100 British Bus Routes: Route 24
Hull to Hornsea
6 September 2025
ABOVE: East Yorkshire 816 (LF71 DKV, listed online as 20816), a Volvo B5TL MCV eVoSeti, sets down in New Road, Hornsea, towars the end of a journey on route 24 from Hull. All photos in this article were taken on Thursday 21 August 2025 unless otherwise stated.
Runs: Daily (with limited early evening service)
Operator: East Yorkshire
Weekday daytime frequency: Hourly
Weekday Vehicle Requirement: Two or three buses at any point
(interworked with route 25, Beverley to Hornsea)
Off-peak journey time (weekdays): 70 minutes
Estimated route length: 16-18 miles
I don't suppose Hull Interchange has many quiet moments. With 38 bus stands and four coach stands nestling under the railway station roof, there are always buses, and passengers, coming and going.
The original railway station opened in 1847, with the present five-arch span platform roof being installed at the start of the 20th century. The current Paragon Interchange brought the buses into the main railway building in 2007.
ABOVE: A late morning view of the Bus Interchange.
Kingston-upon-Hull, to give the city its full name, lies upon the River Hull, at its confluence with the Humber Estuary, 25 miles inland from the North Sea. It has been a market town, a military supply port, a trading centre, a fishing and whaling centre and an industrial metropolis. Hull was an early point of battle in the English Civil Wars, whilst its 18th century Member of Parliament, William Wilberforce, took a prominent part in the abolition of the slave trade in Britain.
Here, in the busy bus interchange within the largest settlement in the East Riding of Yorkshire (East Yorkshire for short), is where the number 24 to Hornsea begins its journey. One has to traipse all the way down to stand 31 to start this journey, and I'm both delighted and surprised to find a double-decker has pulled onto the stand.
Our scheduled departure time of 1210 comes. We are one of five departures scheduled for 1210, which explains why numerous buses are all pulling off the stands at once.
ABOVE: A view of Hull Interchange / Railway Station from the roadside, showing how the buses have been integrated into the main station building. In the foreground is Stagecoach East Midlands 24203, an ADL Enviro200, between trips on local route 2. I think I can count 14 other buses in this view - all Stagecoach or East Yorkshire.
The 24 is provided by East Yorkshire, formerly East Yorkshire Motor Services; a company that can be traced back to 1926. It became part of the National Bus Company in the early 1970s, becoming independent again in the late 1980s after a management buyout. Thirty years later, the company was sold to the Go-Ahead Group.
My bus today is a Volvo B5TL MCV eVoSeti - the very first production eVoSeti was delivered to East Yorkshire in 2015, although mine is of 2021 vintage.
This is going to be a straight-forward city to coast journey, but getting out of the city is going to take a while. It's a big place, Hull, and there are many signs of its past lives all around, such as North Bridge, a Scherzer Rolling Bascule Bridge across the River Hull. Now Grade II-listed, it was designed by T. Thomas, City Engineer, built by Widnes Foundry and opened in 1931. It looks to me like a giant octopus has settled over the road:
Once through here we are heading east out of the city. This is a land of retail and industrial trading, as huge warehouses vie for our attention. Me? I'm watching the buses!
ABOVE: Three more Stagecoach East Midlands vehicles pass the Mount Retail Park, about a mile-and-a-half from the City Centre. Directly in front is 11764 (YX73 OZM), an ADL Enviro400 MMC, on a local service, whilst fellow 11198 (YW19 VUU, right) heads back into town.
The busy Holderness Road brings us to Garden Village, an area of self-contained housing built in the early 1900s for the workers of Reckitt & Sons, household product manufacturers. The modern company, Reckitt Benckiser, still manufactures in the city.
The 24 only passes along the main road and doesn't dip into the heart of the village. Google Streetview shows that it looks lovely, though.
On the main road is a statue of James Stuart (1836-1922), erected in 1924. The inscription describes him as "a citizen of Hull who, by his interest in and devotion to the welfare of this city, won the regard and esteem of all those who knew him". He was a local Liberal politician and a Justice of the Peace. Amongst many achievements, James Stuart was one of the promoters of the Hull and Barnsley railway, opened in 1885, and a director of British Oil and Cake Mills (BOCM).
Almost opposite is The Bank, a pub converted from an old ... well you can probably guess!
ABOVE: The statue of James Stuart
|
ABOVE: The Bank
|
There's a curious road layout as we edge out of town. What looks like a dedicated cycle lane is also a Bus Lane...
... until further along when it suddenly isn't!
ABOVE: The Astoria Bingo Hall in East Park
Four-and-a-half miles from Hull Interchange, as the crow flies, and 26 minutes into the trip, we finally escape the confines of the city of Hull in favour of open countryside. From now on, it's going to be a succession of villages - some on the main road (A165) and some just off it.
The village of Ganstead is right on the main road, with the road itself signifying the split between East and West Ganstead. Another mile further along is Coniston (not to be confused with the Lake District village of the same name). We pull off the main road to call into the village centre.
There's a white telephone box here. The Post Office was originally responsible for most phone boxes and so, like post boxes, they were painted red. But Hull had its own telephone network in the early 20th-century, and painted its boxes white to highlight their independence from England's public telephone network. Nine of the surviving boxes are now Grade II-listed (although this isn't one of them, as far as I can tell).
ABOVE: Main Street, Coniston, with the white telephone box prominent (centre)
We're heading slightly north-west now, away from our destination on the coast to the north-east. Skirlaugh was originally a farming community, but is now largely commuter territory for the city of Hull.
There's an unusual sighting for me here; a Leyland Titan PD2 (LRV 992) on a "Wedding Day Special". It belongs to Viscount Travel of Thornton-le-Dale, North Yorkshire, and is sometimes used on one of the Scarborough Sea Front open-top services. It was new to Portsmouth in 1956 and "rebuilt" in 1971:
The villages come thick and fast now. We pull off the main road into Long Riston:
ABOVE: Long Riston
East Yorkshire route 25 (Beverley to Horsea) joins the 24 at the White Cross roundabout, between Long Riston and Leven, and follows the 24 the rest of the way to Hornsea. This also runs to an hourly frequency, but the two services run close on each other's heels (as little as one minute apart on the approach into Hornsea / 10 minutes out) rather than offering a more desirable half-hourly frequency.
This is simply because the two routes interwork with each other at Hornsea. Whilst the 25 is nicely self-contained for an hourly service (54-60 minute single trip), the 24, at 70 minutes each way, is not. Even on Sundays, when the two routes run every two hours, the frequency over the joint section alternates between 30 and 90 minutes. It's a shame, but I can't think of a more economic way to provide an even service.
ABOVE: Somewhere between the White Cross Roundabout and Leven (I think!) finds East Yorkshire 20764 (YX09 GWK), a Volvo B9TL Wright Eclipse Gemini 2, on its way to Beverley on route 25.
There's a lovely lake (with accommodation!) on the approaches to Leven, although not visible from the road.
In Leven village centre stands Holy Trinity Church, a Grade-II* listed building dating back to the 1840s. Holy Trinity replaced the original village church, St Faith's, which stood about a mile-and-a-quarter away. The church accommodates a 13th century limestone font from St .Faith's.
ABOVE: Here's 20764 again, outside Holy Trinity Church in Leven later the same afternoon, making the return trip into Hornsea.
We pass through the village of Brandesburton, home to a Grade-I listed church, St Mary's, and a Grade-II listed Market Cross. Neither of these can be seen from the 24, though, as they are deeper in the village than we go; there are bus stops on Main Street - two sides of a triangle in effect - but there don't seem to be any services going that way. We stick to New Road - the third side of the triangle (a right-angled triangle, since you ask).
We lost the A165 back at the White Cross roundabout, but we rejoin it after Brandesburton, but now we're heading the opposite way - we're actually going south for a mile or so. Keep going and we'll end up back in Hull!
We're passing more lovely lakes here - again not visible from the road due to trees and bushes. Part of this is the Dacre Lakeside Park (accessible from Brandesburton), which looks delightful from above.
We turn left at the Leven Roundabout, which finally puts us onto the road into Hornsea.
ABOVE: East Yorkshire 20769 (YX59 FGO), another Volvo B9TL Wright Eclipse Gemini 2, is between Catwick and the Leven Roundabout as it heads for Hull on route 24.
The village of Catwick is one of only five "Thankful" Villages in Yorkshire – those rare places that suffered no fatalities during the First World War. It also lost no service personnel during the Second World War, making it "doubly thankful".
It is rumoured throughout the village of Sigglesthorne that the settlement was given its name as a result of a Viking leader called Siggle/Siggul who lived there. It is suggested that, since hawthorne is the predominant type of hedge around the village, it was given the name "Siggul's thorne" (ie, Sigglesthorne).
Finally on this stretch of road comes Seaton. The civil parish consists of the village of Seaton and the nearby hamlets of Catfoss and Wassand, which between them had a population of 433 in the 2011 Census.
ABOVE: Main Street, Seaton
The vast Hornsea Mere is shielded from us by more trees. The Mere is the largest freshwater lake in Yorkshire, covering an area of 467 acres.
We reach the Town Centre of Hornsea itself. Joseph E. Morris describes Hornsea, in his 1906 book "The East Riding of Yorkshire" (p194) as consisting of "an ancient inland village, and a cluster of villas and lodging-houses springing up on the shore". The "inland village" has scrubbed quite nicely in the 119 years since:
The settlement dates back to at least the early medieval period, and expanded in the Victorian era with the coming of the Hull and Hornsea Railway in 1864.
There are three churches in quick succession on the short stretch of road (Newbegin, becomes New Road) between the Town Centre and the seafront. I get pictures of two of them (see below), but manage to keep missing the best (architecturally): St Nicholas' Parish Church (Google Streetview image here).
ABOVE: On Thursday 1 December 2022, East Yorkshire 724 (YX57 BWF) is passing the Hornsea United Reformed Church on route 25. Directly in front of the bus is the Hornsea Methodist Church.
ABOVE: Another view of the same two churches from the other end, with the Hornsea Methodist Church on the left and the Hornsea United Reformed Church dominating the centre landscape.
The town suffers badly from coastal erosion, with records existing of neighbouring villages, such as Hornsea Beck and Hornsea Burton, that existed here in the Middle Ages and were subsequently washed away. Joseph E. Morris references this in his book, with an anonymous, apocyphal inscription that is said to have been inscribed on the steeple of "the church":
Hornsea steeple, when I built thee,
Thou was 10 miles off Burlington,
10 miles off Beverley, and 10 miles off sea.
Morris suggests that the description of Hornsea as 10 miles to the sea is a gross exaggeration: "the exaggeration is absurd", he says, "for the present distance in a 'bee-line' from Hornsea Church to the sea is roughly five-eighths of a mile, and it is extravagant to suppose that nearly 9½ miles of coast have been lost within living memory".
Back to route 24, and we have reached the seafront, where I alight. The Hornsea Hub is a smart, modern building which acts as a community hub, with a leisure centre, café and toilets.
ABOVE: East Yorkshire 512 (YX17 NKG), an ADL Enviro200MMC, is in New Road, Hornsea, approaching the end of a journey from Withernsea on route 129, on Thursday 1 December 2022. Note the Hornsea Hub on the right.
The bus continues a short distance along the seafront, before turning slightly inland again to terminate at the former East Yorkshire bus depot in Cliff Road.
ABOVE: The seafront of Hornsea, from outside the Hornsea Hub, on Thursday 1 December 2022.
Route 24 is a delightful ride, especially once one escapes the confines of Hull. It passes some delightful villages and lovely potential holiday destinations. And, with a top deck usually available, it's a lovely, brisk drive through the East Yorkshire countryside. Well worth a ride!