ABOVE: Bee Network - Metroline Manchester VMD 372 (BD74 WLJ), a Volvo BZL DD, is on the Hyde Road, near the Metroline Hyde Road Bus Depot, heading for Central Manchester on route 203. All photos in this article were taken on Sunday 4 May 2025, and all buses featured are operating as part of the Bee Network.
Picture Gallery:
On My Way Out of Manchester
25 July 2026
A few weeks ago, I described a Sunday afternoon journey that I took from The Trafford Centre, where I had just checked into my hotel, into Central Manchester. Now, I'm at Piccadilly Gardens, in the City Centre, thinking about the best route back.
It's going to be a two-part return, I decide, as I hop on the 203 towards Stockport. Here are a few of the things to be found along the way:
Whilst most of the platforms at Manchester Piccadilly station are terminating platforms, platforms 13 & 14 are the very busy through platforms that access the oversubscribed "Castlefield Corridor". Northern, TransPennine Express and Transport for Wales are the main operators through these 'high level' platforms, but there are also services on the Liverpool to Norwich route, as provided by East Midlands Railway (EMR).
Taken at 16:40, I'd love to say that the picture below is the front of this EMR train, but it's actually the back! This is presumably the 1643 service to Norwich.
Passing under the bridge is what looks like a Stagecoach Manchester ADL Enviro400 City, possibly 11921 (YX74 OND). It is working route 192, which I previously profiled here.
The 203 passes through the Belle Vue suburb, which housed the Belle Vue Zoological Gardens and Amusement Park from 1836 until 1980. The Headquarters of Basketball England is also located here.
With BCA (the "Manchester Vehicle Remarketing Centre") as the backdrop, Metroline Manchester VMD 368 (BD74 WKR), a Volvo BZL DD, heads from Hattersley into Central Manchester on route 201.
Gorton has a 19th century Monastery - a Gothic building that was once a Franciscan friary. It's to the north of the Hyde Road that the 203 passes along and is not visible from our bus (unless I somehow managed to miss it...).
The 205 bus, however, goes right past, and you can see the building on Google Streetview.
The 205 links Central Manchester with Dane Bank. If the passengers on Metroline Manchester WDS 270 (MF74 NPJ), a Wright StreetDeck Ultroliner, seen here passing Friendship Avenue in Gorton, stay put, the Monastery is waiting for them! I'm less convinced that this bus will take them to Dane Bank, though - I think it's heading the other way, to Piccadilly!
Behind the bus is the "Friendship Tavern". Trying to trace its history online is tricky, as searches conflate this with other "Friendship" Inns and Taverns in Greater Manchester, but there is one brief suggestion that it may date back to 1795.
It is soon after Gorton that the 203 turns right and heads towards Reddish. There's a clear demonstration, at the Gorton Road / Ashbrook Lane stop, of how The Bee Network marks stops as closed - message received, I would say! The stop flag has a reference to Rail Replacement services as well, this being the nearest stop to Reddish North station, on the line from Manchester to Sheffield.
The recorded history of Reddish begins at the turn of the 13th century, when it was documented as "Redich", although the discovery of Saxon coins suggests earlier settlement here. Predominantly rural until the 19th century, it expanded rapidly during the Industrial Revolution. The famous architect Norman Foster (now The Lord Foster of Thames Bank) was born in Reddish in 1935.
The town centre of Reddish includes the striking "Houldsworth Arms", established in the late 19th century by local industrialist Sir William Holdsworth, who also built the Reddish Cotton Mill in 1865.
The bus continues past the railway station at Reddish South. I wouldn't spend too much time here waiting for a train, as there aren't many...
Like the next station on the line, Denton, Reddish South has only two trains per week, on Saturday mornings. The 08:30 Stalybridge to Stockport calls at 08:46, and forms the 09:04 back, calling here at 09:10. These are "Parliamentary" services, only operated so as to keep the line 'open'.
The Office of Rail and Road publishes annual estimates of station usage for every station on the National Rail network. The figures for April 2024 to March 2025, the most recent available, show that five stations recorded fewer than 150 entries and exits. In fifth place, with 102 entries and exits, is - you've guessed it - Reddish South. Denton is in fourth place with 100. That's about one passenger boarding per train (but how many pass through without boarding or alighting)?
The station is basic, as one would expect:
As we approach Stockport, we find the Nelstrops Albion Flour Mills in Heaton Chapel. Nelstrops is one of the leading producers of flour in the United Kingdom. The first Mill on the site opened in 1820. A major fire in 1893 led to the present building being opened in 1894.
The striking tower blocks (below) on Lancashire Hill are the Pendlebury and Hanover Towers (Pendlebury on the left). Each 22 storeys high, the towers date back to the late 1960s. They stand 200 feet high and each contains 99 flats.
Thirty-nine minutes after leaving Manchester, and four minutes behind schedule (having started six minutes behind), we reach the Stockport Interchange. This interchange opened in March 2024 and is known as the "Tissue Box" because of the elliptical shape of the open roof. My photo below gives an idea of this, but you can get a better impression with an aerial view, such as the one here (or go to a previous article here).
My picture shows Stagecoach Manchester 10596 (SN16 OUM), an ADL Enviro400 MMC, preparing for departure on local circular service 384 via Romiley and Marple. The bus has yet to be painted into Bee Network colours. There is also a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter Mellor Strata in evidence, for circular route 310 via Cheadle.
I have decided to head back to The Trafford Centre on route 25. This is the route I took as a 'short-cut' during one of my previous trips around the city, before discovering that doing so actually changed the trip from going "around" the city of Manchester to diving right through it (see article)!
Unlike the central part of Manchester, it's fairly quiet and "Sundayish" round here. The empty Stockport streets bring me a 368 service in from Wythenshawe. I'll be on one of these in two days' time as I make another circumnavigation of Manchester (that story starts here, and the 368 features here).
This bus is Metroline Manchester WDS 340 (MJ74 JRX), a Wright StreetDeck Ultroliner, seen on Heaton Lane in Stockport.
The 25 makes some interesting twists and turns as it leaves Stockport, and some of the roads are quite tight. There's no chance of a car passing if two buses, heading in opposite directions, reach the stops at Parsonage Road, in Heaton Moor, at the same time!
St Paul's C of E Church is visible in the background. Consecrated in 1877, the building is now Grade-II listed.
Kingsway, below, is a main route into Manchester (turn right) and part of the trunk A34 road. If one were to turn left and stay on this road, one would end up in Winchester.
The railway bridge in the distance marks the proximity of Mauldeth Road station, served mainly by Northern services on the Liverpool / Manchester to Manchester Airport / Crewe routes.
The Rainbow Day Nursery was once the Mauldeth Hotel.
Further west, route 25 serves Chorlton Cross, where Stagecoach Manchester 10427 (SL64 JCO), an ADL Enviro400 MMC, is pausing on its way to Stockport.
This is an example of a "floating" bus stop, where the cycle lane can be clearly seen passing behind the stop and shelter, whilst a (narrow) section of pavement remains behind for general pedestrians. I wonder whether the shelter, providing something of a physical barrier between the bus stop and the cycle lane, makes it any safer?
My 25 bus will turn left here onto Wilbraham Road, which will bring us to the Chorlton Cross Shopping Centre. This is currently being demolished to make way for a "thriving new destination", including 262 apartments and new shops "suitable for start-up businesses".
Davyhulme Circus, in Urmston, is a large roundabout that encircles the town War Memorial. This First World War memorial and clock tower was built in 1924 and is now Grade-II listed. The Roll of Honour lists 23 local men who gave their lives during the Great War, and a further six who died during World War II.
It's a 56 minute journey from Stockport back to The Trafford Centre, and the 25's arrival is bang on time at 18:16. It might be a Sunday evening, but this is Greater Manchester, so there is still plenty of bus activity. Five buses are pictured below.
Nearest the camera, the only identifiable vehicle is Diamond Bus North West 30680 (YY24 EKP), an ADL Enviro200 MMC. Next to it is a Volvo B8RLE MCV Evora. The two yellow double-deckers are probably ADL Enviro400 EVs, whilst the cuckoo in the nest(!) is the ADL Enviro400 MMC that has just brought me from Stockport.
It has taken me just under two-and-a-half hours to do this round trip. And this trip has just been the appetiser. The main course - my two-day odyssey around Greater Manchester - has already been recorded in these pages (and starts here if you want to revisit it)!
BELOW: An approximation of the routes covered in this article
