Oysters, Pearls and Clangers:
A Trip to Whitstable
18 May 2025
ABOVE: Stagecoach South East 11557 (SK21 FJC) is an ADL Enviro400 MMC. It is passing along Tile Kiln Hill in Blean, Canterbury, on route 400 (Greenhill to Canterbury via Whitstable). All photographs in this article were taken on Saturday 19 April 2025.
On the north coast of Kent is the town of Whitstable. Archaeological finds indicate that the Whitstable area was inhabited as far back as the Palaeolithic era. The remains of a Roman building were found in the centre of the town, and charters indicate that there were Saxon settlements here where salt production and coastal trade occurred.
But the town is most famous for oysters, which were collected from beds beyond the low water mark from Roman times until the mid-20th century.
I've only visited once, many years ago, so I'm well overdue a repeat of the experience. I'm staying in Canterbury for part of the Easter Weekend, and I have, by a fluke, obtained a theatre ticket for the evening. I've got about four hours in hand, which feels ample time to nip out to Whitstable and back.
Whitstable sits about five miles north of Canterbury, and four miles west of Herne Bay. There used to be a bus service called "The Triangle" that ran from Canterbury to Whitstable, then to Herne Bay and back to Canterbury, in both directions (you can see where the brand name came from)!
But that was changed a few years ago. On the Canterbury to Whitstable corridor the main services are now the 400 and 401. And it's a 401 I have just jumped onto at the Bus Station. It's 1448 on a Saturday afternoon, and the city is heaving!
As we edge out of the Bus Station, we're briefly following one of the Park & Ride buses for the Sturry Road car park to the east of the city. From the front, buses look completely white, but it's only when you get a different angle that you see that most of the bus is actually purple.
ABOVE: Stagecoach South East 26358 (YX22 OHR), an ADL Enviro200 MMC, edges into traffic at St George's Roundabout in Canterbury City Centre, on the Park & Ride service to Sturry Road, showing off the purple side and rear livery. Meanwhile, fellow 26357 (YX22 OHP) shows the white front treatment (inset), whilst heading down Tourtel Road, a little further into its short journey.
But we swifty turn the opposite way out of the Bus Station to the Park & Ride service. Stagecoach South East provides the service on routes 400 and 401, each of which runs half-hourly from Canterbury, providing a joint quarter-hourly frequency. I'm on an ADL Enviro400 MMC. It's picked up a decent load.
Buses have to work their way around part of the City Centre before turning in again to pass the Westgate Tower, an historical gateway built in 1380. Immediately after, we cross the Great Stour River, where the flowers are in full bloom:
We head out on the Whistable Road. The first part of this is uphill. A woman in the other front seat with a small child has walked down into the city, and she is relieved that they are using the bus to avoid the climb back. I think that's justified, as it's the best part of a mile-and-a-half, as the crow flies, to where they get off.
The 401 makes a deviation to serve the Keynes College of the University of Kent. Buses on the 400 skip this deviation during the daytime on weekdays but do go in in the early mornings, in the evenings, and on Sundays.
ABOVE: Keynes College Bus Interchange
This deviaition involves a double-run, and buses give an excellent view across Canterbury as they head back to the Whitstable Road, including of the Cathedal itself:
Whitstable Road becomes Tile Kiln Road, which heads downhill in this direction, before a significant climb follows...
ABOVE: Looking down Tile Kiln Hill, Stagecoach South East 11557 (SK21 FJC), an ADL Enviro400 MMC, can be seen in the distance, working a 400 service back to Canterbury.
We pass through Blean, which is "scattered" across the road and is largely woodland forming the Forest of Blean. Artist and Puppet Maker Peter Firmin (1928-2018) formed a company here in a disused cowshed, with Oliver Postgate (1925-2008). This was Smallfilms, which produced many of the most memorable children's TV shows of the 1960s and later, including "The Clangers", "Ivor the Engline", "Noggin the Nog" and "Bagpuss". Much of Smallfilms' animated work was made here; Firmin did the artwork and built the models, whilst Postgate wrote the scripts, did the stop-motion filming, and voiced many of the characters. Separately, Firmin also designed the original Basil Brush puppet.
After Blean comes the hamlet of Honey Hill:
It's here that I find an example of the new Stagecoach national livery, best described as drab and dull:
ABOVE: The new Stagecoach livery is illustrated on Stagecoach South East 15333 (YN67 YLF), a Scania N250UD ADL Enviro400 MMC, in Honey Hill.
We pass through Pean Hill and cross the major A299 - the trunk road across this part of North Kent, and enter the environs of Whitstable itself.
ABOVE: Looking down Borstal Hill, on the outskirts of Whitstable, at the junction of Grimthorpe Avenue
It has taken just 33 minutes to reach Oxford Street, the start of the main shopping area that will morph into the High Street.
ABOVE: A Class 395 "Javelin" Southeastern train can be seen crossing the main road in Whitstable. This was taken just a moment before a teenage girl stormed out of "The Vape Spot" on the right, shouting and swearing at the staff, presumably because she was underage, or could not prove that she wasn't!
There are many notable people associated with Whitstable, but there's a rather strange juxtoposition of two of them at the Wetherspoon's in the High Street. The restaurant is named "The Peter Cushing", after the actor (1913-1994), who lived in the town and is buried at nearby Seasalter. But on the side wall is a portrait of W. Somerset Maughan (1874-1965), who lived in Whitstable in his early years. Just looks a little odd...
The streets of the town are narrow, and the number of people around can make it challenging to navigate. All of the ice cream parlours have queues spilling onto the street on this lovely sunny afternoon, and many of the restaurants are pretty crowded as well, even though it is well past lunchtime!
ABOVE: Stagecoach South East 10725 (SN66 VWR), another ADL Enviro400 MMC, navigates Whitstable High Street working route 401 to Canterbury.
I leave the 401, which will terminate in Tankerton, a suburb to the east of town. The 400 will continue, via Tankerton, to the Greenhill Roundabout, from where interchange is possible with route 600 to Herne Bay and Canterbury, thus completing the traditional "Triangle".
CORRECTION: Since publishing this article, I have discovered that one does not usually need to interchange at the Greenhill Roundabout. Buses switch from route 400 to route 600 and carry on round to complete the circuit / triangle, whilst those in the opposite direction make the reverse change from 600 to 400! Makes a lot more sense to me!
At the end of the High Street is the "Duke of Cumberland" pub, which dates back to 1867.
The road divides around the "Duke of Cumberland", with this narrow road thankfully being one-way (it gets even tighter further along)!
ABOVE: High Street becomes Horsebridge Road as we reach the seafront - a few yards out of sight down either of the roads to the left. This is the one-way section. The Horsebridge bus stop ahead represents the timing point here.
A short walk takes me to the sea front and harbour:
I must mention the excellent Acorn TV drama "Whitstable Pearl", which is set here and filmed in these parts. Starring Kerri Godliman as a restaurant owner and private detective, it is based on the novels of local author Julie Wassmer. Strong storylines, a good cast (also starring Howard Charles and Frances Barber), and good production values make this series an enjoyable watch, even if there was a scene in Series Two where a bus stop was seemingly located on the offside of the road, requiring a character to cross in front of the bus in order to board...
Having come into Whitstable by the direct route, I am heading back by a less direct service - route 5. This hourly route, also provided by Stagecoach South East, starts at Seasalter, south-west of Whitstable and facing the Isle of Sheppey across the estuary of the River Swale. Unfortunately, my evening commitment doesn't give me confidence that I can get out to Seasalter as well, so that will have to wait for another occasion.
The most striking thing to start this ride is that the bus towards Canterbury comes in from the south - in other words, buses to Canterbury leave from the opposite side of the road to Canterbury buses on the 400 and 401. I have fortunately checked the timetable on arrival in town, otherwise I might have been on the wrong side of the road!
After just under an hour in town - quite a long time for me to stop in one place when I'm on one of my 'research' days - I am heading out on the 1617 departure (1621 from the Horsebridge timing point at the other end of the High Street), formed of a Scania N230UD ADL Enviro400. I am the only passenger on the top deck when I board, and this barely changes all the way through (one other person joins somewhere, but I somehow don't notice where - he's just sitting at the back of the bus when we get to Canterbury)!
Buses do three sides of a square in Whitstable, turning right after the Harbour to head down towards the railway station. Then we head deep into the residential part of town:
We pass through residential parts of Tankerton, and reach the A2990 Thanet Way at Foxgrove Road, which seems to be a relief road for the A299 trunk road. It's a busy enough road to create some issues, I suspect, at the busiest times, when the 5 crosses it...
ABOVE: Stagecoach South East 15918 (GN13 HJJ), a Scania N230UD ADL Enviro400, crosses Thanet Way at Foxgrove Road. We need to cross the main road and turn into Clover Rise, which is just visible behind the bus on the left.
We head into South Tankerton, another residential area. After seven or eight minutes working our way around here, we end up back on the Thanet Way, returning to the junction at Foxgrove Road and passing from south-west to north-east, having previously gone over north-east to south-east!
The village of Chestfield stands just half a mile from the sea, south of a railway line that shares a station with the village of Swalecliffe on the northern side. Over a third of the civil parish of Chestfield is woodland.
ABOVE: Chestfield Golf Club
A few moments later we are exploring some of that woodland. This is still part of the Forest of Blean, and is delightful as it is unexpected (I wasn't aware of significant forest in this region):
We're getting back into the city of Canterbury now, but there's still time for one more of those nice "Traditional English" scenes, complete with red telephone box. This comes south of the village of Tyler Hill, close to an area known as Hales Place:
It's actually called St Stephen's Green, and it's far from rural, being only a mile from Canterbury Cathedral as the crow flies.
As if to reinforce this point, a few minutes later, at 1705 (three minutes ahead of schedule), we are pulling into Canterbury Bus Station. This is always extremely busy - both with buses and prospective passengers - and Stagecoach is completely dominant here.
ABOVE: A selection of Stagecoach buses, in a variety of colours, in Canterbury Bus Station.
So I'm back in good time to have an hour off in my hotel before heading to the theatre. I said that the theatre ticket was something of a fluke, and I'm not lying! I had only thought about whether there might be anything I wanted to see at the Marlowe Theatre on the Thursday before Good Friday - two days before! So when I found out that "Only Fools and Horses - The Musical" was running, I thought: "no chance - it will have sold out weeks ago".
When I get to a computer on the Thursday evening, there is one seat available. Just one, in the whole 1200-seat theatre. Right in the middle of a row, and right in the middle of the stalls. It feels too good to be true, but I book it anyway, and of course, it's real! Lovely Jubbly! Great fun had by all, even if the man to my left starts singing along to the familiar "No income tax, no VAT...".
But that's quite fitting in a way, as Del Boy started singing along to Carmen when he went to the opera! And it's a good way to end a lovely day of bus riding, of which the Whitstable trip has been only one bit. I need to tell you about the earlier part of the day at some point...
BELOW: A broad representation of the journey described in this article
