Bus Route Of The Day 187: West Hampstead to Park Royal Quadrant: London northwest Length of journey: 8 miles, 60 minutes
Because it's 18th July I've been out riding the 187, because that's the Bus Route Of The Day. It's no big hitter.
Officially the route is Finchley Road O2 Centre to Central Middlesex Hospital, but West Hampstead to Park Royal explains it better. The 187 is one of inner London's minor workhorses, a fleet of ancient rattly single-deckers twiddling round backstreets in an inefficient manner. Starting in a car park round the back of a shopping centre the bus manages to just miss the Abbey Road zebra crossing, Lord's Cricket Ground and Little Venice, all in favour of tracing streets where people actually live instead. Those who live in this corner of zone 2 suburbia have generally done very well for themselves, at least until we reach some of the council estates Dame Shirley Porter decanted her undesirables into. Maida Vale gradually blends into West Kilburn and then Queen's Park, and if you can imagine how bucolic Kilburn Lane must once have been you have a better imagination than most.
The shops at Kensal Rise thrive off disposable income, as befits a fine street of smart late Victorian terraces. But once you turn off Chamberlayne Road the architectural clock abruptly jumps ahead by 30 years, now passing bay-windowed pseudo-semis with gardens that make decent parking spaces. A teensy shooping parade here hides a cafe which started out as a grilled cheese stall in a Hackney market (that's Morty and Bob's) and what looks like a converted garage is actually a martial arts and wellness space. But mostly it's all houses, a few streets back from anywhere important, as we trace the outer fringes of Willesden. Look, we're just about high enough up to get one good view across west London. The owner of a Jaguar plated NW10 ROY must be living his best life. Who even knew there was a street caled Wrottesley Road? After minutes of mild mundanity a backed-up queue of traffic is your welcome to Harlesden, the shops on Park Parade kicking off with a vinyl/rugs stockist from the 0181 era, then Victory Divine Tailoring Alterations which might well be older.
Central Harlesden is a jumbly bazaar with a jubilee clock, eventually escaped past the County Court and the RC shrine on Acton Lane. Crossing the mainline brings the wafting smell of McVities digestives - if you're lucky - heralding the outer perimeter of the Park Royal trading estate. It's the 187's task to mop up some of the grubbier streets to the east before circling round towards the inevitability of the Central Middlesex Hospital, like a moth to a flame. The 22nd April, 22nd June and 22nd August can all whisk you away if you choose, but that's it for July.
