100 BRITISH BUS ROUTES: ROUTE 34
Redruth, Barncoose Hospital to The Lizard

​7 January 2023

ABOVE: Go Cornwall 2428 (WA20 DXG), an Enviro200 MMC, is at the furthest point south that buses reach in Great Britain - The Green at The Lizard - at the start of a long haul north to Redruth. All pictures in this article taken on Friday 26th August 2022, unless otherwise stated.​

Operator: Go Cornwall
Runs: Daily (no Sunday evening service, and no evening / Sunday service between Barncoose Hospital and Redruth Station)
Weekday frequency: Hourly
​Estimated Vehicle Requirement: four buses
Off-peak journey time: 109-111 minutes
Estimated route length: 24 miles

It's very noisy in Redruth. That isn't a general comment about the place; just an observation about this particular August Friday morning.

I'm having a snack in Redruth Station café (a very friendly spot) and car horns are repeatedly sounding outside. There's a Royal Mail depot across the road and its workers have gone on strike. They have a sign asking people to toot their support. Sounds like they have a lot of support – it’s quite an assault on the senses. Maybe not the best place to pass 35 minutes before my bus comes!

Go Cornwall 2410 (WA20 DWJ), an Enviro200MMC, serves Redruth station on service 47 from Camborne to Truro (a route that no longer operates).

​​I'm heading south on Go Cornwall route 34. As far south as it's possible to go in mainland Britain in fact; to Lizard Point in Cornwall.

​There are two stops immediately outside Redruth station, and one over the road and slightly downhill; it's not immediately obvious which one I should be waiting at. The “Onward Travel Information” posted at the station is dated December 2019, and tells me to catch the L1 to The Lizard. There’s no mention of route 34. 

​​Based on the stop information for the L1, I need stop B. But which is stop B? The diagram on the Onward Travel Information poster confirms that it’s the stop right outside the station entrance, but the tired bus stop flag doesn’t carry a code as far as I can see.

Is this stop B?

​​It's a long haul from here to The Lizard – about an hour-and-three-quarters – but this isn't even the start of route 34. The bus has already come from Barncoose Hospital in Redruth, 10 or so minutes away.

There’s a loop to be served at the station, so the bus is first seen heading up on the other side of the road towards Higher Fore Street, before coming back, about five minutes before its scheduled 1000 departure time. It’s completely empty on arrival (probably a bit early in the day to be bringing people from the hospital), and there are only two of us to be greeted here by the friendly driver. This is one of Go Cornwall’s sizeable fleet of 10.8m long ADL Enviro200 MMCs – smart, clean and modern.

We're quickly on our way, and it doesn't take long for us to reach country lanes.

Not far out of town is a Wesleyan church that has been converted into a private house. Soon after, we enter Wendron, a village of 2700 people. Not far from here is the Poldark Mine, which is apparently Cornwall’s only complete underground tin mine. Guess where its modern name came from…

The most significant town along route 34 (apart from Redruth itself) is Helston. It’s the most southerly town in Great Britain (1.5 miles further south than Penzance apparently).

Helston is the home of the Furry Dance; a celebration of the end of winter and the start of Spring. According to Wikipedia, it is held on 8th May, unless that falls on a Sunday or Monday, in which case it takes place on the preceding Saturday. That could be interesting this year as there’s another big event scheduled in London on Saturday 6th May…

First dance is apparently at 7am and the last at 5pm. For the midday dance, “the men wear top hats and tails while the women dance in their finest frocks”.  Sounds fun!

Helston folk refer to 8th May as Flora Day, and, from this, in 1911, came the famous Floral Dance by Katie Moss (no, Katie Moss – a professional violinist, pianist and concert singer). A version of this, performed by the Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band, reached number two in the pop charts in 1977. Another version in 1978, performed by the late, great Terry Wogan, reached number 21 and was performed on Top of the Pops. And that’s about the only time that my household ever willingly watched Top of the Pops in the 1970s (though my brother got into it later).

From a bus service point of view, Helston is something of a hub. With Penzance to the west (or, as we’ve established, every so slightly ‘west by north’), and Truro to the north east, the two main axes between these are a northerly route via Redruth and Camborne, or a southerly route via Falmouth and Helston. Around a dozen bus routes therefore pass through the town centre, many on that east-west axis. Not our 34, though; we're heading north-south.

Helston has quite a complicated road network. Many of the Town Centre streets are quite tight, so have been made one-way. There’s also a bypass which means that vehicles can approach the Town Centre from either end.

​The southerly route for the 34 is reasonably straight-forward, with just a brief bifurcation to serve a Tesco superstore. ​​It then runs into the main two-way street, Coinagehall Street, where The Blue Anchor Inn gives the buses their focal point in the town. 

Go Cornwall 2432 (WA70 EDX) is another E200 MMC, seen here in Coinagehall Street in Helston, on its way to The Lizard on route 34

Another view of Coinagehall Steet in Helston, taken from a route 34 bus as it turns out of Meneage Street

​At the end of Coinagehall Street is Grylls Monument; Humphry Millet Grylls was a prominent resident of Helston, who, in 1830, at a time of recession, used his influence with the banks to keep the local mines open. He died in 1834, aged 45, and work started on the monument the same year. It cost £324 to build, which shows how much further money went in those days! 

Three visits in three days and this is the best picture I took! The Grylls Monument in Helston, taken from the open-top of a route L5 bus to St Ives on Thursday 25th August 2022

​The northern journeys of route 34 are a little more complicated. They require a run up Godolphin Road, broadly north-easterly, from where buses turn south down the wonderfully-named Clodgey Lane – briefly running alongside the southbound service and ostensibly heading back into the town they have just left. But this is just a ruse so that they too can serve the Tesco superstore. They then head back up Clodgey Lane to re-join the main road north.

Go Cornwall 2432 again, at Helston Tesco on Saturday 27th August 2022, on route 36 from St Keverne to Truro

​We’re leaving Helston with eight passengers on board. In a town like this one, it's inevitable that, where there’s a Tesco Superstore, there will also be at least one superstore from a competing supermarket chain, and, indeed, Helston’s Sainsbury’s sits at the south-eastern edge of the town, necessitating another brief double-run for route 34; at least this one is simple in both directions. There’s a narrow pick-up point for buses here, and we have to wait for a couple of minutes around the corner, just ahead of the stop, for timing reasons.

Next to the store is the Flambards Theme Park, but you can’t really see anything of it from the road. There's a small outstation of Go Cornwall​ here.

After Helston, there’s a distinct change in the territory; it really feels as though we are heading towards an extremity.
Roads become very countrified and very tight. I'm surprised that a 10.8m-long single decker can squeeze through some of these roads, and am quite convinced that a double-decker would not fit (but, as it turns out, what do I know...).

We pass Mullion Golf Club; nearby, a road sign proclaims that The Lizard is only three miles away. But the timetable says we have another 37 minutes to go…
​
We get our first glimpse of the sea at Cury, and very nice it is too. ​

Looking down towards Poldhu Cove

Go Cornwall 2423 (WA20 DXB), another Enviro200 MMC, near the Mullion Golf Club

​Moments later, we’re descending towards Poldhu Cove. Managed by the National Trust, it’s a popular spot for “locals, visitors, surfers and wildlife lovers” – and also, in my view, for people who just like looking at pretty coastal spots.

​Just along the road is the village of Mullion. The roads are tight here – really tight – reinforcing my view that a double-decker just wouldn’t fit down here. The service is getting busier – a family joins the throng and we get up into double figures in terms of passenger numbers.

The tight streets of Mullion, as photographed from the open-top of a route L1 bus, looking across to Saint Mellanus Church. The Cornish flag is flying.

​After Mullion, one could be forgiven for getting a sense of déjà vu, as we embark on a series of double-runs within double-runs!

We have a straight-forward drive to Ruan Major, after which we take a detour towards Ruan Minor, and then another deviation towards Kuggar. At Kuggar, we make a three-point turn and head back to Ruan Minor. Then we make a further deviation deeper into Ruan Minor, before another three-point turn takes us back towards Ruan Major. These places all look like sizeable settlements, and this may be the only way to get a bus down to them, but there are no new passengers for us today.

At last we are on the direct road to The Lizard, but there’s still time for a quick three sides of a square on the final approach to The Green, the furthest point south served by any bus in Great Britain. There is a designated bus stand marked, but a badly-parked vehicle is preventing access to it, so the driver stops a few yards down the road. The 'three sides of a square' approach have enabled the bus to line itself up for a quicker route out.
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And so I leave the 34 bus. The Green is a lovely tourist-orientated spot, with cafés, gift shops and a pub. Families are milling around and there’s a real buzz about the place, even though it isn't yet 12noon. It’s been a lovely ride, capably handled by a driver who is clearly well-used to the tight roads and challenging conditions of a route like this one.

The Green, The Lizard

​​But we’re not quite at the most southerly point yet. It’s about half a mile’s stroll down to the actual Lizard Point. Look left from here, and the next land by my reckoning, in about 286 miles, is the French settlement of Ault, just up the coast from Dieppe. 

The End of the World: well, not quite, but Lizard Point is the most southerly point in Great Britain. Next stop in this direction: Spain

But look due south, and I reckon you will just bypass the French island of Ushant, off Brest (passing within a mile of it), and head right through the Bay of Biscay to the northern Spanish coast, near a spot called Caravia, just shy of 450 miles away between Gijón and Santander.
​
Back on British soil, and the 34 is paralleled for much of the way by First Kernow's route L1, using open-top double-decker buses. I board one for the ride back to Helston. This vehicle is an Enviro400 of 2009 vintage. 

First Kernow 33601 (SN09 CFV), an Enviro 400, at The Lizard terminus of route L1 to Helston.

​All remaining thoughts about not squeezing a double-decker bus around the roads on route 34 are completely destroyed now, as this vehicle – with just me on board for the first half of the trip – navigates over exactly the same roads as are covered by the 34 – including the deviations and three-point turns at Ruan Minor and Kuggar, and the incredibly tight roads of Mullion. Quite remarkable!

Tight Spot: Navigating the narrow roads of Mullion on an open-top bus. We're so close that I feel that it should be possible to reach down and make a few purchases from the shop without leaving the bus!

​I haven’t decided what my next blog will be about yet – but I’m 100% certain that it won’t venture as far south as this one has!

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