​All Points of the Sussex Compass
(part two of two)

19 December 2021

I'm in Burgess Hill, enjoying a day out on the network of Compass Bus. My previous trips today have just been the warm-ups; time now for the main course.

According to Google, it's about 14.5 miles from here to Horsham by the recommended road route. My route, though, will be taking a distinctly less-direct course.

I am trying out Compass Bus route 100, which covers three times the ground of the direct route, taking 133 minutes end-to-end, giving a fine tour of Sussex as it does so.

The route is included in a delightful book from Bradt called 'Bus Pass Britain Rides Again'. This is a sequel to an earlier book simply called 'Bus Pass Britain'. Both highly recommended. The first volume was given to me as a gift; imagine my joy at discovering that there was a second volume!

Each of the two volumes describes 50 of the nation's "favourite" bus journeys and this is one of them. I am gradually trying to tick them all off in the way that I once used to tick bus numbers off in a book.

The bus - another Enviro 200 - arrives in good time for its departure at 2.26pm. I don't expect anyone else to be doing the full length, but it quickly proves impossible for that to happen as there's only one other passenger leaving Burgess Hill, and she only travels a few stops. Trade over the first part of the journey is light, with just a few local journeys taken.

We travel broadly westwards through Lingfield and into Henfield, where there are minor delays due to filling station queues. But it's the pretty village of Steyning where we come to a halt. The streets are narrow and there are very few opportunities to get past the queueing fuels!

There's a Brighton & Hove double-decker on its route 2 (Steyning to Rottingdean) stuck in front of us, and I make a mental note to try that one out some time.

We do eventually get past the traffic, but we're now 10 minutes down. Any last prospect of anyone else doing the full journey with me is finally put to rest as we have a driver change.

By now we are skirting the edge of the South Downs National Park, and the scenery is lovely. We pull into a bus station just as the timetable says we should be reaching some thing of the sort - only it's Storrington, not Pulborough, and we're 13 minutes late. We make up some of the lost time by Pulborough and head on to Billingshurst, where we are momentarily delayed - this time not by queuing motorists but by a train on the level crossing.

There are a few schoolchildren about for the last part of the journey, but not many. I leave the service at Horsham Bus Station - there's another quarter-hour to go though to the railway station and the hospital. But we do, somehow, seem to have recovered most of the lost time and we're only about five minutes late.

Was it worth it? Yes, definitely. A lovely way to explore West Sussex if you're not in a hurry.

My overall impressions of Compass Travel are positive. The buses are smart, clean and presentable. The drivers are safe and skilled (they need to be to squeeze around the queuing cars on these narrow roads). 

I do wonder whether more needs to be done to try to drum up trade. None of my journeys have been very busy and the frequencies of two of them are unattractive. And, whilst the Discovery ticket is very good value, I have had to dig deep through the internet to discover (no pun intended) that this ticket exists - there are no obvious posters or adverts around that I can see.

There is no simple, direct bus between Burgess Hill and Horsham. Some of the routings proposed by Traveline run via Patcham, in the suburbs of Brighton. The journey times are not much faster than they would be if one just took the 100 all the way. I know it's rural but it just feels that no-one wants to challenge the supremacy of the car round here.
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And, in case you're wondering, I have so far travelled on 24 of the 100 rides covered by the two 'Bus Pass Britain' books. I do want to complete as many as possible, but they are spread the length and breath of the country, including the Highlands and Islands. A few services have been discontinued, and there's one London Night Bus included; I'll need some courage before I tackle that one!