100 British Bus Routes: Route 15
Liverpool to Huyton
1 December 2024
ABOVE: Arriva Merseyside 4669 (SK15 GZF), an ADL Enviro400, passes along Page Moss Lane, near the junction of Pilch Lane East in Swanside, Dovecot, whilst working route 15 towards Liverpool, Queen Square Bus Station. All pictures in this article were taken on Friday 28 June 2024, except where stated.
Runs: Daily (with full evening service)
Operator: Arriva Merseyside
Weekday daytime frequency: Every 10 minutes
Estimated Peak Vehicle Requirement: 10 buses
Off-peak journey time (weekdays): 41-42 minutes
Estimated route length: 10 miles
Operator: Arriva Merseyside
Weekday daytime frequency: Every 10 minutes
Estimated Peak Vehicle Requirement: 10 buses
Off-peak journey time (weekdays): 41-42 minutes
Estimated route length: 10 miles
"I have kleptomania. But when it gets bad, I take something for it.”
Ken Dodd
What a beautiful day for jumping on a bus, doing the rounds with a tickling stick and saying, "this one's for Ken"!
I must admit that I have only really started to get to know the city of Liverpool in the last four years. Prior to that, I made occasional, short visits when staying on holiday somewhere in the vicinity (probably Prestatyn in North Wales). How could I have neglected this great city for so long?
I don't think any introduction to Liverpool is really necessary, but in case anyone is reading this from the other side of the world, it was founded by Royal Charter in 1207 AD by King John (info: Wikipedia), and is on record in 1190 as 'Liuerpul', possibly meaning a pool or creek with muddy water (disputed).
A commercial dock was built in 1715, and the trade of slaves, sugar, tobacco and rum helped to make the city very wealthy (info: Britain Explained). By the early 19th Century, 40% of the world’s trade passed through Liverpool’s Docks (info: Liverpool John Moores University).
Today, it's Britain's fourth largest city. It's where The Beatles started out, and it is home to a football club that is apparently so big (in terms of importance) that putting the word "Liverpool" into Google brings the football club up first in the list of options, before the city itself. (Other football clubs are available.)
If you put "Liverpool Queen Square" into Google, the first option you will get is the website for "some of the best restaurants, pubs and bars to eat, drink and socialise [in]", within the heart of Liverpool CIty Centre. There is, it notes, "great value secure car parking".
There is also one of the main bus hubs in the City Centre, right next to these major shopping and retail streets, so it's a shame there isn't more emphasis on the buses on that website (the Bus Station is mentioned, but clicking on the link takes you to a Wikipedia page which suggests that the operators of the Queen Square retail area haven't really thought much about buses from the perspective of getting people to their businesses.
One has to hunt online a bit more to learn that Queen Square is named after King George III’s Queen, Charlotte (1744-1818). Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz had 15 children, including the next two Kings to suceed George III - George IV and his brother, who became William IV.
And Queen Square is where Arriva Merseyside route 15 begins, on Stand 4. The Bus Station is such an important landmark that incoming buses simply show their destinations as "Queen Square" and don't reference the L word at all; maybe no surprise as we're not going far outside the City on this bus.
Actually on Hood Street, the view at one end of Queen Square's Bus Station is dominated by the Grade-I listed St George's Hall. Opened in 1854, it describes itself as a venue for weddings, conferences, exhibitions and events. And, if you misbehave at any of these, there are Law Courts there too! (I don't think the Courts are active now, actually...)
ABOVE: Queen Square Bus Station in Liverpool City Centre, with St George's Hall taking centre stage. On the right is the former North Western Hotel, now a Radisson Red Hotel. The bus in front is Arriva Merseyside 4847 (BT66 MPZ), a Volvo B5LH Wright Eclipse Gemini 3, working route 13 which follows a similar route as far as West Derby, before bifurcating towards Stockbridge Village, north of Roby. In front of the 13 is a BYD D9UR ADL Enviro200EV.
All very grand, but we have a bus to catch! In this case, an ADL Enviro400 on a Friday lunchtime journey. The Bus Station is bustling but the 15 itself is fairly quiet. A friendly driver welcomes me on board and we're soon working our way around the side of St George's Hall, past Lime Street station and the Liverpool Empire, and onto London Road. It feels as though every bus that leaves the City Centre on an eastern trajectory goes out this way. There must be a lot of buses passing here every hour...
Unlike many of these services, though, we're not going on the main easterly route out - Kensington / Prescot Road (the A57). Ours will initially be a slightly more northerly parallel road.
We take a left turn onto Moss Street, passing a former Bank of Liverpool building. Opened in 1905, this was built on the site of an earlier Bank of Liverpool building, and is reportedly now Student Accommodation! There's a better photograph of the building (as taken by Philip Mayer) on Flickr.
ABOVE: The former Bank of Liverpool building on the corner of Prescot Street and Moss Street in the City Centre. The chimney on the right is the exhaust stack for the steam house of the Royal Liverpool University Hospital.
On the West Derby Road, exactly a mile from the start as the crow flies, is the Liverpool Olympia. Built in 1905, it was designed as a purpose built indoor circus and variety theatre, by renowned architect Frank Matcham. It has also housed a cinema, dance hall and a bingo hall over its life span, becoming one of the first cinemas outside of London to upgrade from silent movies to “talkies” in 1929 (info: Liverpool Olympia).
ABOVE: Liverpool Olympia
We come to the suburb of Tuebrook, home to the Grade-I listed St John the Baptist Church, built in 1860.
ABOVE: St John the Baptist Church, Tuebrook
This is a very busy suburb. About 14,500 people were living here at the time of the 2001 Census (seemingly the most recent figure available). There are several bus services and lots of cars on the main dual-carriageway through the area.
ABOVE: A pair of Arriva Merseyside ADL Enviro400s (the one at the front is working route 15) sandwich a Volvo B5LH Wright Eclipse Gemini 3 which, despite its very different colours, also belongs to Arriva Merseyside. This is mere yards on from the previous photo, outside St John the Baptist Church in Tuebrook.
We hit traffic at a roundabout on the edge of Tuebrook. Fortunately, we are heading to one of the quieter roads at this point, Mill Bank. Still a dual-carriageway but with far less traffic, this road forms one side of a triangle where the other two roads are both major trunk roads - two roads that meet half a mile to our north, at a major junction that makes Henley's Corner in North London look quite calm in comparison. Thankfully, the 15 bypasses all of that.
We do have to cross the busy Queen's Drive (A5058) near The Jolly Miller public house, but then escape onto the quieter Mill Lane, a more local road in a residential area.
ABOVE: Arriva Merseyside 4677 (SK15 GZP) is seen in Mill Lane near Trefula Park, West Derby
Mill Lane has brought us to West Derby, which achieved significance far earlier than Liverpool itself. King Edward the Confessor established a Deer Park here in the 11th Century, and West Derby once had a castle.
Screenwriter Carla Lane (1928-2016), who penned memorable sitcoms such as The Liver Birds, Butterflies and Bread, was born here. She "gave ordinary women a voice, and a ripely funny voice at that," said Ben Lawrence of the Telegraph in an tribute after her passing.
We have been on a broadly north-easterly trajectory for a while but a sharp turn changes that for the south-east direction. We're now in leafy residential roads - more spacious and far less built-up than the centre of Liverpool, which stands about three-and-a-half miles away at this point.
ABOVE: Eaton Road at the junction with North Drive in West Derby, looking broadly north on a hot Wednesday 14 June 2023
ABOVE: Turn around 180 degrees from the previous location (and add a year!) and this is the view, with Aysgarth Avenue on the left and the Walker Playing Fields on the right.
Although we have started out to the north of the East Prescot Road, we need to cross it, and we're soon approaching it as we pass the side of the Alder Hey Children's Hospital. One of the largest children's hospitals in the UK, the original hospital was previously occupied by a mansion known as Alder Hey which the local poor law guardians acquired for use as a children's home in 1910, and used as a Camp Hospital by the US Army during the First World War. Alder Hey was the first hospital to test penicillin on a child, saving them from pneumonia in 1944 (info: Wikipedia).
The current site dates to 2015 and was built on parkland adjacent to the original site; the latter was demolished and reclaimed as parkland for the community.
ABOVE: The side of Alder Hey Children's Hospital. It looks more attractive from the front!
We skirt the edge of Knotty Ash, well known as the home of comedian Sir Ken Dodd (1927-2018). The name Knotty Ash is derived from a gnarled ash tree which formerly stood near the present-day Knotty Ash public house.
Even though this route only brushes the edge of Knotty Ash, I can't resist the opportunity to talk about Sir Ken, which is why I started this article with one of his jokes, followed by a feeble attempt to paraphrase him as a way of making it relevant to a bus blog. (You had forgotten about all that, hadn' you? Please say you had...)
A lifelong resident of the area, Ken Dodd was reknowned for his rapid delivery of jokes, and his reputation for continuing his live shows way past their official end time (and often beyond midnight)! His career began in the mid-1950s and his popularity never really waned.
"I told the doctor, every time I bend down I see Mickey Mouse, yet every time I stand up I see Donald Duck. So he said how long have you been having these Disney spells?"
Ken Dodd
"Doddy" was also a successful music artist, charting on 18 occasions in the Top 40, as well as a ventriloquist. When he began playing seaside resorts, he made famous his home area of Knotty Ash and popularised the miniature race of people who inhabited it. The "Diddy Men", as they were known, worked in the Jam Butty mines of Knotty Ash.
And when Dodd was acquitted of a charge of tax evasion in 1989, he worked it into his act:
"200 years ago this barmy MP, he's sitting along there in Westminster one afternoon; he thinks, I know, I'll invent income tax. So he did. 200 years ago. In those days it was tuppence in the pound. I thought it still was."
Ken Dodd
In case you're wondering, income tax in its modern form was indeed introduced about 200 years ago (1798 in fact) by Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, at a rate of two (old) pence in the pound. It was initially to pay for weapons and equipment for the French Revolutionary War.
There's a statue of Doddy in Lime Street station, but the best tribute in the city can be found on the route of the 15; albeit not in Knotty Ash, but right in the heart of Queen Square Bus Station. Go to Bus Stop 8, and it's directly opposite, in the walls of the Royal Court Theatre.
It takes the form of these two murals, by Paul Curtis, an award-winning Liverpool-based artist who specialises in street art and large murals:
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"This morning the BBC sent a car for me. Luckily it missed."
Ken Dodd
Back to route 15, and our visit to Knotty Ash is very brief. Having crossed the A57, we dive into Dovecot, described as having some of the "more desirable semi-detached houses on the border with Knotty Ash".
ABOVE: Some of the "desirable" houses in Pilch Lane, Dovecot, at the junction with Newenham Crescent. One random recycling bin indicates that it might have been collection day here!
This particular journey has not been especially busy, but the 10-minute frequency means a decent bus service into town for residents here. But this area looks quite affluent; lots of parked cars around, and spaces for more on many driveways (where big enough to hold one). Is this car territory?
ABOVE: The locale of Swanside, Dovecot
We cross out of the City of Liverpool and into the Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley. We're almost at journey's end as we pass through Roby. Technically a village, despite having over 9000 people recorded as living there at the time of the 2021 Census, it grew from a 10th-Century Norse settlement, mentioned as Rabil in the Domesday Book of 1086.
ABOVE: A pair of Arriva Merseyside BYD D9UR ADL Enviro200EVs pass in Rupert Road. Roby. 7005 (LJ67 DMO, left) is probably working route 9, Liverpool to Huyton Circular, whilst 7009 (LJ67 DMY, right) is working the equivalent route 8, which covers the same loop in the opposite direction.
ABOVE: Although route 15 is mainly in the hands of Enviro400s, the occasional Volvo B5LH Wright Eclipse Gemini 3, such as 4832 (BW66 GYY), does also appear. This is Rupert Road, Roby, just yards further on from the previous photo.
And very quickly, we find ourselves arriving into Huyton. Huyton was first settled around 600-650 AD by Angles (info: Wikipedia again). There's a very long list (on Wikipedia) of notable people who are associated with the area, comprising of actors, musicians (of all genres), playwrights, comedians and sports stars.
Perhaps the most high profile name is Harold Wilson, former Prime Minister, who was the local MP for 33 years. But you might prefer me to record Stuart Sutcliffe, the "fifth Beatle", or Phil Redmond, the creator of Grange Hill, Brookside and Hollyoaks. Or Sir Thomas Beecham, who founded the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Or Carol Decker, of T'Pau. Or... Well, why not have a look - there's bound to be someone on the list who has influenced you or something that you're interested in...
The Bus Station at Huyton is very nice to look at on a summer's day in bright sunshine (and it was around 25 degrees last time I was here), but I suspect it doesn't offer a huge amount of protection from the elements on a cold winter's night.
ABOVE: Huyton Bus Station on Wednesday 14 June 2023, with a Wright Streetdeck on route 10B (Huyton to Liverpool), and a BYD D9UR ADL Enviro200EV in front of that.
And this is where route 15 terminates. There's a slightly different way out of Huyton due to a one-way system, and a variation on the approaches to the City Centre for the same reason.
An interesting journey through some of the nicer-looking suburbs of Liverpool, and avoiding the 'obvious' route from Knotty Ash into the City Centre. Worth a ride if you're in the area.
And to bring us back round to where we started, and to tie the loose ends together, the last word has to go to Sir Ken Dodd, talking about St George's Hall:
"Sixteen Corinthian columns, sixty feet high, supporting the façade. It started out as a bus shelter, but it just got a bit out of hand."
Ken Dodd