We made our way past the old LT bus garage, and up through the cutting to the roundabout, where we took the road south towards Gosmore. Although not the narrowest of roads this still requires some care in passing oncoming vehicles, as the hedges overhang the road and have not been trimmed recently. Gosmore is a squeeze, as the road passes through a narrow gap past the Bull. We continued on towards Preston, the AEC engine chuckling away under the floor of the RF.
At Preston we pulled round the corner onto the stop by the green. Local youngsters were playing around the covered well, and the red doors of the Red Lion beyond the trees on the green. A very pleasant spot.
But we couldn't stay: we had a schedule to meet. We were soon away again, along the leafy road round the side of the hill. We dipped down to fork right, where the "main" road to Kings Walden forks left, and headed for Ley Green. At the next crossroads I had a moment's panic. Surely the bus couldn't go up there! But it did. We climbed the narrow lane up to Ley Green Post Office, and turned left at the top to pass between tall hedges to regain the King's Walden road. We rumbled down through the village, and up the hill on the other side of the valley, to turn left into Breachwood Green. Today I knew where the turn was, so we made our way round the turning square to pull up at the bus shelter opposite the Red Lion. Was it really only yesterday lunch-time that we had a meal in there?
After a few moments at Breachwood Green we were away again, up through the village, then forking left towards Luton. But before dipping down into the suburbs of uton we had another excursion to make. A fork in the road took us off onto the lane to Tea Green. This was another winding, wet, muddy, very rural lane. We forked left round the triangle at Tea Green, and negotiated a careful way along to Cockernhoe. There, after a little way behind a young lady on a horse, we finally turned our face to Luton suburbia.
We wound a way towards Luton Airport using the route map kindly supplied by Peter Gomm. The old route was closed for the weekend, so we turned left up into the Airport - where I promptly failed to direct a turn and almost landed us up on a taxiway. But we managed to turn and wend our way past the airport complex before descending towards the Vauxhall Works. There we rejoined the old route for the descent into town. A side road took us down through Park Town to find Park Street, where we turned right to roll along to the old terminus.
With almost all our passengers gone Ken fired up his sat-nav. This produced a convoluted route round the centre of Luton and onto the B4540 - yes, the 364 route again. We climbed up out of Luton on the old route, then turned off by continuing into Caddington (360?). But we left that village behind and soon were bowling north along the A5 on the long trip home.
Many thanks to those who organised or took part in the running day. Especial thanks to Colin Rivers and the Country Bus Rallies Team, and to Ken & Mary Eveleigh for their hospitality.
Photos by Ian Smith. Click on any of them for a larger picture.
Buses:
Ian's Bus-stop
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven