We are two American academics are thinking of renting an apartment on
Albert Mansions St. in Crouch End for the summer. We will not have a
car. Could anyone be so kind as to give me an honest sense of the
difficulty or ease of transport to the Public Records Office in Kew,
where we will need to travel daily for reseacrh purposes? I see that
the closest underground stations seem to be Highgate and Finsbury. We
have mobility issues, so walking a mile is not an option. Are buses to
the stations frequent and/or reliable? Thank you very much for any
advice.

wrote:
We are two American academics are thinking of renting an apartment on
Albert Mansions St. in Crouch End for the summer. We will not have a
car. Could anyone be so kind as to give me an honest sense of the
difficulty or ease of transport to the Public Records Office in Kew,
where we will need to travel daily for reseacrh purposes? I see that
the closest underground stations seem to be Highgate and Finsbury. We
have mobility issues, so walking a mile is not an option. Are buses to
the stations frequent and/or reliable? Thank you very much for any
advice.

The W7 bus goes every 6 minutes during the day from Dickenson Road
(c300m from Albert Mansions) .

It will either take you the c2km to Finsbury Park Underground station
(then get the Piccadilly Line to Hammersmith for a cross-platform
change onto the District Line to Kew Gardens) - or you can get off
after c500m at Crouch Hill National Rail station (then get the
Silverlink Metro to Gospel Oak for a change onto another Silverlink
Metro train to Kew Gardens).

Either route will take about 1h15m in total. The Silverlink route takes
slightly longer during the day, but avoids a potentially long bus
journey down the congested Stroud Green Road at rush hours.

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

John B wrote:

the congested Stroud Green Road at rush hours.

I find Stroud Green Road southbound to be appallingly congested for most of
the week, never mind rush hour.

Thank you very much. This is incredibly helpful. Now for the dilemma --
pay 2X as much to stay in a tiny flat in the North End (or some more
centrally located spot), or accept the cost and time of the commute.

Would you have any rough guess as to cost of the trip described below?
I can also check the Underground web page.

Thank you again. I really appreciate it.


On Jan 3, 9:32 am, "John B" wrote:
wrote:
We are two American academics are thinking of renting an apartment on
Albert Mansions St. in Crouch End for the summer. We will not have a
car. Could anyone be so kind as to give me an honest sense of the
difficulty or ease of transport to the Public Records Office in Kew,
where we will need to travel daily for reseacrh purposes? I see that
the closest underground stations seem to be Highgate and Finsbury. We
have mobility issues, so walking a mile is not an option. Are buses to
the stations frequent and/or reliable? Thank you very much for any
advice.The W7 bus goes every 6 minutes during the day from Dickenson Road
(c300m from Albert Mansions) .

It will either take you the c2km to Finsbury Park Underground station
(then get the Piccadilly Line to Hammersmith for a cross-platform
change onto the District Line to Kew Gardens) - or you can get off
after c500m at Crouch Hill National Rail station (then get the
Silverlink Metro to Gospel Oak for a change onto another Silverlink
Metro train to Kew Gardens).

Either route will take about 1h15m in total. The Silverlink route takes
slightly longer during the day, but avoids a potentially long bus
journey down the congested Stroud Green Road at rush hours.

--
John Band
john at johnband dot orgwww.johnband.org

wrote:
Thank you very much. This is incredibly helpful. Now for the dilemma --
pay 2X as much to stay in a tiny flat in the North End (or some more
centrally located spot), or accept the cost and time of the commute.

Would you have any rough guess as to cost of the trip described below?
I can also check the Underground web page.

Thank you again. I really appreciate it.

Assuming you're going every weekday, the most effective way to commute
will be on a monthly Travelcard (season ticket). All Travelcard fares
are zonal rather than point-to-point (ie you buy a ticket that has
unlimited use within a particular zone or set of zones, where 1 is the
innermost and 6 the outermost).

Kew Gardens and Crouch Hill are both in Zone 3; Finsbury Park is in
Zone 2. However, your journey via Crouch Hill forces you to go into
Zone 2 during the journey, and the journey via Finsbury Park forces you
to go into Zone 1, so you'll need to buy either a Z23 card or a Z123
card depending on the route you pick.

(this map -
http://nrekb.nationalrail.co.uk/syst...LC_May_x05.pdf
- might make things clearer).

This will cost £105.30 per month to go via Finsbury Park, or £57.60
to go via Crouch Hill (because this journey goes through Zones 2 and 3
only, avoiding the centre.

All Travelcards are also valid on all London buses and trams
irrespective of zone.

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

In message om,
writes

We are two American academics are thinking of renting an apartment on
Albert Mansions St. in Crouch End for the summer. We will not have a
car. Could anyone be so kind as to give me an honest sense of the
difficulty or ease of transport to the Public Records Office in Kew,
where we will need to travel daily for reseacrh purposes? I see that
the closest underground stations seem to be Highgate and Finsbury. We
have mobility issues, so walking a mile is not an option.

If walking is an issue, do bear in mind that it is about one-third of a
mile from Kew Gardens station to the PRO, with no bus service. You may
do better to say on the train one more station, to Richmond, and then
take bus R68 (frequency about every 15 minutes) to Kew Retail Park -
although this means a little "doubling back" and extra time, the bus
terminates very close to the entrance of the PRO.

But as others have pointed out, it is quite a long way from Crouch End
to Kew - if you want to stay close to the PRO, the following website may
be of help:

http://www.kewaccommodation.com/


--
Paul Terry

John B wrote:

wrote:
Thank you very much. This is incredibly helpful. Now for the dilemma --
pay 2X as much to stay in a tiny flat in the North End (or some more
centrally located spot), or accept the cost and time of the commute.

Would you have any rough guess as to cost of the trip described below?
I can also check the Underground web page.

Thank you again. I really appreciate it.

Assuming you're going every weekday, the most effective way to commute
will be on a monthly Travelcard (season ticket). All Travelcard fares
are zonal rather than point-to-point (ie you buy a ticket that has
unlimited use within a particular zone or set of zones, where 1 is the
innermost and 6 the outermost).

Kew Gardens and Crouch Hill are both in Zone 3; Finsbury Park is in
Zone 2. However, your journey via Crouch Hill forces you to go into
Zone 2 during the journey, and the journey via Finsbury Park forces you
to go into Zone 1, so you'll need to buy either a Z23 card or a Z123
card depending on the route you pick.

(this map -
http://nrekb.nationalrail.co.uk/syst...LC_May_x05.pdf
- might make things clearer).

This will cost £105.30 per month to go via Finsbury Park, or £57.60
to go via Crouch Hill (because this journey goes through Zones 2 and 3
only, avoiding the centre.

All Travelcards are also valid on all London buses and trams
irrespective of zone.


The aforementioned Travelcard tickets are also available for weekly
(i.e. 7-day) periods as well as month periods, and they can start on
any day of the week (unlike the weekly Carte Orange ticket in Paris,
the validity of which starts on a monday whether you like it or not!).

On Wed, 3 Jan 2007 wrote:

Thank you very much. This is incredibly helpful. Now for the dilemma --
pay 2X as much to stay in a tiny flat in the North End (or some more
centrally located spot), or accept the cost and time of the commute.

Since the North End is in Boston, i would have thought that would be an
even longer commute!

Or is there a North End in London somewhere? The existence of a North End
Road in Earl's Courtish suggests so, but i've never heard it used as a
placename.

tom

--
If the truth can be told so as to be understood, it will be believed.

On 3 Jan 2007 06:19:42 -0800, wrote:

We are two American academics are thinking of renting an apartment on
Albert Mansions St. in Crouch End for the summer. We will not have a
car. Could anyone be so kind as to give me an honest sense of the
difficulty or ease of transport to the Public Records Office in Kew,
where we will need to travel daily for reseacrh purposes? I see that
the closest underground stations seem to be Highgate and Finsbury. We
have mobility issues, so walking a mile is not an option. Are buses to
the stations frequent and/or reliable? Thank you very much for any
advice.

The simplest route will involve you taking national rail services with
one change of train. You would take the half hourly Silverlink (Barking
- Gospel Oak line) service from Crouch Hill to Gospel Oak and then
change to the North London Line to Richmond. The downside to this route
is that the route *to* Richmond involves the descent and then ascent of
fairly long staircases at Gospel Oak. On the return trip the change
between trains is on the level. You would travel to Kew Gardens station
and there is a relatively short walk from there to the records office.

On the return trip you will need to use a subway or bridge at Kew
Gardens station to reach the platform for your train back to Gospel Oak.

You haven't said when you will be travelling but the NLL is a busy
service and trains run every 15 mins for most of the day. You may have
to stand so you might want to experiment with train times. The Barking -
Gospel Oak line runs every 30 mins but there are conveniently timed
connections at Gospel Oak. This route is less busy than the NLL but can
get crowded in the rush hour.

As others have said you will be best served by purchasing a Travelcard
Season Ticket for Zones 2 and 3 if you take the route I suggest above.
If you opt to have the flexibility of using the Tube services this will
mean you would need to add in the Central Zone 1 to your ticket.

Any Travelcard season ticket automatically gives you access to every TfL
bus service in the whole of London and there is a very big network. You
also get availability within the zones purchased on the rail, tube and
docklands light railway services.

Do note that tickets are now largely issued in Smartcard format on what
is called an Oyster Card. There is NOT a ticket office at Crouch End
station but there are local shops which sell Oyster Cards and the ticket
products that can be loaded on to them. If you are flying into the
country it may well be sensible for you to plan to buy your Oyster card
on arrival or you order via the web in advance. This would be a card
with cash value loaded on to it (as Pay as You Go - PAYG) but you can
have a Travelcard ticket on as well. The cash value gives you discounted
fares on bus, tube and DLR but NOT the national rail services you are
most likely to use. This is a bit of a pain at present but we are in a
transition between old and new systems.

If you ventured beyond whatever zones your Travelcard is valid for on
the tube or DLR then the ticket gates / validators would automatically
deduct any extension fare from the PAYG value on the card.

Buses in Crouch End are generally very frequent and comprehensive
because there is no tube line in the area. Someone mentioned the W7 to
Finsbury Park which is very frequent but there are plenty of other
routes to say Archway Station (route 41 - every 5 minutes) or the W3
again to Finsbury Park - every 6-7 minutes. The 91 runs into Central
London and again is a frequent service; there is also a Night route N91
as well on this corridor.

If you were to use the tube the most convenient way would be to get to
Finsbury Park and take a westbound Piccadilly Line to Hammersmith (the
final destination would show Acton Town, Heathrow, Rayners Lane or
Northfields - in reality any train will do). You then simply walk across
to the adjacent platform and catch a District Line Richmond train to Kew
Gardens.

Cross platform interchange applies at Hammersmith in the reverse
direction too. Again the tube is busy most of the time but be warned
that Finsbury Park is very, very busy in the rush hour so you may wish
to think carefully if you are unable to stand as the trains will be
pretty much at crush capacity between 07.30 and about 09.30. I hope I
am not putting you off too much but most of the transport system is busy
for much of the day so it's best to be prepared.

If you wanted to experiment with going by bus you could do the trip by 3
buses - the 91 from Crouch End to the Aldwych, then bus 9 direct from
there to Hammersmith - the 9 starts at the Aldwych so you would get an
empty bus from there. At its terminus at Hammersmith Bus Station change
to a 391 bus which will take you to Kew Gardens station or else stop
close to Mortlake Road which the records office is situated on. This is
not a quick journey but you may wish to try it just to sample the sights
and sounds of London as an alternative to being in a tube train. I once
did a similar trip right across London to visit Kew Gardens and it
remains one of my most memorable bus trips in London.

You can see London's bus network via on line maps here

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/buses/buses_map.asp

and local spider maps are available for Crouch End and Kew Gardens

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/buses/spiders/...hend-10265.pdf

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/buses/spiders/...rdens-2422.pdf


There is lots of other info on the Transport for London website

www.tfl.gov.uk

Hope all that helps in your planning. Have a good trip.

--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

Tom Anderson wrote:

On Wed, 3 Jan 2007 wrote:

Thank you very much. This is incredibly helpful. Now for the dilemma --
pay 2X as much to stay in a tiny flat in the North End (or some more
centrally located spot), or accept the cost and time of the commute.

Since the North End is in Boston, i would have thought that would be an
even longer commute!

Or is there a North End in London somewhere? The existence of a North End
Road in Earl's Courtish suggests so, but i've never heard it used as a
placename.


At first I thought they were speaking of the North End Road in the
vicinity of Earls Court, but perhaps it's the big North End Road in
Golders Green, or the nearby little road merely named 'North End'
(streetmap - http://tinyurl.com/ykcode), or one of several similarly
named roads.

My other thought was whether our esteemed academics are merely adapting
the West End/ East End naming convention so there would also be the
North End and the South End - a concept that has never crossed my mind
before!

Perhaps they would care to clarify of which North End they speak?!