Bus Route Of The Day 315: Springfield Hospital to West Norwood Location: London south, inner Length of journey: 5 miles, 40 minutes
Because it's 31st May I'm exploring the 315 because that's the Bus Route Of The Day.
The 315 is one of Lambeth's duller buses - a bit short, a bit backroad and a bit infrequent. It used to be even shorter, a mere four miles, but a consultation saw it extended to a new estate in Tooting last year. I'm starting at that end near the remains of a hospital that recently rationalised its estate with the majority being sold off to become a large wodge of vernacular flats. That's Springfield University Hospital on the Springfield Estate beside Springfield Park, the last two of which are new. The terminus is up the far end by a care home and a sales office, also a park cafe called Toast, and is additionally served by south London's most annoyingly twiddly bus, the G1. Both routes run only every 20 minutes so you could have a long wait, indeed very little here is focused on convenience and it might well be quicker to walk.
The most annoying thing about the new extension is that Wandsworth council still haven't got round to erecting the proposed bus stops on Springfield Drive so the 315 sails through the estate for 900m without stopping, almost negating the point of sending it here in the first place. It then funnels onto Glenburnie Road whose residents fought tooth and nail to keep it out claiming the street was too narrow, alas ignorant of the fact that TfL can squeeze a bus through pretty much anywhere. Escape comes by the BP garage with the M&S Food, with those who've already boarded keen to alight at the big crossroads because there's a tube station here. This is Tooting Bec, lesser of the Tooting tubes, whose surfacebuildings are geometric wedges with whopping glass roundels courtesy of Charles Holden.
We turn left onto Balham High Road passing a lot of shops and the London Sewing Machine Museum, except this is never served on 31st May because it only opens on the first Saturday of the month. If you need to go to Streatham or West Norwood you would now be better off switching to the 249 because that goes there direct whereas the 315 is about to deviate and you don't really want that. Originally the 315 started near Du Cane Court, the massive Art Deco Block it's said the Germans had plans for post invasion, and if nothing else it would now have been very convenient for a pastry from Gail's. I should also mention that Balham was once the subject of a famous Peter Sellers sketch, because otherwise someone always feels the need to mention 'Gateway to the South' in the comments, indeed it's happened 14 times since this blog started.
That last paragraph is about the only time the 315 shares a stop with any other route, it really is an independent little route always striking out on its own. In this case that's up the side of Balham station then setting off down Bedford Hill. It's not much of a hill but it does lead to one of the best-named streets in London which is Terrapin Road, a prestige Victorian development thankfully previously blogged because you really don't want to get out and explore when buses are only every 20 minutes. Crossing Tooting Common is a bit special, and indeed a bit sprawly in this weather, although the 315 is never quite the closest bus to the Lido. Alas the one-way system means we're not going past Cynthia Payne's former brothel, that's only for buses heading west.
The traffic lights by St Leonard's church in Streatham can be a bit jammy but the 315 has a sneaky escape route down a road you wouldn't think buses would serve. Gleneldon Road is all Hail & Ride, also big and villa-ey throughout, also with one brief glimpse of a tunnel portal on the railway line carving underneath. It's then time to climb to the heights, this past an opening for Unigate Wood which was indeed once part of a farm owned by the famous dairy. You don't pass treasures like this on any other Bus of the Day, only 31st May, so it's perhaps a shame it's one of London's lesser ridden routes. If you're getting thirsty there's a Budgens by the Esso garage, although I don't think they do appropriately branded milk.
Climbing Canterbury Grove feels like entering proper off-piste suburbia, a sensation only enhanced when climbing higher to the hoop of Royal Circus. Anyone with any sense hops out at the bottom of York Hill which is still marginally Hail & Ride rather than waiting for the driver to pull out towards the first proper stop on Norwood Road. We've hit West Norwood and things are suddenly commercial again, so please note that Four Hundred Rabbits is actually a pizza restaurant and Badger Badger is a beardy gamers' pub. Stops for the cemetery, the station and the bus garage then bring this innately devious route to an end, not that anyone would ever ride it end-to-end because that would be pointless purgatory, which is why even I didn't bother. I haven't been on the 315 for ages and then only a teeny bit, which is brilliant because it turns out it's hugely faster to write about a journey you didn't make than one you did.
