Great Bus Journeys of the World No 11 From Streatham Hill to Selfridges: Mike Roden takes a ride on the 137 bus

And so it came to pass that a few any landmark worth noting, as we the beginning – focusing on symptom months ago I travelled from Sloane halt at every bus stop to take on more relief and enhancing a patient’s Square to Telford Avenue, Streatham, passengers. quality of life to the end. on the 319 bus, and was faced with As the bus heads along Clapham Cedars Road takes us to Lavender the choice of crossing the road and Park road and people get ready to Hill and then along Queenstown doing the whole journey backwards, disembark it’s clear that the main Road. The station here was opened or forging onward by waiting five destination of most of them is in 1877 and was known as Queens minutes for the 137 to Oxford Circus, Clapham Common Station. The Great Road until 1980. Its official name passing en route through Battersea Bus Journey to Peckham on the 345 is Queenstown Road (Battersea) (an essential component of one of took me this way, and I observed then though the important last word is these epic trips). I forged. that Clapham had changed since the usually missed off official signs One of the last services to days when Battersea’s main station and timetables. I expect the Love dispense with the old Routemaster had to be named after it to gain any Battersea campaign, are working bus, the 137 has had a rather credibility. on that one! Across Battersea Park chequered history, covering a variety Will Self on his blog (www.will-self. Road and we’re near to Battersea of routes – in the 1930s running from com) recorded passing through here Park station – a grade 2 listed building Hyde Park Corner to Bromley - but it on a late night bus on his way home to opened in 1867. It was in April 1937, finally settled down to its current route Stockwell: following a mistake by a signalman in 1998. ‘…who the hell were all these that two passenger trains collided people? And what the devil were they just south of this station; ten people Mansion doing – many of them half-naked – died and seventeen were seriously Off we go up Streatham Hill, turning on Clapham High Street at 12.30am injured. It’s well worth taking a look at into Streatham Place, where we pass on a Sunday morning in January?.... the station’s restored booking hall and the Crown and Sceptre – now one where there used to be a brace of building façade (Battersea Matters of the Wetherspoons empire – which hostelries, there are now scores of Autumn 2013). was built in the 1830s. Once upon a them … pretty much a continuous time it was all fields round here, as strip of tapas bars, pizza parlours, Arts and crafts the saying goes. In the eighteenth Belgian mussel shacks and Brazilian The bus is now on the way to Chelsea century there was a nearby country steakhouses…’ Bridge, passing alongside Battersea mansion called Streatham Park. As I sit waiting for the bus to set off Park. Since I travelled to Tooting on This belonged to the Thrale brewing again, it is eleven o’clock on a chilly the 44 for Battersea Matters, the family, and Henry and Hester Thrale early spring morning, and if there was demolition of the Marco Polo Building entertained the leading literary any half-naked Bacchanalian romping (once the home of the QVC shopping and artistic characters of the day, in Clapham that day it escaped my channel) has begun. And across the including Doctor Johnson. The house attention. river, work is just beginning on the was demolished in 1863. skyscraper city which will replace As with all the rural areas Hospice the Chelsea Barracks. We reach surrounding London, it was the We’re off again, on a now almost Sloane Square and stop outside the coming of the railways which empty bus, passing Trinity Hospice. ornate frontage of Holy Trinity church. spurred development and population This was the first hospice in England, The official name by the way is The growth, and we’re passing through founded in 1891 by the banker William Church of the Holy and Undivided a range of different styles and ages Hoare to provide a home ‘for the man Trinity with Saint Jude, Upper of housing estates, private and who is neither curable nor incurable, Chelsea. (Not a lot of people know municipal, punctuated by a few small but simply dying’. Trinity still follows that!) Completed in 1890 it was built shopping centres. I struggle to find those same rules which were there in by John Dando Sedding to a striking

8 Arts and Crafts design. Apparently (I know it’s hard to believe) follows Sights to see: The Crown & Sceptre, at the time it was the widest church the line of a Roman road, the Via Streatham Hill; a Streatham restaurant; Battersea Park Station; embellishment to in London, exceeding St Paul’s Trinobantina, which linked Hampshire a choir stall in Holy Trinity Church, Sloane Cathedral by 9 inches (23 cm). I can’t with Colchester. It once had a black Street; One Hyde Park; the entrance to really do justice to the interior in this reputation as the route taken by Selfridges in Oxford Street article, but if you have time do go in prisoners on their final journey from and marvel at the interior fittings and Newgate Prison to the gallows at the stained glass. The bus moves Tyburn. By about 1729, the road had quickly on, through the impossibly become known as Oxford Street and expensive emporia which line Sloane was a popular entertainment centre Street. No prices in the windows here – bear-baiting and masquerades (if you need to ask how much then you among the main attractions. As the certainly can’t afford it). nineteenth century progressed it became known for its shops, and so Notorious it has continued, with around three At the junction by Knightsbridge hundred of them now tempting those station we come face to face with the who want to spend their money. At notorious development called One sale times, and especially at Hyde Park, blocking any view of the Christmas, you need courage greenery behind. The alleged asking to brave the crowds surging price for these luxury flats is more on the pavements. than £100m though there is scant evidence that these prices have been Tragedy paid or that anyone is actually living It was only a few weeks there, and it seems that the foreign ago that tragedy struck owners of those flats that have been when an elderly woman purchased are getting away with set off to cross Oxford paying little or no council tax to Street near Selfridges Westminster Council. Something and was knocked down is rotten in the state of Denmark by a 137 bus. She died methinks… later in St Mary’s Hospital We sail round Hyde Park corner, Paddington from head past the Hard Rock café, and the injuries. towering Hilton Hotel, then along Park Today the 137 has Lane with other expensive hotels such arrived safely here at as the Dorchester and the Grosvenor Oxford Circus. From House towards Marble Arch. This Streatham Hill to was planned by John Nash in 1827 Selfridges, it has been a to be the gateway to Buckingham journey of real contrast. Palace, but eventually ended up It’s taken me more than being stranded on this unlovely traffic hour to get here, and island. after a full morning on And so we near journey’s end and the bus, I go in search of we join the queue of slow-moving a quicker way home. buses along Oxford Street which

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