ABOVE: First Bus Eastern Counties 36914 (YN69 XZU), a Scania N250UD ADL Enviro400 City, heads for Peterborough on "Excel" route A, having just passed the village of Guyhirn, near Wisbech. All photos in this article were taken on Good Friday, 3 April 2026.
Riding the Excel
Part One: Peterborough to King's Lynn
18 July 2026
Four hundred and fifty-six words. When I first travelled on the 85-mile-long Excel route from Peterborough to Norwich, I wrote it up in a very early article on this site (my second-ever article in fact). In those days, I was still finding my feet as far as my 'house style' was concerned. Early articles were much briefer (yes, really!), and I hadn't even learnt how to upload pictures!
So the 85-mile extravaganza that is the Excel was was covered off in 456 words, or 5.36 words per mile! Barely enough to describe the scenery. Certainly not enough to describe Peterborough Bus Station, which I just presented as "scruffy and unattractive". Actually, that probably works.
And, whilst traditional blogs are supposed to be about 500 words long, I have long since moved away from that in favour of more detailed, 'interesting' articles.
So, with another trip on the Excel route having worked its way into my plans, I have resolved to do a decent and proper article this time, to do the route justice - and with photos. And, 179 words in, I haven’t even got on the bus!
This lengthy and long-established route is run by First Bus Eastern Counties, and does indeed start from the underwhelming Peterborough Queensgate Bus Station, which is attached to the Shopping Centre of the same name.
Seventy-four miles north of London, the urban area of the city of Peterborough had a population of 192,178 at the time of the 2021 Census. The City Council has estimated the population, including the wider district, to be 219,510.
The opening of the Great Northern Railway line from London to York in 1850 transformed Peterborough from a market town into an industrial heartland and regional hub. Brick-making had been a small seasonal craft since the early 19th century, but the use of harder clays from a lower level had resulted in a much more efficient process, which made the area into the UK's leading producer of bricks for much of the 20th century.
The City's Cathedral was founded as a monastery in 655 AD, and re-built in its present form between 1118 and 1238.
I board the 13:00 departure on the Excel service on this Good Friday. There are variations of the route, lettered A, B, C & D, but only route A runs on Sundays and Public Holidays, on an hourly frequency.
We depart from Bay 10, which is closest to the exit and gets us quickly onto the Queensgate Roundabout, from where the Crescent Bridge over the railway line can be observed. The bridge was built in 1913 to cross the railway and to replace level crossings that, even in 1913, were considered to be "dangerous".
This lengthy and long-established route is run by First Bus Eastern Counties, and does indeed start from the underwhelming Peterborough Queensgate Bus Station, which is attached to the Shopping Centre of the same name.
Seventy-four miles north of London, the urban area of the city of Peterborough had a population of 192,178 at the time of the 2021 Census. The City Council has estimated the population, including the wider district, to be 219,510.
The opening of the Great Northern Railway line from London to York in 1850 transformed Peterborough from a market town into an industrial heartland and regional hub. Brick-making had been a small seasonal craft since the early 19th century, but the use of harder clays from a lower level had resulted in a much more efficient process, which made the area into the UK's leading producer of bricks for much of the 20th century.
The City's Cathedral was founded as a monastery in 655 AD, and re-built in its present form between 1118 and 1238.
I board the 13:00 departure on the Excel service on this Good Friday. There are variations of the route, lettered A, B, C & D, but only route A runs on Sundays and Public Holidays, on an hourly frequency.
We depart from Bay 10, which is closest to the exit and gets us quickly onto the Queensgate Roundabout, from where the Crescent Bridge over the railway line can be observed. The bridge was built in 1913 to cross the railway and to replace level crossings that, even in 1913, were considered to be "dangerous".
Peterborough railway station is very busy today, as people try to start their Easter holidays. The bus calls here a few minutes after leaving the Bus Station. I could have caught the bus from here - I did come in by train, after all. I have trekked over to the Bus Station so that I can ride the route from the very beginning, and to increase my chances of securing the front seat. As if to reinforce the latter point, and all the effort, whilst I have indeed secured the front seat, no-one has yet sat in the other one, and no-one does so here either.
For anyone who isn't attending church or setting off on holiday, Good Friday appears to be a very specific kind of day - an extra shopping day, and/or the start of a major new weekend DIY project that probably remains unfinished as this article is published. Certainly the out-of-town retail parks to the north of Peterborough are busy. Cars are entering the roundabouts before considering whether there is room for them to safely progress...
ABOVE: Congestion as cars leave Maskew Avenue (to the left) to cross the Bourges Boulevard.
The first couple of miles have been to the north (or even slightly north-west). We're not going to reach Norwich, to the east-north-east, without a change of trajectory. This comes when we turn right onto the busy A47 road. This will be our main companion for the duration of the run.
Also known as the Soke Parkway at this point, we are speeding past the residential areas to the north of the city. To our right (south) is New England. The Great Northern Railway built an entire community here, providing housing for the workers at the nearby marshalling yard and associated engine sheds.
As we head on, the territory is as one would expect:
ABOVE: The A47 underpass between New England and Paston.
This is an opportunity for the bus to swallow up a few miles quickly, which it is going to have to do given the number of miles it has to cover.
We come to the Eye Bypass, which sounds like a medical treatment but is actually a bypass for the village of Eye.
ABOVE: The Newborough Road turn-off to the village of the same name, just over two miles from here. Signage for the A16 road junction can be seen in the distance.
The A16 road to Spalding, Boston and Grimsby branches off to our left. A sign just beyond highlights how far we have to go on this bus. It's a long route...
All the way along the A47, the road has been littered (ahem) with signage asking people not to drop rubbish. I presume it is a particular problem along here.
No two of these signs carry exactly the same wording. My favourite (which I don't manage to photograph) is the one that says: "Litter Effects Nature". Taken literally, that means that litter causes nature to happen, which I suppose is sort-of right. I suspect that, in order to be grammatically correct, the sign should say either "Litter Affects Nature" or "Litter has an effect on nature".
We come to the hamlet of Eye Green, which houses a nature reserve. The village of Eye itself is about a quarter of a mile to the south. The sign still suggests to me some sort of optician's (I'll stop doing the visionary puns now).
A Google Streetview of the village shows an attractive church - the Church of St Matthew. This was opened in 1847 to replace an earlier church that was consecrated in 1543.
Back to the main road and the Excel service, we now have a few miles of open countryside, single carriageway driving, quickly churning through a few more miles.
The buses on the route are high-specification Scania N250UD ADL Enviro400 Cities, purchased in late 2019 and well-suited to the service. The coach seating is very comfortable and the legroom in the front seat is generous, which makes a nice change. It's a tap-on, tap-off service as well, so I haven't had to commit to going through (or not) to Norwich.
We come to the village of Thorney, which began as a Saxon settlement in about 500 AD. From 1849, the seventh Duke of Bedford initiated the rebuilding of the village according to high aesthetic and practical standards as a ‘model village’. The buildings included many cottages, whose rows form a major architectural feature of modern Thorney.
The village is brief, though, and we are soon back on the open road. There really isn't very much to talk about round here...
The village of Guyhirn houses the Chapel of Ease, a small chapel that was built during the Interregnum of the Monarchy in the 17th century. Though not striking on the eye, its rarity as a place of worship built during the interregnum makes it worthy of comment.
Gradually the road opens out as we approach Wisbech, with the River Nene now running alongside.
The territory starts to change as we head towards the town centre, with the seemingly-obligatory out-of-town complexes dominating the landscape:
ABOVE: "The Light" cinema is about a mile-and-a-half from the centre of Wisbech.
Wisbech is still in Cambridgeshire, but only just - we will be crossing into Norfolk soon. Wisbech had a population of 31,573 at the time of the 2011 Census, having first been officially recorded as a settlement in the year 656.
There are differing suggestions as to how the name came about. Personally, I like the suggestion that the name means "the valley of the River Wissey". The Wissey, which once flowed through Wisbech, is a tributary of the Great Ouse in Norfolk.
Wisbech was four miles from the North Sea until about 1300. The silt has left it eleven miles from the coastline today. A retired blogger called "Pops Coffee", who normally wrote about jazz, set out a detailed history of Wisbech in an article in 2015. He comments about the town where:
"... even local street names are fossilized history: Gaol Street with no gaol; Station Road with no station; a ‘School Lane’ that leads to no school; Octagon Drive with no Octagon; Turnpike Close with no Turnpike; ‘Oil Mill Lane’ with no Oil Mill; and ‘Roman Bank’ – a road alongside the river, presumably where possibly the Romans strengthened defences against flooding."
Hundreds of lives were lost in and around Wisbech during the Great Flood of 1236. And, in 1613, another set of floods turned Wisbech into an island. There have been many further floods through the years.
It's the River Nene, and the Freedom Bridge that crosses it, that dominate the town centre landscape nowadays:
There's also a very fine Police Station on the nearby Freedom Bridge Roundabout:
This hasn't been an especially busy trip so far, and there are only a handful of customers waiting at Wisbech's Horse Fair Bus Station. Horse Fair is named after exactly what used to happen here, and, in the 1840's Wisbech also held one of the largest corn markets in the country, second only to Wakefield according to British History Online. There are now weekly markets for cattle on Mondays and for general produce on Saturdays.
As we leave town, another fine church comes into view - Saint Augustine's. Built in 1869 as part of the development of Wisbech Park, the Church is Grade-II listed.
The main A47 forms a bypass to the town of Wisbech, so we have been away from it for a while. And we continue to skirt to the north of it as we approach Walton Highway.
ABOVE: First Bus Eastern Counties 36909 (YN69 XZO), a Scania N250UD ADL Enviro400 City, circuits around the Lynn Road roundabout, just south of Walton Highway, showing off the route branding.
The bus then crosses under the A47 so that we can serve the village of Walpole Highway:
On the approach to Terrington St John, we cross a small brook - actually the Smeeth Lode Drain:
We are reunited once more with the A47, and more open countryside takes us towards King's Lynn. As we cross the River Great Ouse, the landscape starts to change dramatically:
Still, at least turning round and looking the other way is a bit prettier, and we can see the 'local' bridge over the river:
We leave the A47 to start a long double-run into King's Lynn. It's about a mile-and-a-half each way but absolutely essential, as it would make little point for this bus to bypass the town.
We pass through the striking South Gate (of which more in Part Two):
Around 84 minutes after leaving Peterborough, we arrive, on time, at King's Lynn Transport Interchange.
ABOVE: Three vehicles belonging to local operator Lynx are parked up in King's Lynn Transport Interchange. From left to right: 34 (YY24 ELJ) and 32 (YY24 ELC), both ADL Enviro200 MMCs, and 62 (SK21 FNH), an ADL Enviro400 MMC.
It hasn't been a busy run so far, and most of those who are on board alight here, including everyone else on the top deck. But the second half of the journey might be busier, judging by the queue at the stand:
There are still at least 46.2 miles to go (measured by the most direct driving route). We're slightly less than half-way, both in journey time and in mileage. There's lots more to discover, and I suspect another 456 words won't cover it...
TO BE CONTINUED...