London's Worst Bus Route 375: Chase Cross to Passingford Bridge Location: Outer London south Length of journey: 4½ miles, 15 minutes 375 is one of TfL's least frequent and least used bus routes. It exists to connect the village of Havering-atte-Bower to urban London, specifically Romford, and is their only public transport link to shops and a station. The Essex village of Stapleford Abbotts benefits too, this because buses have to continue almost to the M25 before turning round, Passingford Bridge being the site of the first roundabout across the border. This means the tip of the route is over 3 miles from any other TfL service, so if the every-90-minutes bus doesn't turn up you are royally stuffed. This is not why the 375 has become London's most balls-uppingly bad bus route. traffic closures are causing enormous disruption. The 375 goes nowhere near Gallows Corner - always at least two miles distant - and yet for some reason TfL have decided to curtail the route so it no longer serves Romford town centre. They first intended to do this in June, sticking up numerous posters warning passengers that the route would be starting at Chase Cross, then silently changed their mind. However last weekend they finally put the curtailment plan into action, the intention being that this much shorter 375 will continue to operate until the end of September. And now you can't catch the 375 in Romford, you have to catch it 2½ miles up the road, which is effectively the limit of TfL's advice to residents. Part 1: London's Worst Bus Route - northbound Also the yellow poster fails to explain where to change buses. 'Chase Cross' covers a fairly broad area north of the A12, and officially it's a crossroads the 175 doesn't actually serve. Most regular users of the 375 will of course know where the bus goes and aim correctly to change on Chase Cross Road, but anyone less informed might easily alight too early or too late and miss their connection. There are in fact two overlapping bus stops on Chase Cross Road where interchange is possible - Felsted Road and Belle Vue Road - but in the absence of a map or specific instructions who's to know? Also neither stop has a shelter, which when you could be waiting up to 90 minutes is potentially a big fail. The best all-weather option is to alight at Merlin Road and walk 80m round the corner to Avelon Road, or to ignore the 175 completely and catch the 103 instead all the way to its terminus. To test the sudden jeopardy I decided to see what would happen if I just missed a 375, as many people inevitably will. It's another 4½ miles to the end of the route so is it better to wait for 90 minutes or would it be quicker to walk? After half an hour I'd reached the edge of the village and also the edge of London. TfL would rather go no further, it'd mean they could run the bus every hour rather than every hour and a half, but like I said they have to continue because there's nowhere to turn round. That said there were passengers waiting on the other side of the road for the return journey, not just at the last stop in London but also at the first stop in Essex. What was odd, when I checked on Citymapper, was that the returning 375 should have been due but was instead apparently 25 minutes away. This was the first hint that my southbound journey was going to be a timetabling disaster but I didn't know that yet. Stapleford Abbotts goes on a bit - 2½ miles between the signs at each end of the village - although most people live towards the southern end. They boast a village shop, also a pub which doubles up as cafe and takeaway, also a school although that's quite a hike up the road. I hiked up the road, getting unexpectedly drenched when the earlier sunshine turned into a 20 minute shower. The returning 375 finally passed while I was sheltering under an overhanging tree, 27 minutes later than the timetable at the nearest stop suggested. I continued north past a surprising amount of housing infill, typically gated bungalows or clusters of detached fourbedders, also a few NIMBY signs saying the village can't sustain a few dozen new homes. The Rabbits, a popular pub serving an immediate population of about 20, beyond which one last downhill stretch took me to the Passingford Bridge roundabout. The former ford and current bridge are crossings of the River Roding, in case you were wondering. Here I found the 375's last stop out and its first stop back, so smiled because I had indeed beaten the bus. It turned up five minutes later, disgorging zero passengers into the middle of nowhere, and I smiled again because the ride home would be so much easier. And that's where I was wrong. Part 2: London's Worst Bus Route - southbound My previous assumption, based on everything I'd seen online, was that the normal 375 timetable would have been retained with the Romford end chopped off. People round here know the timetable inside out, thus they know to turn up at one of the nine times a day the bus actually runs. It would therefore have made sense to run it to time, i.e. to have the driver sit around at Chase Cross for the best part of an hour so that normal headway could be maintained. Instead it seemed some moron had tweaked things so that the longest wait was at Passingford Bridge, and then some other moron had decided not to print any new timetables. Even the so-called Timetables page on the TfL website still shows last week's timetable, not the new abomination the buses are running to now. Normal timetable Passingford Bridge (arr)07:0908:4910:2111:5213:2315:1916:3517:5219:17 Passingford Bridge (dep)07:1509:0010:3012:0013:3015:2416:4018:0019:30 Chase Cross07:3209:1710:4612:1613:4615:4016:5618:1619:46 Romford Station07:4909:3411:0012:3014:0015:5517:1018:30 19:58 New timetable Passingford Bridge (arr)07:0908:4910:2111:5213:2315:1916:3517:5219:17 Passingford Bridge (dep)07:5109:2510:5712:2714:2315:4317:0118:2519:30 Chase Cross08:0809:4211:1312:4314:3915:5917:1718:4119:46 I actually walked for over an hour, all the way back into Greater London, before the returning 375 finally caught up. Along the way I passed two people waiting patiently at remote bus stops thinking the bus would be along imminently, as timetabled, but instead it was faffing at the terminus for no good reason. One was aboard the bus when I finally boarded and one had plainly given up and gone home, and who could blame him? This is why I'm claiming the 375 is London's new worst bus route, because someone's changed the timetable without telling any of the passengers, and you really shouldn't do that with a bus that runs every hour and a half unless you're an institutional sadist. I should also say that the driver asked me to tell you this. She suggested sharing the news of the appalling new timetable with local residents, perhaps on Facebook, and getting as many people to complain to TfL as possible. She had no idea I write a blog people at TfL actually read, indeed last time I blogged about the ineptitude of the changes one manager emailed to thank me for "highlighting the inconsistency in the 375 publicity/service operation". It's ten times worse now, inadequately explained and leaving pensioners by the wayside, and all because nobody gives a damn about the residents of outer Havering. Let's hope somebody official works out what the temporary timetable really is, prints it out and tells people what's actually going on, else the 375 will remain London's most unnecessarily awful bus route until October.

My grandparents got married in August 1925. My grandparents grew up in the Lea Valley four miles apart. She was a farm girl from Essex and he was a town boy from Hertfordshire, both very much from different sides of the tracks. But their jobs brought them together, she a barmaid at the village pub and he the postman whose rounds took him across the river. He caught her eye, she leaned out the window for a daily chat and before long a wedding was pencilled in. My grandparents married at the local parish church. Hers not his, as tradition dictates, so the medieval church on the far side of the village rather than the medieval church four doors up the road. The local newspaper reported that my grandmother was the first bride to walk through the new lych-gate at the end of the churchyard path. I shall be referencing the local newspaper article several times in what follows. My grandmother wore ivory crepe-de-chine with veil and orange blossom. My niece also wore ivory, a flowy veiled thing with a train and less in the way of floral decoration, such are the limits of my descriptive abilities when it comes to wedding dresses. Her bouquet featured roses and a bold spray of white flowers, whereas my grandmother's comprised pink and white carnations, possibly locally grown. There was also a contrast in the choice of bridesmaids, the 1920s quartet being young nieces in white frocks and the 2020s trio being schoolmates in green dresses. Everyone looked lovely, no doubt on both occasions. My grandparents' reception was held at a farm up the lane because you can always hire your sister's gaff on the cheap. I suspect the groom's family found it a bit down at heel, indeed the bride's relatives are the poorest folk I ever remember visiting, but I've checked the actual venue and it's a listed 15th century timber-framed house that's now worth over a million. My niece also held her reception in a barn, this time merely 18th century and never used for chickens, additionally with a convenient space for canapes and crazy golf on the lawn outside. When did speeches get so long? My grandparents probably got away with a few words of thanks but these days everyone's expected to produce a carefully-scripted star performance before the food can continue. As father of the bride my brother knocked his four-pager out of the park with all the right nods and nostalgic warmth, while the groom played safer than I'd have guessed the day we first met. For a proper 21st century touch we enjoyed a speech from the maid of honour as well as the best man, the former eliciting all the paper hankies and the latter digging amusing dirt as only brothers can. The 1925 newspaper article states that my grandparents spent their honeymoon in Folkestone, which to be fair is better than my parents managed four decades later. By contrast the latest happy couple are currently sunning themselves in Portugal, and by all accounts utterly delighted to finally be husband and wife. My grandparents would have laughed at the idea of an eight year courtship and been shocked that the couple moved in together five years before tying the knot. But they'd have recognised the emotional connection the two of them share, indeed it's always apparent, and no doubt been proud that three generations later the family line continues to thrive. The two weddings may have been vastly contrasting occasions but what binds them both together, a century and a day apart, is a great occasion in a barn, a very happy couple and true love.

It's Bank Holiday Monday. There are three bank holiday clusters in the English bank holiday year. Double Check 2020). autumn gap is from the last Monday in August to Christmas Day. Double Check Double Check spring gap is from New Year's Day to Good Friday. Double Check Double Check 2038 (and then not again until 2258). Double Double Check April). Whenever Easter falls, the spring gap can never be longer than 112 days. 122 days is thus the longest possible gap in England. Double Check Scotland the August bank holiday is at the start of August. Double Double Check Conclusion The longest gap between UK bank holidays is 122 days. It only happens when the August bank holiday is on Monday 25th August. And it starts tomorrow.

Fleeting CLERKENWELL Back to London's premier lost river, now on the descent from King's Cross to Clerkenwell along the approximate line of the Camden/Islington boundary. It's no coincidence that the Fleet once marked the divide, although previously the boroughs were St Pancras on one side and Finsbury on the other. There are very clear contours in the area, the roads dipping down from Bloomsbury and more steeply on the opposite flank, although the precise level of the valley has been disguised somewhat by subsequent development. In 1768 there are accounts of the river flooding four feet deep round here, carrying off three cattle and several pigs, whereas what's being swept away today is the old streetscape. Rows of fine Georgian terraces survive at the top of Pakenham Street, but look down Phoenix Place and pretty much nothing of what I saw 20 years ago remains. The site to the left was once Coldbath Fields, source of yet another medicinal spring, and in 1794 a conveniently large open space on the edge of town on which to build a massive prison. The delightfully-named Middlesex House of Correction was originally used to house those waiting to be tried by magistrates, but later gained a fearsome reputation as a strict men-only institution with an enforced regime of silence. The governor was eventually dismissed following an inquiry and the prison closed in 1885. Enter the Post Office who purchased the site as somewhere to sort their parcels, a growing trade, creating what would soon be one of the largest sorting offices in the world. The upper section once used for parking hundreds of red vans was sold off a few years ago, inevitably for housing, as was the scrubby car park across the road. The resultant estate is called Postmark and has crammed in 681 luxury flats starting at £990,000, the sole enticing feature being the row of pillar-box-shaped vents along the central raised garden. A more attractive local presence is the Postal Museum which opened at the top of Phoenix Place in 2017. Step inside for a first class display that clearly delivers, also a free-to-enter cafe (which may help explain why none of the commercial units at Postmark are yet occupied). A separate building houses the entrance to Mail Rail, once the GPO's subterranean delivery service and now a ride-on circuit where you take the place of the sacks. Its builders 100 years ago had to deal with all kinds of underground obstructions including the River Fleet, which is why heavy mid-tunnel floodgates are a feature on your way round. Royal Mail still sort parcels here in the remaining building at the lower end of the site which has been decorated with the names of postal towns between the windows. I smirked when I spotted a UPS van parked outside the delivery bay, and oh the irony as a brown-clad youth hopped out to deliver a package to a resident living on the site of the postmen's former car park. The dip of the land is particularly pronounced along Mount Pleasant, a concave road that predates the Post Office's arrival. The street pattern was once very dense here alongside the fetid waters of the Fleet, a labyrinth of slums including Fleet Row, Red Lyon Yard and Wine Street. The Fleet Sewer replaced the earliest culverts in the 1860s following the line of Phoenix Place and Warner Street, then a decade later the Fleet Relief Sewer added extra capacity under parallel roads. A bigger intrusion was the construction of Rosebery Avenue in the late 1880s, necessitating a viaduct to be built across the valley to speed up through traffic and requiring considerable local demolition. However walking underneath along Warner Street still feels like stepping back in time, especially the echoing vaults of Clerkenwell Motors and the bleakly open staircase that connects the bustle up top to the cycle-friendly street down below. As we continue south, the moment when this was the edge of built-up London gets ever earlier. For Ray Street this was around 1700, although at the time it went by the far less salubrious name of Hockley-in-the-Hole. Here the contours of the Fleet encouraged the creation of an infamous resort for the working classes, a natural amphitheatre at the foot of Herbal Hill where the City's low-life gathered to participate in violent sports. It was known as the Bear Garden, a place to watch and cheer on fighting creatures now the South Bank had been cleaned up. A flyer from 1710 reveals that at one event two market dogs were set upon a bull, a mad ass was baited, then another bull was turned loose with fireworks attached to is hide and two cats tied to his tail. The programme of events often included bearfights, cockfights, swordfights and bare knuckle bust-ups, although the worst of the behaviour shifted to Spitalfields in 1756 and the worst you'll find today is a pub. Which is closed. The Coach was previously The Coach and Horses, a basic joint oft frequented by Guardian journalists when they were based just round the corner. Their HQ is now flats and the London base for LinkedIn, while The Coach reopened as a gastropub in 2018 (think grilled rabbit and onglet steak) and is currently on its second refit. Of far more interest on this safari is the drain cover out front, which 20 years ago was in the middle of the street but is now safely embraced by an extended pavement. This is another fabled location where the Fleet can be heard flowing through the pipework beneath the street, the sound particularly clear at present even though there's been barely any rain of late, so if you've never experienced the rush of a lost river this is the prime location to visit. And so we hit Farringdon Road, which is reached up a brief slope because the land round here's been substantially reconstructed since a stream once ran downhill. Farringdon Road is one of the great engineering projects of the 19th century, simultaneously creating a major thoroughfare, shielding the first underground railway and burying a river. It's breadth here is striking, opening out into an arched chasm that splits the cityscape as trains emerge from tunnels on the approach to Farringdon station. One nominal remnant from the old days is the span of Vine Street Bridge, no longer open to through traffic but a great place to drop your Lime bike. Of greater relevance is the Clerk's Well, a source of water for the medieval Priory of St Mary and which ultimately gave Clerkenwell its name. It was rediscovered during building works in 1924 and can now be seen through the window of a lowly sales office whose tiny lobby is occasionally opened by Islington Museum, hence I was chuffed to get a closer look in June. While the Fleet Sewer follows Farringdon Road the historic interest remains on the east side of the railway. Turnmill Street is ancient enough to be named after watermills on the medieval Fleet, and by Tudor times was filthy enough to have become one of London's most prominent red light districts. It's been scrubbed up a lot since, including the purest of office blocks on the corner where Turnmills nightclub once stood. As for Cowcross Street this was once the route for cattle fording the Fleet - here the Turnmill Brook - on their way to market at Smithfield. It's now a pedestrianised road which divides the two entrances to Farringdon station, with the tube on one side, rail on the other and chuggers in the middle. Crossrail's engineers had to take account of a sewer following a tributary of the Fleet which crosses beneath the southeast corner of the ticket hall, meaning extra care had to be taken when digging out the shaft. It's just beyond the station that the Fleet officially enters the City of London and Farringdon Road becomes Farringdon Street. Which'd be a good place to pause, I think, before concluding this Fleeting series next week. 1300 map, 1682 map, 1746 map, 1746 map, 1790 map 54 Fleeting photos so far (18 from round here)