Ten years ago I visited (and blogged about) London's most extreme bus stops - that's the most northerly, easterly, southerly and westerly bus stops inside the Greater London boundary. But TfL's reach spreads wider than that so today I'm going one better, to the most northerly, easterly, southerly and westerly bus stops served by a TfL bus.
The northernmost TfL bus stop: Potters Bar Railway Station(stop C)
[route served: 298] [county: Herts] [streetview: EN6 1AU] [map] [photo]
Until 2017 TfL's northernmost bus stop was at the end of a godforsaken industrial estate in Potters Bar where most of the businesses tinkered with cars. Then accountants finally saw the flaw in sending 83 buses a day to a worksite beyond the London boundary and cut back the 298 permanently to Potters Bar station, its previous weekend terminus. And that's why TfL's northernmost bus stop is now outside a hefty redbrick Sainsbury's beside a parcel collection locker, somewhere eminently more sensible.
The station forecourt feels very much like the heart of Potters Bar, a key commuter portal amid the main parade of shops. Residents flood in to catch a train, to slump with an alfresco coffee, to avail themselves of the supermarket or to troop through to the well hidden Post Office. Four bus stops are located around the short forecourt loop, two used only by non-London services and two where TfL still stop. The northernmost of these is Stop C, the northern terminus of the 298, which is also the only stop without a shelter because you can simply hide beneath the rim of Sainsbury's if it starts to rain. It also means there's no proper bus stop, only a Herts-issue metal flag bolted to the brickwork. The timetable underneath confirms that Stop C is used exclusively by route 298... except on Sundays when the 242 pulls up just five times in case anyone wants to go to Welham Green. Modern, busy and wholly unimpressive, that's TfL's northernmost bus stop.
• Of all the four compass point bus stops this is the only one to be used by buses in both directions - it's both the last stop on route 298 and the first.
• TfL's second most northerly bus stop is stop D, used exclusively by the 313, one of the most scenic double decker rides in the capital.
• The 298 runs to Arnos Grove and has been operated by Uno, a Hatfield-based company, since Sullivan Buses threw in the towel last summer.
• Technically TfL has a more northerly bus stop quarter of a mile away at Laurel Avenue. However it's only served by school route 699 and this blog has always taken the editorial line that school routes don't count. Also it's the penultimate stop and no Dame Alice Owen's pupil is going get on or off here, two minutes before the school gate.
The easternmost TfL bus stop: High Street (Brentwood)(stop A)
[route served: 498] [county: Essex] [streetview: CM14 4RG] [map] [photo]
Before 2005 TfL's easternmost bus stop was at Lakeside, then came the launch of route 498 and a connection into Essex proper, not just Thurrock. Brentwood is only marginally further east but for the purposes of today's post that totally counts, hence I've journeyed to a well-to-do market town rather than a brazen temple to consumerism. The stop we seek is at the far end of the High Street, one of a cluster of six lettered from A to G (goodness knows where D went), specifically A.
Brentwood still has a pretty decent high street including a Marks & Spencer and several banks, although the anchor tenant in the shopping centre is Poundland so not everything's economically rosy. It also has two Greggs, one of which is immediately alongside Bus Stop A, as is a hugely more enticing Rossi's ice cream parlour. The three eastbound bus stops are diagonally indented with long glass shelters providing plenty of space to sit. However nobody ever waits here to catch the 498 because this is the penultimate stop and the terminus outside Sainsbury's is only 200m round the corner. One of the other bus routes goes not much further to the hospital, but the 81 to Shenfield and the 351 to Chelmsford are more substantial jaunts. If only the Romford-bound 498 called at 'E' outside KFC that would be London's easternmost bus stop, but by choice it picks up at 'F' outside Halifax so 'A' wins out instead. Shady, prosperous and cornet-adjacent, that's TfL's easternmost bus stop.
• This is the only 'extreme' bus stop not to be the bus route's starting point.
• Route 498 wasn't stopping here at the weekend because of a partial roundabout closure at M25 junction 28. Instead we went on a five mile(!) detour up the A12, which I think the driver secretly enjoyed, before creeping back to Sainsbury's through Shenfield. Scheduled diversions are rarely so extreme.
• When I visited in April a council operative was up a ladder beside the bus stop adding a VE Day 80 sign to the lamppost. Fair enough, but when I went back again on Saturday it was still there, as were all the others across the town centre and I can't decide if that's because of laziness or pride.
• Yet again a TfL school bus ventures further than standard bus services, in this case the 608 to Shenfield High School. Again it's the penultimate stop but in this case the terminus is a full 1½km further east making it TfL's easternmost bus stop by a country mile.
The southernmost TfL bus stop: Dorking Townfield Court(stop S)
[route served: 465] [county: Surrey] [streetview: RH4 2JE] [map] [photo]
A few London buses stretch ridiculously far into Surrey because the county council supports them, and one of those long penetrating fingers is the 465. It crosses the Greater London boundary at Malden Rushett and then continues for another ten miles through Leatherhead and the North Downs to Dorking. And not just Dorking town centre but a tad further on at the farthest tip of the inner loop road where, when it's time to return, almost nobody is waiting to catch it.
Dorking's lovely, a couple of notches above even Brentwood, as you can see from the calibre of the shops and cultural goodies down its High Street. But by the time you reach the end of South Street things have calmed down somewhat with a service centre, wine merchant and Topps Tiles the chief draws. Any final passengers are turfed off just before The Queens Head where the driver waits until the appointed time before nudging 50m further south to Townfield Court. This is a gated 1990s development of muted merits, one of whose residents has to put up with a glass shelter just outside their flat window. Adjacent houses are rather older and more characterful. Bus Stop S is highlighted in Surrey green with an extended flag that conceals a departures screen on the other side. Other routes serving the stop include the 21 to Epsom, the 22 to almost-Guildford and the 93 from Crawley, and it says a lot for TfL services that the half-hourly 465 is by far the most frequent of the lot. Far-flung, stockbrokerish and almost pleasant, that's TfL's southernmost bus stop.
• TfL's southernmost bus stop is 32 miles south of its northernmost bus stop, because it felt like that was the kind of statistic you'd want.
• It's completely coincidental, but I like how TfL's southernmost bus stop has an S on it.
• Yes, Dorking is further south than Redhill and the National Trust car park at Chartwell the 246 extends to on summer Sundays, I checked.
• I haven't included the once-a-year TfL bus stop outside Warminster station in my calculations, because Imberbus is not a regular TfL service, but amazingly it's only 1½ miles further south so barely any distance at all.
• Vlogger Joe Dan Hirst filmed a bus journey from TfL's southernmost bus stop to its northernmost bus stop last week, in case you want to see what Townfield Court really looks like (and the school bus stop in Potters Bar he went to instead).
The westernmost TfL bus stop: Queensmere Centre (Slough)(stop PQ)
[route served: 81] [county: Berks] [streetview: SL1 1DH] [map] [photo]
The 81 has been running from Hounslow to Slough since before I was born, long providing London Transport's westernmost extent. This time we're heading 6 miles past the Greater London boundary, all the way through Colnbrook and Langley to terminate beside the whopping Tesco by Slough station. But that's not quite as far west as the first stop on the return trip which is just round the corner in the actual High Street, from which those seeking to escape Slough repeatedly flee.
The stop is named after the Queensmere Shopping Centre, Slough's first retail mall which opened in 1973. A main entrance was close by but has recently been closed off as has over half the sprawling complex. The rest has become depressingly empty and lowbrow, so much so that its multi-storey car park closed forever last night for simply not being up to scratch. I was thus unsurprised to discover that Queensmere was sold off to residential developer Berkeley in April with plans to demolish the lot and build 1600 homes. Any shops Slough feels it still needs will decant to the neighbouring Observatory, a smaller 1990s mall, and I suspect John Betjeman would be simultaneously thrilled to see the current mess knocked down and appalled by the upthrust that'll replace it.
Bus Stop PQ boasts a four-bench-long shelter, a leftover from when rather more routes stopped here, but these days it's only the 81. It is thus the only extreme bus stop to be served by a single route and also, alas, the only one without a timetable. There is an electronic display screen but on my visit it was showing all the wrong times because the TfL/Slough interface is decidedly poor. A bus gate restricts access to this one-way street so there's a proper pedestrianised feel, but also three betting shops and a pawnbroker in the parade behind because Slough is neither Brentwood nor Dorking. Shabby, down-at-heel and inaccurate, that's TfL's westernmost bus stop.
• This is the only 'extreme' bus stop to have a red roundel flag.
• TfL's westernmost bus stop is 39 miles west of its easternmost bus stop, which is 7 miles more than the north-south divide.
• Both the westernmost and easternmost TfL bus stops are served by a route 81, and what are the chances of that?
• I have only been to two of these extreme bus stops this weekend, and three in the last week, because a post like this takes careful planning.
• There is no need to follow in my footsteps, but if you are tempted best go east/south rather than north/west.
