ABOVE: Go-Ahead London Central EH 115 (SN66 WOA), an ADL Enviro400 MMC, takes on customers outside Belsize Park station in North London, near the start of the lengthy run to Canada Water. All photos in this article were taken on Sunday 11 January 2026.
Finding the 1... in London
Hampstead Heath to Canada Water
17 January 2026
Runs: Daily
Operator: Go-Ahead London Central, on behalf of Transport for London
Weekday daytime frequency: Up to every nine minutes
Peak Vehicle Requirement: 23 buses
Off-peak journey time (weekdays): 85-86 minutes
Estimated route length: Nine miles
South End Green, at Hampstead Heath in North London, is quite a vibrant place on a Sunday lunchtime, even in winter. Various household name shops jostle with independents for customers, especially for those who are looking for a coffee.
ABOVE: London Central EH89 (YY66 OYT), an Enviro400 MMC, stands on South End Green awaiting departure. On the right you can just see the South End Green fountain
In bus terms, this area is most famous as the terminus route 24 from Pimlico. Buses on the oldest continuously-operated bus route in London have been starting from here since 1910.
ABOVE: Transport UK LT 623 (LTZ 1623), a Wright New Routemaster, stands at the South End Green terminus of route 24.
The "Garden Gate" public house was originally known as the "Railway Tavern":
The station itself, now part of the Mildmay Line of the London Overground, is immediately to the north.
The vast expanse that is Hampstead Heath itself, over 800 acres of wild park woodland and meadows, is just beyond that. This is the park that inspired C.S. Lewis to write "The Chronicles of Narnia". I only venture a short distance on this occasion:
Push deeper, to Parliament Hill, its highest point, and Hampstead Heath offers spectacular, panoramic views of the London skyline where iconic landmarks like the Shard, St Paul's, and the Gherkin are visible on a decent day.
South End Green is also the starting point of Transport for London (TfL) route 1, which is what has brought me here today. But why, I hear you ask?
One of the recurring dilemmas in my ongoing 100 British Bus Routes series is that I am eventually going to have to make a decision as to my choice for route 1. BusTimes.org suggests that there are around 140 route 1s in Great Britain. How do I narrow that down to just the one?
So I thought I would sample various Route 1s around the country, presenting some of the potential "runners up" in this occasional series of articles. Then, afterwards, I will finally make a decision as to the one (or should that be the "1"?) that actually goes into the 100.
I have started on my local turf, but in a very different place to where I would have done if I had been doing this three years earlier...
I have always thought of the 1 as a route belonging in South East London. From a Central London terminus, around Tottenham Court Road or Holborn, the 1 traditionally headed for the likes of Lewisham, Catford and Bromley. It was cut back to Surrey Quays in the early 1990s, and extended to Canada Water in 1999 to meet the new station on the Jubilee Line extension.
But it used to venture much further, terminating for many years at Marylebone Station, and heading as far as Willesden until 1969 (historical info from London Bus Routes by Ian Armstrong).
It was a major restructuring of the route in September 2023 which brought it so far into North London, as a replacement for route 168 (Hampstead Heath to Old Kent Road, Tesco).
The first pick-up point on the route is in the shadow of the Royal Free Hospital. A fountain stands here, "erected by Miss Crump of Hereford House in memory of her cousin Wm. Warburton Pearce Esqre. who died March 1st 1872". Go here for a better picture than I got!
ABOVE: London Central WHV 146 (BV66 VJE), a Volvo B5LH Wright Eclipse Gemini 3, on the stand at Hampstead Heath. The first pick-up point is just visible bottom left, behind the fountain. The Royal Free Hospital dominates the scene.
My bus today is an ADL Enviro400 MMC, but Volvo B5LHs, bodied by both Wrights and MCV are also used. For some reason, the front upper windscreen has been heavily tinted, making this dull day look even duller and reducing visibility. It's amazing the lengths bus operators seem to be prepared to go to now to stop me having a nice front seat view.
ABOVE: Contrast the view through the front window, which has been tinted, with the side window, which hasn't.
The journey is underway, and we very quickly come to Belsize Park, an affluent adjunct to Hampstead, with cafes, delis, bakeries, bistros and independent boutiques.
The Underground station here (Northern Line, Edgware branch) dates back to 1907, and was designed by Leslie Green. It features his familiar ox-blood colour façade, with five round arched windows. Similar designs can be found at other stations on the branch (such as Chalk Farm and Mornington Crescent).
The area also features one of the most dangerous 'floating' bus stops I have ever seen:
ABOVE: Here's London Central WHV 146 (BV66 VJE) again, passing Belsize Park station. I am standing near the bus stop that this bus is about to pull up at. The cycle lane runs right in front of it, just as you can see here.
As we head towards Camden Town, we pass the famous Roundhouse. This Grade-II* listed former railway engine shed in Chalk Farm has been used, since the 1960s, as a performing arts and concert venue. The circular building was erected in 1846–1847 by the London & North Western Railway as a roundhouse, containing a railway turntable, but was only used for that purpose for about a decade.
Camden Town is a law unto itself, especially at the weekends. Camden Market (actually a collection of at least six separate markets), is the fourth-most popular visitor attraction in London, attracting approximately 250,000 people each week.
ABOVE: Brand-new First Bus London BDE 47190 (LF75 ONT), a BYD BD11 electric, passes one of the entrances to Camden Market, on Chalk Farm Road.
A section of Camden High Street was pedestrianised as an experiment in July 2025, but southbound buses, such as mine, have always gone down the back streets of the extensive and bewildering one-way system, missing the bustle of the High Street itself.
Through Mornington Crescent, we do not take the main Hampstead Road that most of the buses here use to get to Warren Street. Instead we take the quieter Eversholt Street, which brings us to London Euston station.
ABOVE: An unidentified New Routemaster of Arriva London has just left Euston Station at the start of the 253 route to Hackney Central - an extremely busy and demanding Inner London suburbs service.
We're in the heart of central London now, passing Russell Square and the British Museum. Established in 1753, when it was the first public national museum, its collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. Visitor numbers are such that, if each visitor were to take two items from the collection, the contents would be cleared out in less than nine months. Not that I would condone such behaviour, of course - much better to visit the Gift Shop!
ABOVE: A Volvo B5LH Wright Eclipse Gemini 3 of Go-Ahead London General pulls off from its Russell Square terminus, on route 14 to Putney Heath.
Holborn takes its name from the River Holbourne - an alternative name for the River Fleet. The first settlement lay on the west bank of the river (now buried). This is the more traditional terminus of the 1, with the extension northwards having broadly doubled the length of the route. It might be Sunday, but the area is uncharacteristically quiet.
ABOVE: Holborn
A quick run down the normally-busy Kingsway brings us to Aldwych. For many years a one-way system, the road layout was revised in 2021 to enable a section of Strand to be pedestrianised. There are two important transport landmarks here - the former Aldwych station (closed in 1994), which formed a central London branch off the Piccadilly Line at Holborn, and the Strand Underpass, a road tunnel created out of the Kingsway Tramway Subway.
ABOVE: The entrance to the Strand Underpass is in Lancaster Place, and passes underneath Aldwych to come up in Kingsway.
Waterloo Bridge is a stunning place to cross the Thames.
The 1 passes Waterloo Station and stops at the Old Vic for a driver change. This doesn't seem to be the closest point to the garage at Camberwell (Elephant & Castle feels closer), but perhaps the facilities the drivers use for their breaks are better (wherever they are)...
The new driver is very enthusiastic. He uses the PA system extensively to welcome "those who have joined recently" and to confirm the route and destination. He confirms that he is going to call at "every single stop", before passing one non-stop because there's no-one waiting! I know what he means, of course. With his enthusiasm, he would have made a good bus conductor back in the day.
We head for Elephant & Castle - always busy, and no different on a Sunday. At least seven buses are in view as we approach, including two of the brown and white "Bakerloop" buses on service BL1.
We head down the New Kent Road towards the Bricklayers Arms junction. Here. there's a flyover for those heading onto the Old Kent Road towards New Cross. The aforementioned BL1 uses this to cut out the busy roundabout below.
We can't use the flyover, though, as we're turning left onto Tower Bridge Road, which leads to the famous bridge; we turn off long before that point, though, into Bermondsey. During the Industrial Revolution, Bermondsey became a centre for manufacturing, particularly in relation to hide tanning (processing animal skins to produce leather).
ABOVE: An unidentified London Central Volvo B5LH Wright Eclipse Gemini 3 in Grange Road, Bermondsey
Bermondsey Market Place is on Southwark Park Road. We're a little way away from the Jubilee Line station, which sits on the other side of a massive railway viaduct, carrying 12 tracks out of London Bridge. If anywhere is the heart of Bermondsey, I suspect this is it...
ABOVE: London Central MHV 19 (BU16 OZD), a Volvo B5LH MCV EvoSeti, passes through the centre of Bermondsey, pursued by a BYD D8UR-DD ADL Enviro400EV on route 381 towards Peckham
Although some parts of Bermondsey are becoming gentrified, and it is being described as one of the best places to live in London (and the best in 2018), it feels a long way away from the buzz of Hampstead or even the trappings of Central London. Here in South Bermondsey we have blocks of flats on the skyline:
But then, around the next corner, comes an unexpected gem. On the corner of Rotherhithe Old Road and Rotherhithe New Road, on the approach to Surrey Quays, stands the London Outreach Centre, an evangelistic association. Formerly the "Crystal Palace" public house, the building dates from 1849 (a better picture can be found here).
Nearing the end of the route, we reach Surrey Quays (formerly Surrey Docks). Once the heartland of London's docks, it is now mainly residential.
The Dock Offices building from 1852 is now dwarfed by the other developments around it. There's a blue plaque to record that Surrey Docks "were set on fire in the first raid of the Blitz" on September 7th 1940.
A short run brings us to Canada Water Bus Station, the terminus of route 1 and an interchange with both the London Underground Jubilee Line and the London Overground Windrush Line. It's quite a cold and uninviting place as I arrive, partly because the station is closed (engineering works) so there's no quick escape.
Canada Water is named after a freshwater lake and wildlife refuge, and the station is immediately to the north of the lake. The lake is named after the former Canada Dock, of which Canada Water is the surviving northern third, and which was mainly used by ships from Canada.
Roadworks have added about 10 minutes to the journey, mainly on the final approach to Canada Water, so a journey that should have taken an hour and 18 minutes has come in at just under an hour-and-a-half. Which is quite long, nowadays, for a London bus service.
It is worth noting that there is a night service along part of route 1. The N1 starts at Tottenham Court Road, and follows the daytime equivalent from Holborn to Surrey Quays, before branching out towards Greenwich, Woolwich, Abbey Wood and Thamesmead. Before the changes in 2023, the night service was broadly an extension of the day route. The night service wasn't restructured when the daytime service was, so the relationship between the two is somewhat more tenuous now!
ABOVE: London Central WHV 148 (BV66 VJG), a Volvo B5LH Wright Eclipse Gemini 3, arrives at Canada Water
And that's the first "1" in this new series. I will be presenting more route 1 profiles in the months to come!