Chester to Stafford

Wednesday, 10th April 2019

Following a lengthy pause, by early April I found I was able to restart the trip, albeit one day at a time. My initial plan had been to go from Cheshire into Shropshire and then start heading eastwards back across country starting with Staffordshire. But when it came to the detailed planning I realised that this would involve a lot of duplication to the "Around the Edge of England" tour in which I travelled from Chester to Shrewsbury. So I activated Plan B

This plan involved visiting Staffordshire before Shropshire, making my next county town destination Stafford, but the only sensible way to get to Stafford from Chester involved retracing my steps on the Arriva 84 back to Crewe. Pleasant though that route is I saw no need to do it again so soon and therefore the "Chester to Stafford" leg of the journey really started at Crewe station.  You may think that was cheating, but it's my trip - and I set the rules!

So Wednesday, 10th April saw me at Crewe station just after 10.00 looking for the 1018 departure of service 3 to take me to Kidsgrove. Although the timetable says the bus stops at "Crewe, railway station" there's actually no sign of a bus stop for eastbound buses outside the station entrance. The stop is actually located about 150m eastwards and almost out of sight beyond the Crewe Arms Hotel. The only clue is a corner or the bus shelter roof just visible part way round a corner on the approach to the roundabout!

A rather elderly First Potteries bus, bound for Hanley (as indeed I was) took me on a pleasant run out of Crewe through a mixture of suburban and rural roads and the small town of  Alsager. Shortly afterwards we passed under the Macclesfield Canal at Red Bull and almost immediately entered Staffordshire before arriving at Kidsgrove.

STAFFORDSHIRE -  County Town: Stafford

The 1974 re-organisation saw Staffordshire lose the Black Country and towns such as Walsall and Wolverhampton to the invented "county" of the West Midlands. An earlier reorganisation had seen the end of the anomaly of Dudley, a town entirely surrounded by Staffordshire being considered a part of Worcestershire, although administratively being independent of both! Historic Staffordshire stretched to the borders of Birmingham, where it met Warwickshire and Worcestershire near Selly Oak and these are the boundaries that this trip will respect.

Kidsgrove

I had assumed that with Kidsgrove being one of the larger settlements served by the number 3 bus it would be fairly obvious when we arrived at the centre. Surely there would be a queue of people waiting to get on and off meaning that the bus would automatically stop without my having to pay too much attention.  But there wasn't - and I was three stops beyond the town centre, such as it is, before I realised. Fortunately I had time to walk back and find the bus stop for my next bus!

The 4A at Kidsgrove. One of two buses due at 11.04 precisely

This one also caused problems.  I knew I wanted a 4A to Newcastle-under-Lyme, and the list of departures posted at the stop included that service, but also a service 3A going to "Talke" running at exactly the same times, all day long.  I jumped to the conclusion that the 3A and 4A were overlapping services and that the same bus would be operating both, perhaps changing its service number either at Kidsgove, or perhaps at Talke.  The 3A came first and I would have got on it, had not someone else in the queue, who was not as ready to jump to conclusions as I was, asked the driver - who confirmed that the 4A was behind.  Sometimes a little knowledge is dangerous.

I wanted to get the 4A because I'd noticed it ran via "Talke Pits", which I found an intriguing name for a village. Needless to say, it turned out to be very ordinary with any "pits" having long since been replaced by housing and green space.  It did however offer a distant view of the Wedgewood monument that dominates the landscape from the top of nearby Bignall Hill.

Newcastle-under-Lyme

Very quiet at Newcastle-under-Lyme. This used to be the A53.

Newcastle-under-Lyme, which I reached about midday, was eerily quiet. There were a few stalls on the otherwise deserted street market but very few customers.  I recalled being driven through Newcastle on one of my father's many pre-motorway routes between our home in south Wales and my mother's family in Sheffield. In those days the A53 trunk road ran through the middle of the street market!  Today, of course, it is all pedestrianised.

I had obviously been away from this trip for too long and had got out of the habit of double-checking times and connections.  I'd got it into my head that my next bus - a 98 to Burslem - left at 1214, so I was a little surprised that it was already at the stand in the bus station and that it left as soon as I'd boarded at 1210, which was its actually scheduled time!

Anyone with a sense of geography will have realised that I wasn't taking the direct route to Stafford as I could have got there in just over an hour from Newcastle on a through bus. But the idea of this trip is to see a bit of each county as well as visit the county towns so I chose a route that took in the industrial area of the Potteries as well as a more rural route farther on.  

Burslem

I was glad I did. Burslem, known as the "mothertown" of the Potteries, for reasons that aren't apparent, doesn't offer much in the way of shopping facilities and has recently become the largest town in England without a cash machine, but it does have a wealth of interesting buildings that I couldn't help photographing. Here are just a few.

Wedgewood Institute

The old town hall

The old town hall seen from an alleyway

School of Art

Royal Doulton China

Mothertown Fish & Chips

Hanley Bus Station

Hanley

From Burslem it was just a quick run down the Potteries "main line" to Hanley, where the new bus station is infinitely better than the one it replaced, but nevertheless unpopular with the travelling public because it's a little bit farther away from the shops.  I got so engrossed in looking round it that I almost missed my next bus - the 32 to Uttoxeter. I just happened to notice it was due when I wandreed past the departure stand en-route to the travel centre, where I though I had ample time to have a look round and pick up a timetable or two!

Uttoxeter

The Vaults, Uttoxeter

The 32 was, unexpectedly, a double-decker  - the second of the day - which was a bonus as the route via Werrington. Cheadle (where the bus manages to miss the town centre completely) and the Tean Valley was very scenic.  Uttoxeter was another very quiet town. When I arrived at just before 15.00 the council workers were just packing away the last of the market stalls and the streets were almost deserted. I had 75 minutes to wait for my next bus, some of them being spent in "The Vaults" - a splendid little pub in the main street which is every bit as interesting inside as it looks from the outside, which experience has taught me isn't always the case.  It sells a very good pint of Draught Bass too.

Stafford is proud of its county town status.

Last bus of the day. Uttoxeter to Stafford

Last bus of the day was an 841 to Stafford. The service number suggests that this was once part of the giant Midland Red bus empire, which once covered the midlands from Gloucester to Derby and Banbury to Shrewsbury. Today the 841 is operated by a smaller, but growing, concern by the name of D&G buses, although at least the buses themselves are still painted red.  It can't be much of a moneyspinner for them though as it can't have been for Midland Red, being a very rural route passing though very few places of any size, the largest being Great Haywood, where I caught a glimpse of the canal junction on the outskirts of the village.  Despite heavy traffic on the approach to Stafford we arrived bang on time just before 17.00, giving me time for a look around the town, a meal and a pint of one of my favouite brews:  Joule's Pale Ale.

The Guildhall, Stafford

Derby to Chester                                                                            Stafford to Shrewsbury