East Grinstead Classic Bus Running day.

21st April

For my birthday this year I went for a ride on this:

and this:

and this:

and this (which as far as I can recall is the first time I've ridden on an RF, certainly a Green Line one):

and this:

and this:

and had a rather good day in and around East Grinstead, seeing a bit of the country I'm not that familiar with.

I also got to meet, albeit briefly, Pete of Pete And His Bus fame.

Bus running days are a rare occasion when you can actually ride other people's classic vehicles rather than just look at them. For free too, although I made sure to buy the programme/timetable the tenner for which goes towards the costs. You don't want to think about the mpg figures for these vehicles! 

I'm not sure that the planned timetable "survived first contact with the enemy" but there were plenty of different buses of varying ages to see and I'm sure I missed some of them but here's the

Flickr Album

London Loop, Section 11 (part one).

April 19th

At the end of section 10 I could have got a train home from Hayes & Harlington station but chose to press on along Section 11 to West Drayton, a convenient point for me to both break off and to return another day to complete the section. Reports had suggested that the latter part of Section 11 might still be impassable due to flooding from the River Colne or at least if not then probably very muddy. That’s my excuse anyway. So having stopped briefly in Hayes town centre to grab a coffee and find a loo I rejoined the LOOP under Bridge 200 and headed west along the Grand Union towpath, past a cast iron milepost “Braunston 87 Miles”, and under bridges 199 and 198, past a Mallard mum with 10 (or 11, you try counting them!) very small fuzzy ducklings. Then under bridge 196 (I don’t know where 197 went) where a convenient bench presented itself on which to pause, watch a couple of boats go by, and eat the piece of home-made bread pudding I remembered I’d packed that morning.

 

 

 

 Just before the next cast iron milepost (Braunston 86 Miles) the LOOP leaves the nice level towpath and turns right through a metal gate leading to Stockley Park. This 1980s business park, golf course, and country park is built on former brickfields and dumping ground, upon which about 140,000 new trees and shrubs were planted to create a woodland area.

 

 

 

 Across the entrance drive and alongside the golf course the route passes through an avenue of Lime trees, their spring foliage bright green, then through the edge of the business park and past the modern Golf Clubhouse where it bears right and starts to climb up past the entrance to the tenth tee and onward to the A-frame bridge across Stockley Road. About here I encountered the only other obvious “LOOPer” that day, closely and a little uncertainly following the route on his mobile phone screen.

 

 

 

 I passed ‘phone man’ on the way up the gravel track towards the viewpoint, which I diverted to up the short steep climb to the right of the path. You can see quite a way from this high point in Stockley Country Park although most of the details are obscured by tree cover. ‘Phone man’ passed by below while I was taking in the view.

 

 

 

Down from the viewpoint and back on the main path SSW across the country park and into the woodland along narrow paths partly obstructed by fallen trees until I got to the metal gate at Horton Road. Where ‘phone man’ suddenly appeared behind me so I’ve no idea which way his phone had taken him through the woods. On the other side of the road there is a choice of onward route, either following the roads or the “recommended alternative” along a new gravel path, Weston Walk, through a small park to an odd grassy mound like an Iron Age tumulus with a path around the base. I chose the latter obviously.

 

 

 

 Beyond the mound a set of steps leads back down to the Grand Union towpath, to turn right to rejoin section 11 of the LOOP. Seems to be popular with afternoon joggers and pram-pushers but from here it’s straight along the canal, with the Great Western main line on the other side, under Horton Road bridge (193) towards West Drayton.

 

 

 

 The next bridge (192) is adjacent to West Drayton railway station so that’s where I called it for the day and got the train home. I hope to be back when things have had a chance to dry out a bit on the rest of Section 11 when I’ll continue along the Grand Union and then up by the Colne to Uxbridge.

 

Flickr Album Section 11

 

 

 

 And I didn’t even get wet on this bit.

 

London LOOP, section 10.

April 19th

I want to walk the London Outer Orbital Path, usually tautologically referred to as the London Loop. This trail, nearly 150 miles long almost encircles Greater London, split into 24 sections between Erith station and Purfleet. The sections all start/finish close to public transport nodes making it really convenient if you live inside the loop. I don’t live inside the loop so it will be quite inconvenient, especially given the limited public transport options where I do live. I might never actually complete the whole thing but if I don’t start somewhere then I certainly won’t finish it. So what better place to start than the nearest bit, Section 10 from Hatton Cross to Hayes & Harlington. I downloaded the map and guides for Section 10 from the Inner London Ramblers website and picked the following Friday as the day to make a start. Yes of course that turned out to be the only day that week when rain was forecast because Sod’s Law applies. 🙄

 

Two buses and a tube got me to Hatton Cross Underground station, at which I’d never previously got on or off, so ✔︎. From there it’s a short walk alongside the A30 Great South West Road to the start of Section 10 proper by the bridge over the River Crane.

 

 

 

 This is River Crane Park and the path heads north through the woods beside the river and out into an open space and once you are away from the road it almost feels like countryside. On leaving the open space the route runs through suburban semis with double glazed windows to mitigate the sound of the jets on the flightpath overhead, streets not too dissimilar to the one on which I was born. On reaching the A4 Bath Road I crossed and turned left, at which point enough rain arrived that I had to put on my waterproof coat and then crossed back over the River Crane on the road bridge.

 

 

 

 Shortly after which the route turned right into the next green bit, Berkeley Meadows, named after the ancient English landowning family whose name also gave us the square in which nightingales sang and the hunt from which we get the rhyming slang, "berk". Exiting the path at the north end and crossing the road carefully it’s into the woods along muddy paths alongside the Crane until reaching the large open field which is Cranford Country Park. Across which the rain was now blowing horizontally from the left 💦

 

 

 

 And across which I had to walk diagonally to get to the exit after passing the Ha-Ha which separated the garden of Cranford House, one of the homes of the Earls of Berkeley (now demolished) from the open parkland. A Ha-Ha being a ditch with a vertical wall on the inner side designed to keep deer, livestock, peasants etc. out of the garden without the wall spoiling the view from the house. Ha-ha supposedly being what people said when they saw it. Or fell into it. 

 

 

 

 I was too wet to laugh at it but by the time I’d crossed the car park the sun had come out and I found a dryish bench under a large Yew in the churchyard of St. Dunstan’s Cranford on which to pause and eat my picnic sandwich. Doesn’t look like it’s right next to the M4 Motorway, does it?

 

 

 

 They didn’t build it next to the motorway of course because that wasn’t there when the Saxons built the first church, or in the 15th and 17th centuries when the current building was constructed. The church is locked outside of mass times so I missed seeing the memorial to the comedian Tony Hancock and the memorials to the many berks sorry, Berkeleys that lie within. Picnic consumed I crossed the cobbled (setts) yard and passed under the arch of the old stable block, then under the motorway and turned right into the wonderfully named Dog Kennel Covert, a strip of woodland through which runs the Loop, the Hillingdon Trail, and the River Crane also known here as the Yeading Brook which forms the boundary between the boroughs of Hounslow and Hillingdon. For a bit of urban edgelands it had a pretty good display of Bluebells.

 

 

 

 Emerging from the park via Watersplash Lane my eye was drawn to a large art deco factory or office on North Hyde Road, topped by an incongruously large cellsite aerial tower. I can’t find any information about this building, it seems to be outside the area of the former Nestle factory site across North Hyde Gardens. Something to do with the electricity substation to its north maybe?  If you know, comment below.

 

 

 

 Passing the above building and bearing round to the left and up onto the  flyover of The Parkway (A312), across the Grand Union Canal and down a long zig-zag ramp to the canal towpath and a little diversion to Bull’s Bridge Junction where the Paddington Arm joins the main Grand Union, giving London a direct link to the national canal network rather than via the Thames at Brentford. Next to the white painted brick Bull's Bridge is a finger post giving the distances to Brentford 6 miles, Paddington 13½ miles, and Braunston 87½ miles. Or it would do if some twat hadn’t snapped off half the sign pointing to Braunston. Cut off their goolies I say.

 

 

 

 Retracing my steps along the canal towards Braunston  and under the flyover the end of section 10 was almost in sight. Just a stroll along the towpath underneath the railway bridge carrying the Great Western main line and Crossrail Purple train Elizabeth Line then to Bridge 200, Station Road, the end of Section 10 near Hayes & Harlington Station.

 

 

 

 Section 10 ✔︎

 

I could have got the train home from here but the sun was out, it was only half past one, and I could manage another few miles so I continued on Section 11 to West Drayton. Post about that to follow.

 

Section 10 Flickr Album

 

 

 

Pilning (and Bristol)

April 13th

It seems to have stopped raining for the moment, time for a spring weekend getaway. I’ve not been to Bristol since 2020 before the you-know-what so I bought a small handful of rail tickets on Trainsplit and booked a couple of nights in a city centre hotel because I enjoyed Bristol last time and it’s easy to get to. I also had a little mission nearby that I wanted to do.

 

An emergency track repair on the GWR main line meant a delayed arrival at Bristol Temple Meads but I still had time to go for a coffee before I could check it at the hotel. The coffee was covered by the £3.90 Delay Repay refund I got from GWR though 😀

 

Bristol is a fairly walkable city so later I went for a stroll around the harbour, had fish and chips for tea (it was Friday night after all) and walked them off (a bit) along the trail around the south side of the Floating Harbour.

 

 

 

Which was thirsty work so I stopped at The Nova Scotia Hotel, an old pub on the Cumberland Basin part of the harbour. After a couple of very nice pints of local beer I walked back in the gathering darkness along the north side of the harbour back to my hotel.

 

 

 

 Saturday morning and time for the “mission”. The plan was to take a train to Severn Beach, walk part of the England Coast Path along the Bristol Channel/River Severn then inland to Pilning and catch the rare train back to Bristol. The weather forecast looked good. Well dry anyway.

 

The train to Severn Bridge was busy to start but as it progressed the passenger numbers dwindled and the views out across the estuary improved and half a dozen or so alighted at Severn Beach station.

 

 

 

 From the station I walked through the village of Severn Beach, a minor “seaside” resort whose attractions include a couple of cafes, a bakery, and Wow! a Public Toilet that is actually still open! You don’t find many of those in England. From there I took a path over the ditch, or rhine (pronounced “reen”) as it’s known here, and up onto the river wall.

And bloody hell that’s a cold wind blowing out of Wales! Coat on.

 

 

 

 I followed the sea wall along and under the Second Severn Crossing, a.k.a. the Prince of Wales Bridge, which carries the M4 Motorway to and from Wales, supplementing the 1966 Severn Bridge which can be seen further upstream. The tide was partly out and the path along the concrete wall was littered with bits of tree, some quite large, washed down from inland.

 

 

 

 After passing under the M4 and I reached New Passage Pier. This used to have a railway terminus and ferries across the Severn before the 4.4 miles long Severn Railway Tunnel superseded them in 1886. There is an information board at the point where you walk over the site of the tunnel. Beyond New Passage I turned inland to follow the Severn Way along The Pill river but soon and to backtrack because someone had let the cows out. The cows themselves weren’t the problem, the fact that the ground wasn’t yet firm enough to support them was since they had puddled the surface into an impassable quagmire and when the mud reaches over the top of your boots it’s time to change your plans. Even the cows didn’t seem to be enjoying the conditions. I re-routed via New Passage Rd. crossing the M4 in what according to the signs visible from the over bridge appears to be a no man’s land between England and Wales, and after a couple of miles reached Pilning. Well to be accurate I reached The Plough, where I was glad to have time to enjoy a pint of Wadworth’s and where they didn’t seem to mind the mud splattered apparition that just left a visible trail in and out of their saloon bar.

 

Pilning Station

 

Pilning is a formerly quite important station on the South Wales Main Line between Cardiff and Bristol. Potentially it could be an important transport hub for the surrounding area. Currently it’s the ninth least used station (2022-2023 figures) in England though due to under investment, poor management, and reduction in services that looks very like an attempt at closure by stealth. Until 2015 there were two trains a day, one in each direction. In 2016 that was reduced to two a week, the minimum permitted under the operator’s franchise. In November 2016 as part of the Great Western Mainline electrification the footbridge to Platform 1 was removed and the decision made not to pay to replace it. So now the two trains a week run in the same direction, towards Bristol, on a Saturday timetabled at 0832 and 1532. To make a return journey from Pilning you need to leave early in the morning and return early in the afternoon travelling to Severn Tunnel Junction and then back to Pilning. It being Saturday and GWR it’s not unknown for the trains to be cancelled. You can see why the locals are not happy. The publicity around the above has, because UK rail enthusiasts being what they are, resulted in something of an upturn in passenger numbers though and Pilning refuses to die. I added 1 to the statistics. Why? Because it’s there of course.

 

 

 

 Fortunately I only needed to make a single journey from Pilning to Bristol Temple Meads, cost with a railcard £3.60 and scheduled to take 20 minutes. Why the 37 minute trip from Bristol Temple Meads to Severn Beach earlier only cost £1.35 is a mystery known only to the gods of the UK rail ticketing system. I arrived in good time to take a look around. There’s not a lot to look at.

One platform, unlit because no one would replace the unsafe lighting and so trains cannot call after dark. One small shelter with a seat. This was actually occupied on my visit by the other two passengers travelling from Pilning that afternoon!

 

 

 

 An information point and a train times poster pretty much completes the set. There’s one station name sign ideal for selfies wearing your “#footbridge4pilning” tee shirt. No, I’m not sharing it here 😜

 

A couple of trains passed through while I was waiting, one in each direction. There’s no train departure board at Pilning obviously so I was keeping an eye on the Train Track app on my phone - fortunately something Pilning does have is a decent mobile signal. So I wasn’t entirely surprised to see that the 1532 train was now shown as “Delayed” with no estimate of when I might arrived. Told you, GWR + Saturday. Eventually it’s ETA was given as 1546 which kept moving away until 1549, which is when it finally appeared.

 

 

 

 This train from Cardiff Central to Penzance in Cornwall had left Cardiff late and was quite well loaded. Interestingly I had a seat reservation, Coach C Seat 78, but although the seat was vacant that was only luck since the reservation wasn’t shown on the on board display above the seat. (GWR+Saturday again?). Anyway it got to Bristol Temple Meads 19 minutes late so I got a refund of… 90 pence. Not enough for a coffee sadly.

 

Pilning ✓

 

I headed into Bristol city centre to buy a brush to remove at least some of Gloucestershire from my boots and jeans and then get something to eat. I had intended to return to the Nova Scotia later but frankly I was knackered having totted up a dozen miles walking and fortunately I had made provision in the handy fridge in my hotel room for such an eventuality. And that’s a really big television at the foot of the bed to fall asleep in front of.

 

Flickr Photos from the trip.