Newcastle to Sunderland by bus:
A 21st Century Jarrow Crusader and Durham’s Prince Bishops
22 May 2022
ABOVE: 6004 (NK11 BHE) picks up in South Eldon Street, near Barnes’ Road (the apostrophe appears to be important) in South Shields, heading for Newcastle. Newcastle is shown on the display but the display is not compatible with my phone camera. It’s Tuesday 3rd May 2022.
I haven’t spent a lot of time in the North East in the past (two weekend breaks, I think). On one of those visits I stayed in a hotel in South Shields. At breakfast on the first day, our cooked breakfast order was taken by memory, and came back right. On the second day, our cooked breakfast order was written down, and came back wrong!
All of which has nothing to do with anything, except that I’m now back in the region, with a whole week to explore its buses.
I don’t mess about. The train pulls in at 1540, and by 1610, I have walked to my centrally-located hotel, checked in, dropped the case off at my room, and got back out for a first taste of the local bus scene.
My first bus is to be Go North East’s route 27 to South Shields. This doesn’t leave from a Bus Station (there’s more than one in Newcastle), so I have to find Market Street East. As I wander through the Indoor Market, I wonder of its presence is a bit of a clue…
I find my stop very quickly. I am certain that it is the correct stop as there’s a 27 just pulling away… Fortunately it’s a reasonably frequent service so it won’t be a long wait.
ABOVE: Go North East’s 6054 (NK62 EKD) shows off the effective branding for ‘Crusader’ route 27. The branding is clear and packs in a lot of information, but unobtrusively. This picture taken near The Clock restaurant on Victoria Street East in Hebburn, on Tuesday 3rd May 2022.
Fifteen minutes later I’m on my way, on a route that closely parallels the South Shields section of the Tyne & Wear Metro’s Yellow line (it’s actually quite complicated, the Yellow Line – have a look at the map). Route 27 is marketed as the ‘Crusader’ and mainly uses Volvo B9TL double-deckers of about 10 years’ vintage.
A screen display at the front of the top deck shows the next two stops and then advises that there are “then 59 more stops” before South Shields. I decide not to count them.
The arrival time is incorrect, though, showing 1615 (it’s already past that and we’re actually due in at 1741). On other buses I use during the week the arrival time has often defaulted to 0100.
There are also audio announcements, and these are provided by Emma Hignett, who also voices Transport for London buses. So we could easily be in London, except for the slightly differing style of announcement, which incorporates the ‘Crusader’ marketing (“this is the Crusader 27 service to South Shields”) and includes the words “next stop”, which we don’t get in London.
It’s a quiet start to the journey (and Newcastle City Centre seems strangely devoid of traffic for the Tuesday afternoon peak). We’re very quickly crossing the Tyne via the High Level Bridge. This brings us to Gateshead Interchange, where the journey livens up considerably.
From time-to-time there’s an audible warning of a height restriction coming up, but this seems to be random and not directly connected to any specific immediate threat.
On to Heworth Interchange (there are lots of interchanges in Tyne & Wear) and we pick up more people. It’s getting busy now.
I imagine that I hear a couple of students saying that the bus is going via Heaven, and wonder which locale is so good as to be described in such terms. But it turns out that we’re going via Hebburn. Not quite heavenly, but parts of it are certainly very nice. It’s quite leafy and seems to stretch out quite a way, although we keep turning corners so it may just be that we’re going round and round!
I start noticing old stone-built bus shelters; there are quite a few of them and I presume they are a legacy of an earlier operator in this region.
ABOVE: One of many stone-built bus shelters in the region. This example is near the Hebburn Lakes School.
One feature of the current operation is that most bus stop flags do not show the route number(s) of the bus routes that serve them (except in busy areas where there is a group of stops). However, Go North East has comprehensively named stops throughout its large operating area. It is noticeable that the labels on the stop flags themselves are far less comprehensive than the ones provided by Go North East.
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Bus stop display on Go North East’s route 27 (ABOVE LEFT), and (ABOVE RIGHT) the less comprehensive bus stop description for the same point
We still seem to be in Hebburn, where a major tower block dominates the view just before we turn right and reach the “Shopping Centre”, which appears to comprise of an Asda (small), a Post Office (closed) and an Aldi. (To be fair, there are a few other shops hidden further back.)
We continue to twist and turn, passing through Jarrow (another Interchange), where a couple of youngsters are playing on the slide. Except that there isn’t a slide, so they’re using the ‘slip’ down from the road to the pedestrian subway, which doesn’t look particularly safe.
Jarrow of course was the start of the famous Jarrow March / Crusade of 1936, from where 200 men carried a petition to Parliament, protesting against unemployment and poverty and seeking the re-establishment of industry in the town. Presumably this is the Crusade that the 27 route is ‘named’ after.
Most of this journey is close to the River Tyne, but, apart from the crossing into Gateshead, there are few actual glimpses of it until we reach the Port of Tyne.
By the time we get to South Shields we have thinned right out in numbers; however, one new passenger boards five stops from the terminus.
South Shields Interchange itself is pretty quiet; it’s now 1745 and there aren’t many people about – perhaps they’re all upstairs on the Metro? A bonus is that Gregg’s is still open so I can get myself a cuppa and the inevitable snack.
I want to continue to Sunderland now on route 20. This route runs beyond Sunderland to Durham and is marketed as ‘Prince Bishops’ – stand by for another history lesson…
County Durham is described as the ‘County of the Prince Bishops’ but it’s not something I have come across before. Durham is a World Heritage Site and, according to its website, given the City’s position as a buffer state between England and Scotland, the Bishops of Durham were, from 1075, appointed as Prince-Bishops, given secular powers and therefore the responsibility for protecting English interests, in return for allegiance.
As long as the post-holder remained loyal to the King, he could govern as a virtually autonomous ruler, reaping the revenue from his territory, but also protecting England’s northern frontier. He had the right to raise an army, mint his own coins, and levy taxes.
I wish the present Bishop had the powers to insist on double-decker buses for route 20, as it is pretty busy. What I actually get is a Wright DF Streetlite Max. It is in a striking purple livery, but sadly with some incursion of that livery into the windows.
ABOVE: Not a great picture, but the best I seem to have to illustrate route 20, marketed as Prince Bishops. This unidentified Streetlite is in Sunderland Interchange on Tuesday 3rd May 2022.
The first thing I notice is a proper 13amp socket beside every pair of seats, alongside the more familiar USB sockets that we have come to expect. I wonder whether this was an early way of providing people with the modern extras that we all now apparently crave when we’re using the bus?
We leave South Shields with a few passengers but steadily pick up as we go. A bit of a surprise for me is that we suddenly go into what I can only describe as a bit of open countryside, although not for long. We come into a suburb called Fulwell with a prominent windmill. I try, but fail, to get a decent photo; a return trip a few days later allows me to put that right.
ABOVE: Fulwell Windmill, on Monday 9th May 2022
We’re due into Sunderland at 1836, but are making good time, and I’m hoping that I might be able to catch the 1835 departure on route 56 back into Newcastle. I’m also conscious that the 56 goes from stand T, which implies a large interchange. We’re following the incoming 56 into the City Centre, but then we take a detour to follow a slightly longer route into town.
Fortunately, stand T is not too far away from where my 20 drops me off, a couple of minutes early at 1833, and I make it to the 56 (which I shall write about another day). When the 20 pulls out a few minutes later, it is noticeable that virtually every seat is now taken. Interesting that this is the last bus at the quarter-hourly interval before the evening half-hourly service kicks in. Really looks like a service that could do with a bigger bus…