A Winter's Morning in Suffolk
5 October 2024
ABOVE: Hedingham & Chambers 875 (PN09 ENE), trading only as Chambers on this vehicle, is a Scania N230UD Optare Olympus. It is seen here in Hall Street, Long Melford, working route 753 towards Sudbury. Note the subtle branding: "Taking you there... ... bringing you back". The "Boomerang" marketing is visible at the rear, between decks. All photos in this article were taken on Monday 5 February 2024.
You probably won't thank me for a reminder of winter at this particular time of year, with the nights drawing in and the temperatures dipping, but this journey takes place on a Monday last February.
It might be winter, but it's a lovely sunny morning as I arrive into Colchester Town station in Essex. I have just had to turn myself sideways to walk through the train that I took from Colchester's main line station a mile away; the "3 + 2" seating is really tight and it's a humbling reminder that I need to lose a few pounds.
I'm here to make a morning trip across Suffolk to Bury St Edmunds, via Sudbury. The various services along the Colchester - Sudbury - Bury St Edmunds corridor are apparently marketed as the "Boomerang" routes, but this is very low-key branding.
I have been aiming to arrive for the 0930 departure to Sudbury on Hedingham & Chambers route 784, but there's a route 84 bus on the stand in Osborne Street, with its doors open, so I hop on that instead. A slightly longer way round, but who cares about that!
I've made it to this service with moments to spare. It's the 0912 departure and we are soon working our way aroud the streets of Colchester. The stop in Head Street is marked as suspended, due to adjacent roadworks, but we stop anyway. There's an impressive adjacent departure board here:
ABOVE: The departure board in Head Street, Colchester is large and comprehensive. First Essex 32530 (YJ54 XUX), a Volvo B7TL Wright Eclipse Gemini, is calling in at the stop (as are we) even though it is marked as "suspended" - see the sign in the shelter. The Volvo is working local route S2 to Highwoods; the vehicle was withdrawn from service in April 2024.
The 84 is a rare service. Also operated by Hedingham & Chambers (part of the Go-Ahead Group), there are just four through trips per day (and only three back!), plus a couple of part-route workings.
The bus is clean and presentable. It's a 16-year-old Scania N94UD OmniDekka (55-reg). The noughties was the period when passenger comfort was perhaps less of a concern to manufacturers than squeezing in as many seats as possible, and the front-seat legroom is consequently very tight. Fortunately this is a quiet run so I don't have to share the seat (or indeed, for the first part of the journey, the deck)!
It's only just past the end of the school run and Colchester is pretty busy.
ABOVE: A First Essex Wright Streetlie DF enters the Essex Hall Roundabout, near Colchester's main line railway station.
There also seem to be an inordinate number of roadworks underway in the city. Every corner we turn seems to bring up more bollards and barriers.
ABOVE: In the midst of another set of roadworks, Ipswich Buses 62 (PJ54 YZV), a Scania N94UD OmniDekka, passes the Big Yellow storage facility in Bruff Close, Ipswich on a working of route 93A from Ipswich. The 93A is a schooldays-only variation of the main route 93. A tiny routing alteration in East Bergholt seems to be the only difference.
Fifty miles north-east of London, Colchester claims to be Britain's first city, as it occupies the site of the first major city in Roman Britain - Camulodunum. Two large stretches of the Roman city wall are still standing, and fragments of the remainder are still visible.
Our exit from the city is in a northerly direction initially, through the village of Great Horkesley. Much of the village here was boggy marshland until drained by farmers, whilst an archaeological dig discovered a Bronze Age smelting pit here.
ABOVE: A Hedingham & Chambers Scania N94UD OmniDekka heads south along The Causeway in Great Horkesley, on route 784 to Colchester
We cross over the River Stour, entering Suffolk just south of Nayland. The scenery around here is typical of the region - small, attractive settlements surrounded by green space.
ABOVE: The entrance to the village of Nayland, as seen from the main A134 road.
The name Nayland means island, and the village developed on the higher ground amidst the lower river flood plain.
The 84 is the only bus to venture into the village itself; the 784 stays on the main road. It's fascinating to experience a double-decker bus squeezing through some very tight village streets!
ABOVE: In Bear Street, in the heart of Nayland, our double-decker bus is about to go straight on, into the narrow Birch Street. Let's hope there's nothing coming the other way!
Just beyond Nayland is Stoke-by-Nayland.
ABOVE: From just outside Nayland, the spire of what I believe to be St Mary the Virgin Church in Stoke-by-Nayland can be picked out in the distance.
There is a Demand Responsive bus service on a semi-fixed timetable available in this area, but the 84 is the only regular bus service available round here that one does not need to book in advance.
We're heading for Leavenheath, and pass a small residential area north of the main village that is apparently part of it, but is completely separated from the rest by half a mile or so of open road (broken up by the Parish Church - St Matthew's which sits between the two parts of the village but is completely hidden from the road by trees).
It's somewhere near this isolated part of Leavenheath that we briefly look like being caught by a set of temporary traffic lights, where the B1068 meets the A134, but a sharp left turn just before the junction, enables us to bypass them (or so I think...), as we head down the Old Road and turn left onto the A134 further down.
This detour turns out to be a lengthy double-run, culminating in a three-point turn half-way along the High Road in the main part of Leavenheath. It is worth it, though, as we pick up a new passenger here, and I have company on the top deck for the first time this trip.
We then retrace our steps, and pass those temporary lights after all - fortunately with minimal delay.
A few minutes later we are venturing into the village of Assington. We are deep in the country here.
ABOVE: The approach to Assington village - very narrow indeed for a double-decker bus!
This turns out to be another double-run, into the village centre, but there's no benefit to calling in this time. The main road here is just called The Street, and the bus stop is the "Shoulder of Mutton", named after a pub just down The Street. A tiny place, with an estimated population in 2019 of 445 people.
We enjoy a fast stretch to Great Cornard, on the edge of Sudbury, which generates eight new passengers for the last bit of the journey. We reach Sudbury's small "Bus Park" (as it is signposted), on time at 1030.
ABOVE: A pair of Hedingham & Chambers Scania N94UD OmniDekkas stand in Sudbury Bus Station. 801 (YN55 PZC, left) will form my 753 service to Bury St Edmunds in about half an hour, whilst 806 (YN55 PZH), is about to depart on one of the handful of journeys on fellow route 750, also terminating in Bury St Edmunds but gettig there by a very different route.
The bus now turns into a 750 towards Bury St Edmunds, departing at 1035. This is presented, in the printed timetable that is available on the bus (always refreshing), as a "guaranteed connection" from the 784 that I was originally aiming for (0930 from Colchester, arriving at 1025 into Sudbury). Proof indeed that a "guaranteed connection" doesn't always mean the same vehicle!
I take a short break to look at the town (no need to spend half of the visit searching for essential facilities as there are some at the Bus Station - phew)!
Sudbury was, according to Wikipedia, an Anglo-Saxon settlement from the end of the eighth century, and its market was established in the early 11th century. Its textile industries prospered in the Late Middle Ages. The town was the birthplace of artist Thomas Gainsborough (c. 1727-1788), whose landscapes offered inspiration to landscape painter John Constable (1776-1837). Gainsborough now keeps a watchful eye on the town from Market Hill in the town centre.
ABOVE: Gainsborough's statue stands outside the imposing St Peter's Church, in Market Hill, Sudbury
One of Sudbury's smaller buses passes through:
ABOVE: Felix Taxis RX20 RYD is a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter EVM Cityline. It is seen in Market Hill, Sudbury, on local service 716 from Long Melford
I'm back at the Bus Station at 1050, with my eye on the 753 departure to Bury St Edmunds - another Hedingham & Chambers service. I'm surprised to find it already on the stand, with the doors open, ready for customers like me. Surpised because I was expecting it to be the vehicle off the 754 from Colchester, which arrives at 1057 as a "guaranteed connection". The latter service comes in behind, on time. Again, the "guaranteed connection" does not mean staying on the same bus, like it does in many other areas.
The engine of my bus is running for the whole time it is on the stand, and it's quite a rattly vehicle as well (another 55-reg Scania OmniDekka).
The 753 shares the Sudbury to Bury route with route 750, with a common stretch from Sicklesmere, on the last leg of the journey. Otherwise, the routes are quite different.
Timetables are very unpredictable on these routes and you need to know what you're doing. For example, the 750 departs Sudbury at 0850, 1035, 1135 and 1235 (last one) on Saturdays, with the 753 running broadly hourly through the mornings, but with later journeys leaving at 1305, 1405, 1500, 1540, 1637 (part-route only), 1717, 1830 and 2110! I wonder if a more regular frequency might encourage more customers?
This journey is a little busier than the 84 was. We pass through Long Melford. Prehistoric finds discovered here in 2011 have shown that early settlement here dates back to the Mesolithic period, up to 8300 BC.
The village of Acton is nothing like its namesake in West London, where I lived for several years, but it does have quite a history:
Wikipedia reports that local resident William Jennens, known as "William the Miser" and the "Acton Miser", was reportedly Britain's richest man at the time of his death in 1798, but had, at the age of 97, outlived the nominated executors and beneficiaries under his Will. (Another account suggests that he has omitted to sign his Will.) Whichever version is true, many legal claims were made for the funds, and a "Jennens vs Jennens" legal case commenced in 1798 and was abandoned in 1915 - yes, 117 years later - when the legal fees had exhausted the Jennens estate of its funds. The case reportedly inspired Charles Dickens to create the "Jarndyce and Jarndyce" case in his novel "Bleak House".
Separately, Acton resident Catherine Foster, described as "simple-minded", was the last woman to be hanged at Bury St Edmunds, in 1847, aged 17. She had poisoned her husband John by putting arsenic in his dumplings.
Funny to have a Sudbury so close to Acton (about two-and-a-half miles as the crow flies), as there's a Sudbury in West London about four miles from that Acton!
The sun is shining brighty as we venture towards Lavenham. Although classified as a village, it's a more sizeable place than some we have passed through this morning.
ABOVE: St Peter's and St Paul's Church, Lavenham
In the medieval period, Lavenham was among the twenty wealthiest settlements in England. The centre today has a busy High Street, including a Grade I-listed Guildhall. Many of the buildings here are distorted in shape. One account, at Neatorama, suggests that the houses were built in haste with green timber, which warped as the wood dried. There wasn't the money to make the repairs so they were left as they were.
The most well-known Crooked House in the village is at 7 High Street. It has its own website and merchandising. It is suggested that this may have been the inspiration for the poem "There Was a Crooked Man".
ABOVE: High Street, Lavenham
We pass near Cockfield, which is just off the main road, and then through Cross Green. The scenes here are, to my mind, quintessentially English Picture Postcard.
ABOVE: Cross Green
ABOVE: Just yards on from the previous photo in Cross Green, 810 (YN55 PZO), another Scania N94UD OmniDekka, passes by with the southbound service on route 753 to Sudbury.
We are soon on the approach to Bury St Edmunds.
ABOVE: Mulley's Motorways YN54 NXK, a Scania N94UB OmniCity, operates town circular service M11 in Bury St Edmunds.
Buses run to the bus station at the north of the town centre, but I bail out one stop early, on the bus-only St Andrew's Street South. We're broadly on schedule, arriving at just after 1200.
ABOVE: 801 again, having just dropped me in St Andrew's Street South, Bury St Edmunds. I appreciate that this isn't a particularly good photograph with the sun behind the bus. But it's a good illustration of the route so I did want to include it.
There's a strange ending to this story. As I was sitting in a high-quality restaurant in Bury St Edmunds enjoying some lunch (oh, alright, it was Burger King), I decided to change my plans for the afternoon. Instead of going to Newmarket as intended, I decided to go to Thetford, across the border into Norfolk.
Thetford is where they filmed the exterior scenes for the BBC's wonderful sitcom "Dad's Army" in the late 1960s and through most of the 1970s. I hadn't been planning to go there on this occasion but it suddenly seemed such a good idea, as it isn't far away and there's a through bus from Bury St Edmunds.
That journey is a story for another day. But, literally as I closed the internet browser page on the timetable I had just been studying on my phone, a WhatsApp message from a friend flashed up on my screen: "Ian Lavender: Dad's Army star dies"...
So Private Pike has gone, just as I decide to visit "Dad's Army" land. Spooky or what? (He actually passed away a couple of days earlier, but it was only announced that day.)
Apart from that incredibly sad bit of news, I've had a lovely morning exploring Suffolk. It's a lovely part of the world, and I need to spend more time here in the future.
It's clearly not very strong operating territory for buses, but they seem to be providing the key essential links that are needed to help people get around. I'll be back - I just need to have my wits about me for the slightly eccentric timetables...
BELOW: A diagrammatical representation of the journey described above
