Unforgettable Bus Rides: Route 555
The Appetiser: Lancaster to Windermere
25 May 2025
ABOVE: Showing off the attractive livery used by buses on route 555 (with variants used on other services around the Lake District) is Stagecoach Cumbria and North Lancashire 11577 (YX23 OPE), an ADL Enviro400 MMC. It is heading for Lancaster when seen in Blackhall Road, Kendal (opposite Kendal Bus Station) on Saturday 3 May 2025. Most photos in this article were taken on Thursday 1 May 2025, unless otherwise stated.
Whenever anyone writes an article in a newspaper or magazine about Britain's Best Bus Rides, or the best deals to be had for the three pound maximum fare on most English buses at present, route 555 across the Lake District always gets a mention. For many, it's the best bus route in Britain. It's astounding, therefore, that it has taken me as long as it has to get to it.
Branded as The Lakes Connection, Stagecoach Cumbria and North Lancashire (SCNL) route 555 runs from Lancaster to Keswick, a journey of 45 miles and over three hours, through the heart of the Lake District. The Lake District itself is England's largest National Park and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, renowned for its mountains, its lakes and its landscape vistas. William Wordsworth described it as "the loveliest spot that man hath found".
This should be good...
I'm covering the southern section of the route, from Lancaster to Windermere, in this article. I have termed this part as the "appetiser". You'll understand why when I serve up the main course (Windermere to Keswick) in a later article. (There's no dessert planned - I'm on a diet - although there are various extra side dishes to come...!)
The southern terminus of the 555 is Lancaster Bus Station - a small and busy spot with 20 stands in a confined space. It normally feels dark and crowded, but it's just the people and the buses causing this! When they aren't around, it's much brighter...
ABOVE: Lancaster Bus Station at about 0835 on Sunday 4 May 2025. With no buses in and few people around, it's much more airy and bright than I am used to - the presence of a dozen or more buses normally removes a substantial amount of the natural daylight.
There are two routes out of Lancaster. An hourly service (two-hourly on Sundays) follows the main route via Carnforth, which I will come to shortly. But there are also journeys that take a short-cut, and I'm going to focus on these first.
The two routings separate at Skerton Bridge, just moments after leaving the Bus Station. Just beyond is student accommodation that has been built on top of the former Lancashire Corporation Bus Depot. The bus depot building, which also housed the local Swimming Baths, opened in July 1937. There's a brief history of the site on the Lancaster Civic Vision website, and a modern aerial view, which clearly shows the site's origins, on WebAviation. The main building now houses a Lidl supermarket - how the mighty have fallen!
ABOVE: Lidl's in Lancaster - formerly a Bus Depot and Swimming Baths. I believe the part with the columns was the entrance to the Swimming Baths. Taken on Sunday 4 May 2025
The main route crosses the River Lune at this point, but the 'fast' route stays on the eastern side of the river for now, giving us a proper view of the Old Bus Depot.
ABOVE: SCNL 10561 (SN16 OOF), an ADL Enviro400 MMC, heads along Caton Road, Lancaster, working the 0814 Lancaster to Keswick service on Sunday 4 May 2025. Note that the service is already busy at this early hour! This bus is taking the short-cut, as referenced by the destination display which, with the right camera, would have read "Kendal", "via M6 then Keswick" - slightly confusing as it suggests that Keswick comes before Kendal. The building behind is the student accommodation built on top of the old bus depot.
Lancaster reportedly began its life as a Roman fort in the first Century AD. The City Centre is not the largest, though. Just a mile-and-a-half to the north-east of Lancaster Castle brings us to the city limits, and half a mile further on from that, we're at the M6 Motorway. This makes the motorway an obvious way to speed passengers from Lancaster to Kendal, shaving 40 minutes off that punishing three hours-plus journey time for those who want to go all the way to Keswick.
These fast journeys are relatively rare. The full 555 service, half-hourly, only runs on Saturdays, and on weekdays in what one might term "high-to-late summer" (July, August and September in 2025). When the half-hourly service operates, alternate buses take the fast route via the M6. If you're heading south, and you can time it right, you can leave half an hour after someone else and get into Lancaster first!
On other weekdays, there is a mainly hourly service, and just one fast service in each direction, which may be provided as much for operational reasons (as the route appears to be based in Kendal) as for customers.
We pass a sizeable community that I believe to be Carnforth. The Leeds to Morecambe railway line is also just visible:
ABOVE: Carnforth, from the M6 motorway. Note the railway lines in the foreground
We cross the Lancaster Canal, and enter Cumbria:
You might notice some dirty blobs and smears on some of the pictures taken from the buses. Whilst they always say that a bad workman blames his tools, my camera has just been pointing through the front windscreen of the bus, which is where all those smears are to be found.
Sadly, without exception, every bus I travelled on on route 555 had a front upstairs windscreen that needed a rub-over with a damp cloth. I've tried to use technology to clean up the pictures a bit, but this is a route with such a high tourist element (as you will discover), that it's very disappointing to record that the bus company hasn't put more effort into keeping the windows clean.
After around 12 miles on the motorway, and another three miles or so along the fast A590, we pull off into the environs of Kendal, joining the main 555 route in Sizergh.
Jumping back now to Lancaster, and the main 555 route crosses the River Lune and heads up the A6 road, which, at its full extent, runs from Luton to Carlisle.
We reach the parish of Slyne-with-Hest, a parish in the city of Lancaster that comprises of the village of Slyne, which we are passing through, and the village of Hest Bank that sits to the west, close to the coast on Morecambe Bay.
ABOVE: SCNL 11571 (YX23 OOW) has just passed through Slyne, and is heading for "Kendal then Keswick", a much clearer display for not having the M6 detour to represent!
We pass Bolton-le-Sands, known as Bolton until the coming of the railways, when the name was changed to differentiate it from Bolton, Greater Manchester, a station on the same line that was then also part of Lancashire. SCNL route 55 (Lancaster to Carnforth) operates through this area, albeit getting into Hest Bank rather than staying on the A6.
ABOVE: SCNL 12207 (MX13 FLP), an ADL Enviro400, passs near Bolton-in-Sands, en route for Carnforth on route 55.
And so to Carnforth, where, in 1945, the railway station was used as a location for the film "Brief Encounter". I shall return to Carnforth, and to route 55, in a future article.
ABOVE: On Saturday 3 May 2025, SCNL 11578 (YX23 OPF), passes the Royal Station Hotel in Carnforth. The railway station is just visible in the background.
North of Carnforth is Pine Lake, where a leisure resort has been established around the lake itself. It certainly looks inviting:
This is a section of route where we drift away from the A6 for a little while, to serve some of the villages and holiday sites (this area being popular for the latter). It's a very countrified area, except when the M6 runs through the middle of it!
ABOVE: This is near the hamlet of Tewitfield, south of Burton-in-Kendal, albeit on the opposite side of the M6 to the hamlet itself.
As we head on towards the village of Burton-in-Kendal, and now into Cumbria, we cross the M6 motorway - one of two points, either side of the village, where the Fast route passes directly underneath the regular route. I wonder if two buses ever pass at the same time, on the different routes? Would be something of a fluke to be around when they did, I suspect...
The village itself is midway between Lancaster and Kendal. This location means that travellers used Burton's many inns to eat, drink, and rest their pack horses in the course of their journeys.
Back over the motorway comes the village of Holme.
ABOVE: SCNL 11575 (YX23 OPC) passes through Holme
We soon come to the village of Milnthorpe, which was granted a market charter (now lapsed) in 1334. Milnthorpe became a centre of business and activity because it was originally a port, using the River Bela and estuary to bring goods the last mile from the coast to the village.
ABOVE: St Thomas' Church, Milnthorpe
I'm tempted to stop here for an "Um Bongo" drink, as this children's drink was created, and originally produced, here from 1983. "Big Fish Internet Ltd", the longest-established web design company in the UK, was founded here in 1996 and is now based a couple of miles away.
ABOVE: The centre of Milnthorpe
Another mile or so on the A6 is followed by a deviation to a parallel road to serve the villages of Heversham and Leasgill. The lovely St Peter's Church stands in Heversham; the oldest part of this church - the Nave - dates back to c. 1180. This article is a bit short of Church photographs - I usually try to include some as the architecture can be stunning. I don't manage to get a decent view of this church but you can find one here.
ABOVE: Heversham
The Brettargh Holt Roundabout, near Sizergh, marks the point where the two variations of the route come together. It's now just four miles into Kendal. Sizergh is the location of Sizergh Castle, a stately home where the earliest part of the building, a tower, dates back to some time around the 14th or 15th Century.
The River Kent, around 20 miles long, comes into its own in the town centre of Kendal. It originates in the hills of Kentmere, a village a few miles to the north, and flows into the north of Morecambe Bay.
ABOVE: The Nether Bridge in Kendal, crossing the River Kent, on Saturday 3 May 2025.
ABOVE: A view into the town of Kendal from the Nether Bridge itself. Holy Trinity Kendal Parish Church stands tall to the left.
Kendal stands just outside the boundary of the Lake District National Park. It takes its name from the River Kent and the Old Norse word dalr ("valley"). For many centuries it was called Kirkby Kendal - the "village with a church in the valley of the River Kent".
ABOVE: Highgate, the main street in Kendal. The Clock Tower is part of Kendal Town Hall.
There are usually a few minutes recovery time built into the timetable at Kendal Bus Station, but it isn't always enough. I made two trips from Lancaster via the M6 motorway and they both had their slack time completely absorbed before they made it this far - the first time due to heavy traffic in the town centre, and the second due to an abnormal load on the motorway! Still, the recovery time did allow them to leave Kendal on time!
ABOVE: Kendal Bus Station, where open-top SCNL 13803 (BV17 CTK), a Volvo B5TL Wright Eclipse Gemini 3, is loading up to form the 0910 departure on route 599 to Grasmere.
Kendal strikes me as the start of the 555 'proper'. It's certainly the point where interest in the route swells substantially. GIven its tourist nature, you won't be surprised to learn that this is one of those unusual routes where the top deck fills up first. And certainly, on a subsequent journey where I am joining here, I end up downstairs because the upper deck is so busy (it's hardly quiet down below either)!
ABOVE: 11577 again, about to make the turn from Windermere Road into Sandes Avenue in Kendal Town Centre
Once out of Kendal, the scenery dial is already starting to be turned up significantly...
ABOVE: The scene from Plumgarths Roundabout, a couple of miles outside Kendal.
We have joined the Windermere Road, but pull off it to visit the village of Staveley. A level crossing takes us across the Oxenholme to Windermere branch line.
ABOVE: Crossing the railway line on the outskirts of Staveley
Staveley is "strategically" placed at the junction of the rivers Kent and Gowan, at the mouth of the Kentmere Valley. Staveley literally translates as the 'field of staffs', and got its name from the woodworking industry that thrived in the area, due to the forests that originally covered the surrounding hills, and the close proximity of the two rivers for processing the wood. There is evidence that the area has been inhabited since at least 4000 BC, when Ancient Britons established farms.
A conservation area protects much of the village. In the Middle Ages, the mills at Staveley produced woollen cloth. During the Industrial Revolution there was cotton production at Staveley, and there is an 18th Century mill building still in existence from this time. The cotton industry later shifted to Lancashire, and by 1850 bobbin turning was the main industry in the valley.
After the village of Ings (an Old English word referring to water meadows and marshes), we reach the railway station at Windermere.
ABOVE: 11577 makes a third appearance in this article, this time on a Keswick-bound service on route 555 at Windermere Interchange on Friday 2 May 2025. As can be seen, there are many people hanging around this bus. Some have just got off, and others are waiting to board!
As well as being the gateway to Windermere itself, and the neighbouring Bowness-on-Windermere, the railway station represents a major focal point, not only between the railway and the buses, but also between different bus routes.
It also represents a suitable place to take a break, before heading further north into the heart of the Lake District. The scenery has been getting steadily more attractive as we have worked our way north from Lancaster. But, believe me, bus riding scenery-lovers, as I said at the start, this has just been the appetiser. The main course is yet to come...
TO BE CONTINUED...