves not to be a postal street, but in fact the driver pauses briefly before turning around and heading back.  So back we went – through East Finchley, across the A1 (easier than you might think) back along the Bishops Avenue, past Kenwood and – this time more poised to photograph – the Heath Extension and entrance to the Jewish Cemetery.

The H3 is a little more daring than the H2, branching out beyond NW11, and on a late spring day we really appreciated the greenery that characterizes much of the area. It all looked so respectable that it seemed difficult to imagine that I had passed some of my not very mis-spent youth trolling its streets for likely parties to gate-crash, and sometimes getting lucky… Today it passengers were few and the round trip achieved in the 53 minutes promised – our guess being that the odd minute covered the 'hesitation'.  

 

In theory a route which gets  you from one branch of the Northern Line to the other without going back to Camden should be useful, however at 5 buses a day total perhaps not?

The H2 Route

Thursday 16 May 2013

The 'H' routes go in clumps, and we began, as you might expect, with the low numbers, which are based at Golders Green Station and its recently beautified bus station.  What, you may ask, about the H1?  Well, despite not being numbered in the 600s, it is a school bus, going to and from Henrietta Barnett School,  Our second bus driver of the day did indeed ask us, and when we explained our aversion to school buses, said, with what we thought was a slight shudder,  'you should try it in the afternoon'.

So our H buses begin with the H2, a gentle circular route around some of the richer areas of North London.  This was a very small bus, of the kind with one door, and an Oyster reader made almost inaccessible by the opening of the door.

We turned out of the little side area of the bus station at 11.15. The War Memorial on its island has the four words 'Loyalty, Justice, Honour and Courage' around its top, all words worth fighting for, if only one could be sure of the 'justice' one.

 We noticed that Golders Green had become less prosperous, judging by the number of charity shops, and the closure of some others, such as the ice cream place. We noticed JAMI, which is a charity dealing with mental health issues in the Jewish community, a reminder of the predominant ethnicity of the area, as well as the other more common charity shops.

Turning up Hoop Lane, we passed the crematorium and the various graveyards which line both sides of the road, before entering an area of residential streets.  We were heading into Hampstead Garden Suburb.

The area is very pretty, or course, and green:  we thought perhaps residents had to have hedges rather than fences or walls, but I have not been able to confirm this.  What is clearly the case is that Henrietta Barnett's vision, that people of all social classes should live together, is long gone.  These are the homes of the very wealthy, who get to enjoy the wide roads and green spaces, as well as the substantial gardens.  We saw a number of striking wisterias, as well as lilacs just at their best, and some acers and azaleas as good as anything at Kew.

We are not sure what Ms Barnett intended about shopping:  perhaps cheeky errand boys on bicycles;  but there are no shops here, and few people took advantage of the Hail and Ride of our bus.  The first sign of commercial activity came when we turned into Falloden Way and had a brief stretch of main road and shops, before turning back into  Bishop's Avenue and more enormous houses.

Some were clearly not good enough for their current owners, as we saw a considerable amount of building work going on.  In Willifield Way, there is a plaque to mark where the composer, Eric Coates lived, though it is not an English Heritage plaque (he has one of those in Selsey)  Here's a bit of the London Suite for you.  We also glimpsed another blue plaque as we turned along Meadway, but I have not been able to pin it down.

Soon we were back along Hoop lane and passing the church of St Edward the Confessor, with the chequered stonework at the top of its tower




This brought us back along Hoop Lane to return to the Bus Station at 11.40: a pleasant little ride for a warm day when, if we had not known better, we might have thought that Spring had finally arrived.