Old bus termini

[Phil Cattermole]

Dear all

 

I've started to photographically record old bus termini that no longer see a bus service.   The Romney Marsh area has long fascinated me and an interesting story could be told of the bus services in the area, perhaps starting with the Carey Brothers services and in more recent times.

 

Having looked through some of my old timetables, the Ship Inn, situated in Taylor Road, Lade is now certainly a defunct terminus, and itself is now closed, perhaps now awaiting demolition and redevelopment.

 

Services such as the 142 are timetabled as terminating here, and the more recent 119 shows just 'Taylor Road' as the destination. Nowadays, the current 102 and 11 pass this location just a couple of hundred yards away giving what is probably the best service the area has ever had.    It's worth adding though that there are probably more houses in this vicinity today than there ever was when the 119 and 142 ran.

 

Just a short walk across the shingle are the historic Romney Marsh Sound Mirrors, which can be viewed from the other side of a lake, after walking along the old trackbed of the railway line to New Romney.

 

Phil

 

 

 

 

[Geoff Lloyd]

Don't forget Winchelsea Beach, Phil - the 114 used to turn round on the shingle track at the side of the public toilets. KFN's all year round, augmented by Guy Arabs (EFN's I believe) during the peak summer period.

Geoff.

[harley shute 22]

Geoff

This brings another point - Where are vehicles with East Kent operating discs returning to tomorrow for the first time in a number of years (Coach services excluded)

Michael 

[Derek Jones]

Michael

An interesting question, but not one that is easy to answer accurately because of the overlap between East Kent and Hastings & District operations, not least with the 100 group.

There are two groups of services that would be obvious candidates, those taken over by M&D from East Kent in 1969 when Ore depot closed, and those transferred in 1973 when East Kent relinquished its Rye depot and handed that to M&D.

The first group featured EK routes 127 (Pett) and 128 (Fairlight/Pett Level), which (initially) became M&D 171 and 170 respectively.  They are now covered by 347 and 344 respectively, but these routes were part of the Rother area group that was jointly worked with East Kent when first transferred from Coastal to Stagecoach in 2011, so have seen East Kent operation fairly recently.

The Rye routes involved in the 1973 transfer (for a while these continued to see the use of EK vehicles on loan to M&D, in some cases into 1974) were 114 (Hastings - Winchelsea Beach), which now forms part of 344 (see above); 115 (Rye - Rye Harbour), now part of 312 (to which the same applies); 116 (Rye - Lydd), now part of 100; and 117 (Rye - Cadborough Cliff).  The latter terminus is now served by Rye Community Transport journeys on 326, although Stagecoach passes close by on Udimore Road itself with the 342.

So for these routes, unless there is some local detail I have overlooked (and you are probably better placed than me to know that), there is very little in the latest transfers that does more than reintroduce East Kent operation to places that had it between 31st July 2011 and 31st March 2012.

However, your comment about ignoring coach services reminds me about East Kent route 62, which (like the local parts of South Coast Express) ran between Margate and Hastings, but was a genuine stage service and from time to time included journeys that ran between New Romney and Rye via Brookland and East Guldeford.  The latter two villages are now served by the 11 and 100 respectively, but the only direct link between the two today is provided by Jempsons.  So even now, there are still sections of route that have been served in the past by East Kent but are not on their network today (at least not yet!).

Of greater interest would be anywhere in East Sussex that East Kent have served in the more distant past on a route that was not handed over to M&D in either 1969 or 1973.  That would need some rather deeper research, so will take a bit longer to answer, so suggestions are welcome from anyone with a deeper interest in the history of East Kent routes.

Derek J

[Derek Jones]

As well as 62 and 114/5/6/7, the Rye handover in 1973/4 also included
routes 112 (Ashford-Rye via Brenzett) which is mostly now covered by
the 11 but also served the Brookland-East Guldeford part of the A259
that I mentioned for the 62; and the 113 (Hastings-Rye via Guestling),
which of course is now part of the 100.

Like Faversham and Ashford, Romney Marsh had extra interest over the
years by being on the border between East Kent and M&D, although
(other than on paper) the boundary here was never as firmly defined as
it was further north in Kent.

Derek J

[Group_owner]

A further qualification is necessary - my description of the 112 earlier today referred to its final form before takeover by M&D (and renumbering to 412 from 8th July 1974).  Prior to May 1971, there were two distinct Ashford-Rye routes run by East Kent, the 2 via Kingsnorth, Ham Street, Snave, Brenzett and Brookland, and the 112 via Kingsnorth, Ham Street, Kenardington, Appledore, Stone, Wittersham (Stocks) and Iden.   That particular 2 was once a relatively infrequent through service from Canterbury to Hastings (which at the time would have been superimposed over the main 1 between Canterbury and Ashford, and the 113 between Rye and Hastings), but such delights had disappeared before 1971, and the 112 thereafter became something of a hybrid, covering sections of both routes on selected days of the week.  Kenardington and Appledore are of course now served by the 11B, and Wittersham and Iden have the 312, but Stone residents wishing to reach Rye are currently limited to New Enterprise/Arriva 293 on Thursdays only.

It's never a straightforward task trying to fathom the history of any route over a long period!

Derek J

[AECBus]

Didn't it also include the 113 Rye-Hastings (Falaise Road) via main road? This was renumbered 413 by M&D, later 499 when linked with the Eastbourne service,  and now covered by Wave 100.

The 114 was linked with the 134 Hastings - Fairlight or Pett Level service to create the through 414 service which is still covered by the 344.  The 1975 timetable still included short workings from Hastings to Fairlight but they were dropped later that year or in the 1976 service revisions (i.e. cuts).  The 413 number was briefly reused for the shortlived service to Hastings Country Park at Fairlight, for which Reliance 325 NKT was converted to open-top but rarely used. It was tried again later by Hastings & District with Bristol VR HKE 690L but was equally shortlived.

Neil.

[AECBus]

Now when I embarked on my little ramble yesterday I hadn't planned it, but somehow managed to setup a nice segue back to the original topic of this post.  For I have this picture from 1975 of M&D Reliance 3269 at the Falaise Road terminus of route 413, the traditional and long since unused terminus of East Kent 113.
By the way, there is a frontispiece picture of EK KFN 235 on the 113 coming through the arch at Winchelsea in Stewart Brown's recent AEC Buses book, taken by John Aldridge in 1971.

Should have read the earlier posts more carefully, the 113 did get a mention.  And Winchelsea Beach was the terminus of the 114 not Pett Level, but I'm pretty sure this was the service from Rye and the service from Hastings was M&D 134 before the two were linked as the 414.  There was also a 415 variant under M&D which did a double run down to Rye Harbour  between Rye and Winchelsea.

Neil.

[Group_owner]

Thanks for your contributions, Neil.

For the record, M&D 134 was extended from Fairlight Glen to Pett Level from 19th September 1971, enabling the withdrawal of the 170 (the former EK 128) after two years under M&D control, and was merged with the 114 to form the new 414 between Rye and Hastings on 2nd June 1974.

Derek J

[BARRY OVENDEN]

Thanks to all for these interesting notes on former routes and termini.

If anyone is interested I can list about 20 former termini in the Ashford area many of which have been bypassed as development has spread. Some of the most interesting are those which had specific provision for buses terminating. The reversing bay in Hunter Avenue opposite the old Swinards Garage and Fish & Chip shop was one which had 4 arrivals/departures an hour. Then later there was the loop for buses terminating at Arlington Clockhouse. In a number of cases buses were required to reverse onto or off main roads under the watchful eye of the conductor. Examples of this at Woodchurch Turning, Kingsnorth Cross Roads and May Pits in South Ashford.

I am attaching a photo taken in about 1966 of CFN 151 at the Newtown P.O. terminus of the 124 outside the old Public Baths. A number of strands could flow from this photo. Was the 124 the shortest route in East Kent territory? Or more widely in this country?? And what of the vehicles which used to work under Newtown Railway Bridge? One day I will do an article on this - as many of you know vehicles were retained beyond their sell by date for this service and others were bought specifically for it.

Memories!

Regards, Barry 

---

From: Group_owner <dmjo...@hotmail.com>
To: mdekb...@googlegroups.com
Cc: Mdekb...@googlegroups.com; dmjo...@googlemail.com
Sent: Friday, 27 June 2014, 23:02
Subject: [Invicta] Re: Old bus termini

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Invicta Bus & Coach Newsgroup" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to mdekbusclub...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to mdekb...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/mdekbusclub.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Lew Finnis]

I suspect 75 Sandwich to Sandown Lees Estate was shorter but can't check at the moment.