100 British Bus Routes: Route 50
Bournemouth Station to Swanage (Purbeck Breezer)
28 May 2023
ABOVE: morebus 1704 (HJ16 HSJ) is a Volvo B5TL MCV eVoSeti with convertible roof, for use on the Purbeck Breezer routes, including route 50. It is seen here at Swanage station. All pictures in this article were taken on Easter Sunday, 9th April 2023, unless otherwise stated.
Operator: morebus (part of Go South Coast within the Go-Ahead Group)
Runs: Daily, with full evening service in summer
Weekday daytime frequency: Every 30 minutes (Hourly in winter)
Estimated Vehicle Requirement: six buses
Off-peak journey time: 74-80 minutes
Estimated route length: 13-15 miles
Runs: Daily, with full evening service in summer
Weekday daytime frequency: Every 30 minutes (Hourly in winter)
Estimated Vehicle Requirement: six buses
Off-peak journey time: 74-80 minutes
Estimated route length: 13-15 miles
According to Wikipedia, an 18-foot long fish washed up in 'La Bournemothe', an uninhabited area on the south coast of England, in 1406. This seems to be the first reference to what is now a significant town on the south coast.
'La Bournemowthe' (the different spelling to the above seems to be deliberate) was just a geographic reference to the area around the mouth of the small river Bourne, which drained the heathland between the towns of Poole and Christchurch.
The area is a bit different now! Lewis Tregonwell, a Captain in the Dorset Yeomanry, is credited with founding the town of Bournemouth in 1810. In the 2011 Census, over 183,000 people were recorded as living there, and the town is now one of the most popular seaside resorts in Britain, as can be measured by the number of people pouring out of the station on a typical Saturday afternoon in summer!
Bournemouth station is actually quite a long way from the sea - three-quarters of a mile as the crow flies, and rather more to walk. So it's a good job that there is a bus station at the front of the railway station, with a good range of services calling in on their way to town.
One of the more unusual bus services starting here - in fact one of the more unusual stage-carriage bus services anywhere in Britain, in my opinion - is route 50, to Swanage on the Isle of Purbeck in South Dorset. It has two unusual features. One is that it generally operates with open-top double-deckers, and the other... Well, I'll come to that.
My last trip on route 50 was in the pouring rain in 2021, so a downstairs trip was essential on that occasion. But I first stumbled across the route, quite by chance, back in 2010.
Here I am, in Bournemouth, at just after 9am on Easter Day 2023, awaiting my third ride on route 50. I'm in the West Cliff area, where buses call having already served the station and town centre areas.
In previous visits to Bournemouth, I have seen buses on this route with a full top-deck leaving town, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll be able to squeeze up there somehow, given that all of those people are boarding ahead of me. As I leave my hotel, there's a family of four at the bus stop opposite, so I walk down the road to the stop before them!
morebus 1704 (HJ16 HSJ), a Volvo B5TL MCV eVoSeti, is making the steep climb out of Bournemouth town centre, on Priory Road, early into a run to Swanage on route 50.
On this occasion, I'm in luck. The bus is not too busy when it arrives. I have my woolly hat ready for the open part of the top deck but, when I get upstairs, the front seat (in the covered section) is free, so I opt for that instead. Chickening out of the cold, or going for a better view? You decide.
This is a Volvo B5TL MCV eVoSeti of 2016 vintage, one of a batch bought new by morebus. It looks like some, or all, of this batch are convertible from closed-top to open-top, as the internet has pictures of the same vehicles in both forms. It looks like the rear section of the roof can be removed, or the whole roof.
At this time of year, with winter still clear in the memory, most of the buses are running with closed roofs. In fact, of the four that are out on the route at this early point of the day, mine is the only open-topper.
The route is marketed as the Purbeck Breezer. We stick close to the coast for most of the first part of the journey. The popularity of this bus is demonstrated by the fact that more people join us at every stop as we head out of Bournemouth.
A brief inland deviation brings us to the suburb of Westbourne, which is described as 'upmarket' by Google Maps, on account of its "independent fashion boutiques, thrift stores, cafes, and pubs ... linked by a Victorian covered arcade".
But as soon as we have left Westbourne, we're heading back to the coastal road, which suddenly brings us right down to the water at Branksome Chine beach.
Branksome Chine Beach
Just along the road is the attractive village of Canford Cliffs, a popular spot for retired people according to the 2001 Census which showed 31.3% of the population registered as retired - twice the national average. But it has an active community of residents and visitors, being a popular spot for windsurfing and parasailing.
Western Road, Canford Cliffs village
And so, to Sandbanks, one of the most affluent areas of the United Kingdom, where a bungalow recently sold for £13.5M. This apparently makes Sandbanks "the most desirable (and expensive) place to live on the planet" (my emphasis).
This view of Sandbanks looks along Shore Road, which becomes Banks Road further down.
It's certainly a pretty spot, especially on a day when the sun is breaking out from behind the clouds. Sandbanks sits on a spit of less than 0.4 square miles, so is surrounded by water.
The English Channel sits to the east, with the Needles of the Isle of Wight less than 20 miles to the east (I saw these from the other side on a previous trip to the Isle of Wight).
To the west lies Poole Harbour, an enclosed but vast stretch of water, complete with its own National Trust island, Brownsea Island, in the middle. (There are various boat trips available around the harbour; well worth a trip if your sea legs are up for it.)
The entrance to Poole Harbour is visible in the centre of this picture. The land mass to the right is Brownsea Island. The people in this photograph DO have legs - it just looks like they don't because the pavement is at a lower level than the road!
Here, we're coming to the end of the land, quite literally. As I said above, we're on a tiny spit and will shortly come to the water's edge. Shell Bay Beach, on Studland, is less than half a mile to the south, and Swanage only a few miles further on. But there's a stretch of water at the Harbour entrance between us.
But this is where the second unusual feature of route 50 comes into play. We're not on a double-run into Sandbanks and out again - oh no! We're going to take a much more direct route across to Shell Bay Beach.
The bus is taking the ferry!
About to board the Sandbanks Ferry
The Sandbanks Ferry is a turn-up-and-go route across this tiny stretch of water. The Bournemouth-Swanage Motor Road and Ferry Company came into being in July 1923 following an Act of Parliament. The present ferry, the “Bramble Bush Bay”, came into service in 1994, it is the fourth ferry to operate this service since the company was formed. At 242 feet in length, it has a nominal capacity of 48 cars (source: www.sandbanksferry.co.uk).
We're roughly half-way across to Shell Bay here.
There are other bus routes that take ferries of course - I travelled on one in Devon and I'm sure there are a few in Scotland. But there's something very special about this brief crossing, especially on a bright spring morning in calm waters.
Looking back towards Sandbanks on Friday 17th September 2010. At that time route 50 was in the hands of Scania N230UD Optare Visionaires such as 1403 (HF09 FVW), which is on the Ferry heading for Shell Bay and Swanage. This bus is now carrying out a similar function on the Isle of Wight's Island Breezer routes.
The 2010 Purbeck Breezer livery, on 1403, as it leaves the ferry just after the crossing in the photo above. Worth comparing this design to the one in use today, which is demonstrated in the picture at the top of the article. The seagulls are a constant!
Looking across to Sandbanks from the Shell Bay side of the water, on Friday 17th September 2010.
The crossing takes only a few minutes on this trip, but of course a lot of slack time has to be allowed in case access to the ferry isn't as easy as it has been this morning. As a result, we stand for several minutes on the south side of the crossing, waiting for our scheduled departure time.
Shell Bay beach
There's a steady stream of cars heading the other way; the truth is, the alternative routes from Studland or Swanage to the Bournemouth area require a very considerable detour via Wareham and Poole, as the map below might demonstrate.
The blue lines show shipping routes into Poole. The point where they come together is the location of the Sandbanks Ferry.
Back on dry land
1707 (HF66 DSE), another Volvo B5TL MCV eVoSeti, heads to the Sandbanks Ferry at Shell Bay terminal
It's a slow trek from the boat to the toll booths, because of course everyone is paying for the crossing.
Toll booths at Shell Bay
I have also found, in my archives, a photo of the tariff board from 2010, and it makes an interesting comparison to the 2023 version (as well as showing how (my) digital photography has improved over the same period:
2010 (top) and 2023 (bottom, but you didn't need me to tell you that, did you)! The "cash only" requirement has also disappeared between visits.
We're now driving down the Ferry Road in Studland. The land here is far more rural and less spoilt than on the other side of the Harbour crossing, and we're in the Studland and Godlingston Heath National Nature Reserve.
Studland Heath is a protected Site of Special Scientific Interest, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, part of the Purbeck Heritage Coast, and a gateway to the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site. That's quite a pedigree!
Looking across to Brand's Bay
One of the few major buildings on the run from Shell Bay to Studland village is the Knoll House Hotel, on the edge of Studland. Close by is Knoll Beach, which I have not visited, but the pictures suggest it is stunning!
The bus, which has pretty much filled up as we have headed down to Sandbanks, thins out slightly as people leave to explore the nature reserve - great walking territory too, I suspect. But yet more join in Studland village for the last part of the run into Swanage. The bus is almost full, and there's no room on the top deck now.
The ride remains rural in nature after Studland. There's an important, but subtle, fork in the road here and we head left towards Swanage (miss the turning and you're on your way to Corfe Castle)!
Currendon Hill, Ulwell, near Swanage
All too soon we're coming into the town.
First proper view of Swanage Beach
The town itself is pretty, bright and inviting, especially in the spring sunshine. Tourism is the main industry today, perhaps borne out by the fact that a Sunday morning bus service that left Bournemouth before 9am has brought more than 50 people into the town.
Many of those arriving here will leave by the Swanage Railway, a heritage route that operates full-size steam and diesel passenger trains along a five-and-a-half-mile line to Corfe Castle and Norden. The line was closed to passengers on New Year's Day in 1972 and demolished soon afterwards. Years of painstaking work saw the line rebuilt, bit-by-bit, and, in 2017, the Swanage Railway Trust realised its long-standing ambition of linking back into the national rail network, with some services being extended to Wareham.
The impressive frontage of Swanage station, now the home of the heritage Swanage Railway
During my brief stay in Swanage (45 minutes), there isn't a train in the platform - the next one is due half an hour after I leave. But I make no apology for including a picture of the platform anyway. I suspect this is the station at which The Two Ronnies and their companions arrived into the fictional town of Tiddly Cove (supposedly on the Dorset Coast) in the brilliant 1982 comedy "By the Sea".
Station platform at Swanage, taken from the street behind the station (the appropriately-named Station Road)
It's a lovely and unusual ride on route 50 and I highly recommend it. And I'm not the only one. In a 2018 survey of Britain's most scenic bus routes, the 50 came third. It's mentioned on Scenic Buses as well. Enough said!