100 British Bus Routes: Route 35
Nottingham City Centre to Bulwell

​1 May 2023

ABOVE: Nottingham City Transport 449 (YN18 SXJ), a Scania N280UD ADL Enviro400 City CBG, is heading for the City Centre (eventually) on route 35 from Bulwell, when seen in Bradfield Road, Broxtowe. All pictures in this article were taken on Thursday 30th March 2023.

Operator: Nottingham City Transport
Runs: Daily, with full evening service
Weekday frequency: Every 12 minutes
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​Estimated Vehicle Requirement: 10 buses
Off-peak journey time: 51-54 minutes
Estimated route length: 10-12 miles

I have what Crimewatch presenters would call 'connections' with Nottingham. My parents met there, even though neither of them was from Nottingham. And I worked for not one, but two, different organisations that had links with the place. The first had its HQ there, and my role at the time required regular visits to HQ from my London office in the 1990s.

Then, in the early 2000s, I was involved in an IT project for which our software developers were based in Nottingham, so yet more trips were made up to see them. And, on the same project, which was a national project based on joining up regional systems, it was the East Midlands area that was lagging behind other regions, so there were yet more trips up to Nottingham to see people about that!

Nottingham is also a great gateway to the north as far as bus riding is concerned. A quick couple of hours up on the train from St Pancras and you're there, and off to pastures further away!

But I've rarely looked at local buses in the City, so I've got a day here to do just that. There's an extensive network of buses here and many of the local ones are operated by Nottingham City Transport (NCT), one of the handful of municipal operators left in Britain.

Nottingham is a relatively small city, so many of the major services run by NCT are quite short journeys. As you may know, I love the longer rides, so I've decided to have a ride on the 35, because it is a longer run, at just under an hour.

It's less than four miles as the crow flies from central Nottingham to Bulwell, the outer terminus of the route. But we don't travel as the crow flies - far from it!

First task is to find the bus. Nottingham has two bus stations (one is brand new), but they are both devoted to longer-distance bus services, so local buses pick up on the streets of the City Centre. I've always found the layout of the city a little bewildering, but there is comprehensive information in bus shelters to help you to find your way to the right pick-up point.

Route 35 picks up outside the Victoria (Shopping) Centre on Milton Street. Right opposite is where route 17 departs. This will get you directly to Bulwell in half the time we're going to need.

Nottingham is another of those places, like Birmingham, where buses have to run round a big one-way loop to turn around and get out again. But unlike Birmingham, there does at least seem to be enough space on the streets for buses to layover.

NCT 450 (YN18 SXK), another Scania N280UD ADL Enviro400 City CBG, negotiates temporary traffic lights at the Derby Road / Douglas Road junction west of the City Centre.

I pick my bus up at the third stop, on Angel Row, still in the city centre. The buses on this route are Scania N280UD ADL Enviro400 City CBGs (that's a bit of a mouthful - It's an E400 City body built on a Scania chassis and powered by biomethane sourced from food, farm and sewage waste - that explanation is nearly as long as the original description)! They're branded as Orange Line and liveried accordingly.

The Orange Line brand also applies to route 36, which parallels the 35 out of the city before going off in a completely different direction.

Buses out of town pass the roundabout pictured below, at the junction of Upper Parliament Street, Maid Marian Way and Derby Road / Tollhouse Hill, but buses coming into town are two streets adrift on Talbot Street.

The inbound and outbound services come together at Canning Circus, where six roads meet. It's reportedly named after George Canning, who became Prime Minister in 1827. It's a different Canning to the one after whom Canning Town in London is named (Charles John Canning, First Viceroy of India).

Canning Circus has historic links back to the Eighth Century, and it's worth reading the history of the area on the local LeftLion website. The sandstone hill was used in Victorian times as an unconsecrated burial ground for murderers and people who had committed suicide. In those days, crossroads were favoured as burial grounds. It was believed that, if a troubled soul with unfinished business wanted to come back and torment their acquaintances, they’d have a harder time finding them across all those junctions!

Canning Circus. On the right is the entrance to the city’s General Cemetery, through the middle of almshouses erected by George Canning.

We're now on a clear south-westerly route out of Nottingham, down the Derby Road. Bulwell is north-west from here but we show no immediate signs of heading there!

Looking south-west along the Derby Road towards Lenton.

We enter the suburb of Lenton, where the Raleigh Cycle Factory once stood. Immediately things start to look a little greener, with the Lenton Recreation Ground (Nottingham's oldest municipal park) on one side of the road and the (seemingly-private) Faraday Fields on the other.

A broadly southerly view across the Lenton Recreation Ground, towards Holy Trinity Church.

Shortly afterwards we come to Lenton Lodge, a Grade II*-listed building described as the "former" gateway to the Wollaton Park Estate. As much of the area behind the gatehouse is built-up, I can only conclude that someone decided to 'develop' the park (I've since found out that this is true - Sutton Passeys Crescent, a council estate, was built on part 
of the old Wollaton Hall estate in the 1920s).

There is still a parkland area, a bit further west, which we will come to.

Lenton Lodge (right), with St. Mary's Church, Wollaton Park (left)

First, though, we have the Queen's Medical Centre (QMC), which is a University Hospital and a busy, bustling spot! There's a bus stop in the grounds (we don't serve it, stopping instead on the main road at the gate).

The stop in the grounds seems to be for the "Medilink" service, which links this and the City Hospital with a Park & Ride facility on the southern side of the city, using a fleet of BYD K9UR electric buses. Doing its bit for the environment in fact, by trying to persuade people to leave their cars outside the city. As long as they come on a weekday, as the service doesn't run at the weekend!

Just beyond, a huge roundabout links the Clifton and Middleton Boulevards; the latter passes through the heart of the Wollaton Park housing.

A batch of Scanias for the 'Orange Line' in 2018 has been followed by a further batch in 2022. 525 (YN22 BMU) is working the 'other' Orange route, the 36. There's a common section from the City Centre as far as QMC and this section has the six minute frequency that is alluded to on the bus. This is the Clifton / Middleton Boulevard roundabout.

Soon after that, we come to Wollaton Park proper. The site covered by the 16th Century Wollaton Hall, and its gardens and its Deer Park, is significant, and we get a hint from the bus of what it looks like. It's very countrified, and it's quite hard to believe that we're still only two-and-a-half miles from the Victoria Centre.

We've turned west, but we're still going in the 'wrong' direction if we're ever to get to Bulwell, which is now nearly four miles away if we turn north-by-north-east.

The 12.5-mile stretch of the Derby Road between The Pentagon Island in Derby and the QMC is named Brian Clough Way, to honour the late Derby County and Nottingham Forest football manager.

At the Priory Roundabout, we turn right into the most delightful of tree-lined roads in Wollaton Vale - this part of Nottingham is lovely.

The 35 is the only route serving this road and there's no ambiguity about which stops it serves:

We're now slowly starting to snake our way into the broad general direction of Bulwell. As you will have realised very quickly, the 35 is not the route that people in Nottingham City Centre use to get to Bulwell, or vice versa. But here in the suburbs, the route has a purpose as a suburban run around the western and north-western extremities of the city, both for those who want to get to Nottingham / Bulwell, and for those making more local journeys.

The Hemlock Stone, Wollaton Vale

There's a lovely rural feel to this area. It reminds me of some of the nicer suburbs of Milton Keynes. And it's the same principle - the city is close by if you want it, but you can pretend it doesn't exist if you prefer.

At Wollaton Vale, the terminus of NCT route 30, we catch up with the previous bus on the 35, which should be 12 minutes in front.

The previous service on route 35 heads away from Wollaston Vale. On the left is what looks like an ADL Enviro200 on route 30's terminus stand.

The one in front is pretty busy, which may explain why it's been a fairly quiet run for us so far. Will that change as we overtake the earlier service?

478 (YN19 EFO), another Scania of the same kind as those on the 35 / 36, is on 'Pink Line' route 28 (Bilborough to Nottingham City Centre). It approaches its right turn into Birchover Road in Bilborough. We will turn left and follow it for a while!

Probably not, actually. We've reached Bilborough, from where NCT route 28 is now the direct service into the city, taking less than half an hour. Plus of course we're not going to the city. We might be following a 28 but we're heading out of town now.

478 again, at the Tremayne Road stop further down Birchover Road. On the right is 522 (YN22 BLX), one of the newer batch of Scanias on the Orange Line. A quirk of the routings here is that both of these buses are heading for Nottingham City Centre.

It's a mid-afternoon run so the threat of schoolchildren disturbing the peace is ever-present! There are plenty waiting at the Burnside Green stop, but the vast majority want the city bus so we gain just a handful.

At Wigman Road we part company with the 28 and, finally, we are recognisably on the road towards Bulwell.

478 heads for the City Centre. The vehicle is named "Henry Normal", after the writer, poet, TV and film producer. Born in Nottingham, he founded the Manchester Poetry Festival and co-founded the Nottingham Poetry Festival.

We're briefly on our own until we reach Strelley. There are odd journeys on the route that run as 35B, but they just seem to be short-workings of the main service, terminating at the ASDA store here. There's a 35A as well, but that just seems to be one early Sunday short-working, finishing in a different place to the 35B (Wollaton Vale in that instance).

527 (YN22 BMY) on Strelley Road

Strelley Road Library seems to be the focal point of the area. We stand for a moment here, although the other bus doesn't catch up as far as I see.

We take an unexpected left turn here (unexpected by me, anyway), which takes us into the heart of the residential area of Broxtowe. From here it's a relatively straight run up to Bulwell.

There's one curiosity when the bus is delayed by temporary traffic lights on Coventry Road. Curious, because there doesn't seem to be any reason for them, with both lanes open:

Just as we reach our green phase, the lights are switched off, and a workman starts removing them. We have obviously arrived at just the moment that the roadworks have finished and the road has been restored to normal running!

An NCT Optare Solo on route 70 (Bulwell Morrison's to Nottingham City Centre) passes Bulwell Baptist Church on the final approach into Bulwell Town Centre.

In no time at all we reach the centre of Bulwell. The town was recorded in the 2011 Census as having over 10 per cent of Nottingham's city population, at just under 30,000 people. It's another of those places that is recorded in the 1086 Domesday Book. It was already established at that time as a trading post, having its earliest documented settlements from around 800 AD (source: Wikipedia).

Bulwell Town Centre, where the roadworks at the rear left are on the site of Bulwell Bus Station.

But there's a final twist for my journey on route 35: Bulwell Bus Station is closed for redevelopment. Despite being shown on the NCT website as the finishing point for the service, the actual dropping point is around the corner at a temporary stop on Bulwell High Road. The bus actually drives through the bus station site to get there!

The new bus station taking shape (or is it a remnant of the old one?) as we drive through.

There's no information on the NCT website either, to suggest that anything is wrong. All there is is a note, dated "16th Jan 2023 onwards", that "​Congestion in the Bulwell area is delaying Brown 17, Orange 35, Yellow 68-71 and Turquoise 79/A".

And just to add to the confusion for a stranger to the town, the "Where to catch your NCT bus" information at the bus station is obscured by the safety barriers!

Oh well, it's been a nice drive anyway! The 35 is certainly a route to have a ride on if you want to see some of the nicer parts of the Nottingham suburbs, and you don't mind travelling the long way round!

Just as I have been concluding this article, I have found a guide, on the NCT website, to the historic items of interest to be found along route 35. I've added a couple of snippets from it into the above, but the guide is well worth a read in its own right. Wish I'd found it sooner!

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