Eardley.

As I recently mentioned, changes are being made to how local GP practices operate. This will especially apply to larger health centres such as the one located in Erith, photo above, please click on it to see a larger version. In a move that is designed to try and take some of the pressure from hospitals much of the routine testing and simple procedures are going to be migrated to these local health centres. I understand that this process is going to be done in a phased manner, and some changes have already been made, for example, local district nurses are now based in Erith Health Centre, instead of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich. I'm also led to understand that simple health screening such as blood tests will be carried out there, although it is currently unclear whether this will affect the services provided by Erith Cottage Hospital, which is a local centre for blood testing and x-rays. I am hopeful that both sites will be retained, as there is certainly a strong level of need for them in the area. I do know that the aim is to to reduce the level of minor use of major hospital resources. I think this is a laudable intention, but how it will actually work in practice remains to be seen.

The 7th of April marked the first anniversary of the launch of the Silvertown Tunnel cycle shuttle. This is a free dedicated bus service which launched on the 7th of April 2025, allowing cyclists to cross under the River Thames safely. It runs daily except Christmas between 6:30 a.m. And 9:30 p.m. It operates transporting bikes, cargo bikes and e-bikes between Greenwich and Silvertown through the tunnel in 10 to 12 minutes. The specially modified buses run northwards from Millennium Way in Greenwich, near to the O2 Arena and then heads through the tunnel to Seagull Lane, which is near the Royal Docks and close to Royal Victoria DLR station on the north side of the river. A lot of cyclists are of the opinion that this is a unique service, and nothing like it has been operated before. This is actually incorrect. Back in 2021 I wrote extensively about a historic specialised cycle transport service which ran through the Dartford Tunnel. In the intervening years, new information has come to light, and I am republishing the article with extensive revisions and updates. The photo above shows a rather unusual, if not unique model of bus that was seen for a brief few years in the late 1960’s and very early 1970’s in the local area - click on the photo to see a larger version. It was used to ferry cyclists through the Dartford Tunnel; cycling through the tunnel has always been prohibited, but in the early days of the then new river crossing, the tunnel operators made provision for people using bicycles. They had some standard Ford Thames Trader model double decker buses. They were built new for the purpose and as with most buses and coaches had a separate chassis and body. The chassis was to all intents and purposes a standard Thames Trader (quite common on coaches as well as lorries at the time), but the body was unique to these 5 vehicles with the lower deck built from new for 23 bicycles and with a rear compartment for tandems. The upper deck was conventionally laid out with 33 seats for passengers, although the staircase had to be substantially steeper than on a standard bus.  The Dartford Tunnel buses operated out of the Dartford Bus Garage, but the service was stopped in the early 1970’s, as few cyclists availed  themselves of the service, and it was deemed to be uneconomic. In 2021, I wrote that "The buses were judged to be too costly to reconvert for conventional use and appear to have been scrapped, though one derelict model was photographed in the yard of the Ensign Bus Company in Dagenham back in July 1993. No further information on these unique and striking looking machines is currently available". I have subsequently been informed that by the time the vehicle appeared at Dagenham Dock it was actually a Capital Citybus operation. The depot opened following the acquisition of Ensign’s London bus operations and the right to use the Ensign name was part of the deal, so for a while vehicles carried the Ensign Citybus moniker. However the operation was Hong Kong owned and soon transformed into Capital Citybus. The original Ensign Bus Company along with associated sales, engineering and sightseeing operations continued to trade from Purfleet and later Rainham and now back at Purfleet again. Before I wrote the original article, I contacted public transport expert John Burch, who works for the UK bus and coach trade association (CPT), about the fate of the unusual buses. He then kindly wrote the following, very detailed article:- "The Dartford Tunnel cycle buses were indeed unique in that they were the only double deck Ford buses ever built. The 5 TT class buses were based at the old Dartford bus garage. They were intended to operate the service through the tunnel. Because of the peculiar nature of their Strachans bodywork construction Ford struggled to get them through their tilt test. They also had to be fitted with special strengthened side wall tyres for operation through the tunnel. For this purpose they were sent to the old Poplar garage which operated buses through both the Blackwall and Rotherhithe tunnels and had a stock of the appropriate tyres. TT3 was the first to be delivered in October 1963. The other 4 arrived the following month in time for the tunnel opening date on 18th November 1963. The planned service was far to ambitious and it wasn’t long before it became clear that the number of bicycles wanting to use the tunnel was far less than expected. The service was reduced to a one vehicle operation in April 1964 and the TT operated service itself was finally abandoned in 1965. The service was replaced with land rovers towing a cycle carrying trailer. The TTs were all stored either at Dartford or Northfleet garages before being sold in March 1966 to Don Everall, the well-known coach operator and Ford main dealership in Wolverhampton. TT1 was sold for use in Scotland by Trucks and Pallets (Scotland) Limited as a test bed for experimental use for testing of what was described as a pedestrian controlled hydraulic bus transporter. Their facility was adjacent to the Central SMT East Kilbridge bus depot and workshops so it is assumed the project was being developed in conjunction with them. Although there were some observations reported Scotland it is assumed the project came to nothing and TT1 was subsequently scrapped. TT2 and 5 are presumed to have been scrapped when no takers could be found for them. TT3 was used by Don Everall as a mobile publicity vehicle for a while in 1968 to campaign against bus nationalisation. It too is presumed to have been scrapped thereafter. TT4 meanwhile was sold to Shrewsbury Corporation who intended to convert it to a mobile works vehicle. There are no known sightings of the vehicle in this form, but when discovered later it bore Shrewsbury coat of arms so presumably did get some use by Shrewsbury. It was discovered by accident in a scrap yard in Westwood Quarry near Much Wenlock in Shropshire. A group of enthusiasts were visiting the area. The scrap yard in the quarry was known for housing former military vehicles including old land rovers. One of the group was looking for spare parts for an old land rover and were astonished to find TT4 in the quarry parked close to the quarry cliff face. It had been turned into a mess room for the quarry workers and a telephone extension from the quarry office had been wired to the upper deck. A telegraph pole supporting the wire was installed behind the bus effectively preventing it from moving from the location. The bus was missing a front axle and the cycle racking, but otherwise was complete. A return visit to the quarry took place in 1985 and this time I was one of the group. The bus was still there in the same form having been partially protected from the elements by the cliff face. Initial discussions with the scrapyard owner about a possible purchase resulted in a price that was way too high. One of the group was Leon Daniels. Contact details were exchanged should the scrapyard owner change his mind and decide to make a more reasonable deal. In the meantime I was asked to act as archivist for the group and made contact with Ford Motor Company as well as others in connection with the project. I built a file on the vehicles and the services they operated. The deal was eventually done between Leon and the scrap yard owner in the early 1990s when the quarry was being cleared. The vehicle was rescued by a group of enthusiasts who went armed with a suitable front axle. The bus was towed away during the hours of darkness. It was moved to a farm in Coulsdon in Surrey to join a collection of other vehicles until finances would allow the work to be undertaken. Some rudimentary panelling work was undertaken on the vehicle, but eventually it had to be moved as space was needed at Coulsdon. As a member of the consortium that rescued the vehicle, Leon found space for it at Capital Citybus. It first moved to the original Capital Citybus depot at Dagenham Dock. It was subsequently moved to the Hackney depot. No work was undertaken on the vehicle during this period of storage, and in 1998 I supervised the move out of Hackney depot back to Coulsdon where it has lain ever since. I have video footage of the recovery of the vehicle and it being towed away from Hackney. The years following this were busy for Leon Daniels as he moved from his role as MD of Capital Citybus to become MD of the UK Bus Division of First Group. He subsequently took over from Sir Peter Hendy as Transport Commissioner for London. He finally retired from TfL at the end of 2017. The collection at Coulsdon is due to be moved to the old MOD site at Bicester shortly. It is not clear whether the TT is also moving to Bicester or whether it may find a new home. Leon Daniels is now the Vice Chairman of the London Bus Preservation Group at Brooklands, so it is to be hoped that he may find the time and the finance to start work on the vehicle in the not too distant future. I returned to the quarry for the first time in 35 years last September. It has been cleared and is now a Aquatic Habitat restoration and creations project part funded by the European Regional Developments fund. The location where the TT was hidden for the best part of a dozen years or so is still recognisable. There’s even the remains of an old axle dumped there – perhaps the original TT axle, who knows?". John followed up his history of the Dartford Tunnel cycle buses with some information that I was certainly not aware of until then. John wrote:- "You may be interested to know that they were not the only ‘cycle’ buses. There have been several such projects. Indeed when I first moved to Devon in 1999 I inherited responsibility for the Devon bike bus operation with two Leyland Nationals especially converted to carry bikes internally (in the rear of the passenger compartment). This service came to an end in 2001 when the Leyland Nationals became too expensive to keep going. For a while we subsequently equipped a number of buses with rear bike carriers, but these were never very popular with staff and were eventually removed. I was later involved with a surf and bike bus service operated with two converted Volvo Olympian double deckers. The lower deck was converted to carry surf boards, body boards and bikes. It survived a couple of years, but grant funding then ran out. The idea had originally been to support a new ferry service between Swansea and Ilfracombe. Unfortunately funding for that was not forthcoming and it was still born which also resulted in the ending of the surf and bike bus. There have been and still are services that allow the carriage of bikes elsewhere in the UK. In my opinion this is a missed opportunity – especially in the current climate and I think that more thought should be given to further such schemes".So it would seem that one of the old Dartford Tunnel cyclist buses does still exist. Also, contrary to popular opinion, it was not the only bus service in the UK dedicated to cyclists. Comments and questions to me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Well here is a fact that may only be useful to people taking part in pub general knowledge quizzes. Did you know that the second longest night bus route in Greater London is the N89, which goes from Trafalgar Square to Erith between 1:00 a.m and 5:00 a.m every night and early morning. The route it takes is 21.33 miles long. The longest night bus route in Greater London is the N199 which goes between Trafalgar Square and St. Mary Cray, which is a marginally longer journey of 21.92 miles. Never let it be said that the Maggot Sandwich does not try to be educational from time to time!

A story that sounds like fiction, but is actually completely true. Back in the 1980's when I was a teenager, my best friend was a chap called Roy, whose family originally had a house in Eardley Road, Upper Belvedere. Some time later the family moved a very large property in Bickley, near to Bromley. Roy and his brother Paul both went to a very upmarket private school, and one of their schoolmates was a chap called Luke. Luke's dad was the Australian Ambassador to the Court of St. James, and they lived in a massive mansion just off Bickley Park Road. One weekend, Roy and I, when we were both about 14 were invited for Sunday lunch at the Ambassadorial residence. We got there a couple of hours early, and the Ambassador's son Luke invited us into the garden. It was the middle of winter and very chilly. What we did not know was that Luke was a bit of a pyromaniac. In the middle of a very well-kept lawn, there was a large tree stump that had obviously been dead for a number of years. Luke went to a side building which doubled as a garden shed, and pulled out a small canister of butane gas and a number of fireworks. I'm sure you can see where this all went, and it was not pretty. Luke then stuffed the gas canister and the fireworks under the recalcitrant tree root and lit the fuse on one of the fireworks. We all retreated to what was thought to be a safe distance. After a few seconds, there was a massive bang. The tree root did not move at all. Luke was extremely disappointed by this, but Roy and I were shocked. About ten minutes later, an armed group from the Police anti-terrorist squad stormed the back garden and held us all that gun point until they could confirm our identities. Please bear in mind, this was at the time that the IRA were extremely active, and ambassadors were a prime target. After it was all over, we went into the mansion where Luke's dad's cook had produced a lovely steak, chips, mushrooms and salad lunch for us. We expected a really bad telling off, which we did get - for a few minutes, but then his dad just broke down in laughter at the whole situation. A completely true story.

Did you know that a prominent Victorian era anti-slavery and pro-religious freedom campaigner had very strong historical links to Belvedere? There is a memorial plaque on one of the walls in All Saints Church, as you can see in the upper two photographs above, click on either to see a larger view. All Saints Church is a landmark building located on the corner of Erith Road and Nuxley Road in Upper Belvedere. Sir Culling Eardley was born as Culling Eardley Smith, and inherited the title Baronet when his father died in 1847. Eardley attended Eton College and then Oxford University, as did the offspring of so many of the wealthy nobility. However, he did not graduate from Oxford, as by this time he had become an evangelical Christian and refused to swear the oath of allegiance, which the university demanded in order to bestow a degree. Ironically, although he was strongly evangelical, he refused to renounce his membership of the Church of England. He briefly stood as a member of parliament but lost his seat after only a year. Despite this, he continued to campaign against slavery and inequality, which was often experienced by those less fortunate than himself. He also highlighted his opposition to bribery and corruption. He lived for much of his life in Belvedere, and because of this Eardley Road and the Eardley Arms pub are named after him. He died in 1863, apparently from an adverse reaction to an early form of Smallpox vaccination, a disease that was prevalent at the time. His Belvedere residence was left in his will to his only son, Eardley Gideon Culling, whilst his other residences at Bedwell Park and his Kettlethorpe estate to his two daughters, who financed the creation and installation of the memorial plaque in All Saints Church.

The end video this week is a short film by a visitor exploring Erith. He certainly has some very strong views. I have to say that I do not agree with, or endorse his conclusions, and I merely share the video for your information. Please send your feedback, thoughts and comments to me at the usual email address - hugh.neal@gmail.com.