Day one hundred and nineteen the No 190 from West Brompton to Richmond

This trip started with my helping to carry second hand books to a community centre in Battersea where my wife is organising a library with a thespian friend. After depositing the books I took the 1104 from Battersea Park to Clapham Junction and crossed to platform one for the 1117 to Stratford. This train, however, was rather tardy arriving and it was not until 1133 that I reached two stops down the line at West Brompton. The start point of the bus route is given as Empress State Building, a location I had a Civil Service training course in presentation skills in 1985. The bus lays over in the forecourt but does not pick up at this point.

Metroline's DE1004 outside Empress
State Building

The point of embarkation is a fair distance down
Lille Road. DE1004 arriving at 1149

I boarded the bus at 1149 which arrived just after an Easybus minibus that was taking half a dozen travellers to Gatwick airport. The route takes the bus straight west southwest across North End Road and on to join the Fulham Palace Road at the western end of this road. This was where the No 74 had turned left, but we turned right which took us past Charing Cross Hospital and on into Hammersmith bus station. We left Hammersmith bus station at 1201 and took King Street until it morphed into Chiswick High Road near Stamford Brook bus station. The bus then turned left and became the only bus route for the first time, as we took Chiswick Lane North. At the end of this road we reached Dorchester Grove where the driver was requested to wait a few minutes to even up the service at 1216. By 1218 we were queuing to round the Hogarth roundabout in order to take Burlington Lane, south of Chiswick House, which then became Alexandra Avenue and finally the Great Chertsey Road.

A car crossing the Hogarth roundabout flyover

After crossing Chiswick Bridge the road becomes the Lower Richmond Road and we headed straight on to Lower Mortlake Road to reach Richmond Circus at 1231. The bus here takes the road past Richmond station and terminated at the bus station at 1237, only 48 minutes after departure for a journey that is supposed to take 53 minutes. However, we started 4 minutes late so in effect we were only one minute early!

Arrival at the bus station in Richmond

To return home I took the 1249 train to Clapham Junction and then the direct train home. It seemed sensible to leave the next two buses until another day as they are in far northeast London and it would be good to do both in one go, if possible.

Apologies for poor quality of the photography as unfortunately I left the memory card in the laptop at home!