Just £2!-Part Eleven-Bishop’s Castle-27/4/23

Having ridden on Minsterley Motors route 435 from Ludlow-Shrewsbury in Part Four of this series, my thoughts soon turned to riding their other, much longer established service from Shrewsbury, the 553 to the small Shropshire town of Bishop’s Castle, very close to the Welsh border and a town that I’d never visited before.

Minsterley Motors first began running from Shrewsbury-Bishop’s Castle in 1982, taking over the English side of Valley Motors, a company that also had operations over the Welsh border in Montgomeryshire, which passed to Dai Pye at the same time. Valley Motors had been established in 1957, when a Gentleman by the name of Peter Lewis took over Bishops Castle based Carpenters. Many thanks to members of the Shropshire Independents Facebook page for giving me these details, namely Chris Elmes, Martin Perry & Simon Charsley. I remember first seeing a Valley Motors bus on my first visit to Shrewsbury in 1978, if memory serves me correctly, the bus was a Willowbrook bus bodied Ford (may have been a Bedford) which featured Bishop’s Castle on the blinds, and started from the bus stop in a car park that was the other side of the Tudor built Rowley House from Midland Red’s then Barker Street bus station.

Many years later, at the time of my Midland Red West Day Rover bashes that I talked about in Part Four, I remember seeing a Duple Dominant bus bodied Bedford of Minsterley Motors on the Bishop’s Castle service, now departing from the new Ravens Meadow bus station. A few years later, and the introduction of the Rural Bus Grant by Tony Blair’s government allowed the company to introduce a higher frequency, with low floor single deckers replacing the traditional Bedford in 2003. A half hourly frequency was provided as far as the village of Plox Green, with roughly hourly journeys terminating there whilst what was now numbered services 552 & 553 split up, with the two hourly 552 heading to Stiperstones (where I would subsequently find out that Minsterley Motors are based), whilst the two hourly 553 continued to Bishop’s Castle. And this is the service that continues today, though slightly less regularly on Saturdays, and mostly subsidised by Shropshire County Council.

My original plan was to reach Shrewsbury by bus, using the Banga Buses 891 that I’ve used a lot of in these £2 bashes, then Arriva’s new route 10, which as explained in Part Nine of this series, has replaced the previous X5 between Telford & Shrewsbury, but I decided that it would be much easier to head for Shrewsbury by train, so I found myself heading to Wolverhampton on West Midlands Metro CAF 3 39, noting the orange hi viz clad workers on what will become the bridge that will take the Metro’s under construction Dudley (ultimately Brierley Hill) extension up to join the current Birmingham-Wolverhampton line, allowing it to climb over the alignment of the former Stourbridge-Walsall railway line that the extension mostly uses, with ultimate plans being to raise finance to extend what West Midlands Mayor Andy Street’s 2040 map calls the Black Country Line onwards to Walsall. Good to see progress being made.

We then headed smoothly to Wolverhampton St Georges, from where I walked along another Metro extension, this one very nearly ready to open, down to Wolverhampton Railway Station, where I met up with my two companions for the day, Phil & Paul, who’ll you’ll remember from Part’s One & Seven of this series. I then bought an off peak return to Shrewsbury (from the machine because, once again, there was a queue waiting at the one ticket office window open, and non for the machine, illustratiing that most rail passengers prefer the human touch) for £12.30, which I thought was fairly reasonable, especially comparing it to my originally planned four bus return journey, which would have come to £8 under the £2 offer, how much more would a ride on two services of separate operators (thus no combined ticketing) cost once the £2 maximum fare offer finishes?

Another reason for choosing the train was that I wanted to ride on one of the new CAF Class 196 Diesel Multiple Units (DMUs) that West Midlands Railways have introduced onto the Birmingham-Shrewsbury service, the units now beginning to enter service on the Birmingham-Hereford line too. Therefore, I’d planned to use this service rather than the faster, Class 158 operated Transport for Wales (TfW) services that go beyond Shrewsbury to either Aberystwyth/Pwihelli or Chester & Holyhead, and as it happened, this suited my plan to reach Shrewsbury in good time for the 12.00 553, with us catching the 10.15 train, which was formed of 196 107;

We boarded the train and grabbed a set of table seats at the front. The train seemed quite light and airy (both Phil & Paul had already been on one) the seats OK but possessing the bugbear of quite a few modern trains, quite thin padding, which certainly seemd thinner from memory, than those in the virtually identical Northern Rail Class 195s that have been in service since 2019.

Branching off the main line to Stafford, we headed past Oxley Road Depot, base for Avanti’s West Coast’s fleet of Pendolinos used on fast trains to London Euston but is currently being used to store yet more new trains, with plenty of West Midlands Railway’s new Class 730s Electric Multiple Units (EMUs) destined to replace Class 323s (which are heading to Northern) plus an Avanti West Coast Class 805, a bi mode (capable of using electricity under the wires and diesel away from them) multiple unit that are set to replace Avanti’s fleet of diesel Voyager that spend so much of their time (on services such as Euston-Shrewsbury & Euston-Chester) under the wires of the West Coast Main Line, so their entry into service should see a considerable reduction of diesel emissions.

Onwards we continued, heading out of the Wolverhampton suburbs (where there are proposals to build a new Tettenhall station) and out into Staffordshire, where we call at the stations of Bilbrook & Codsall, after which we headed into Shropshire, calling at Albrighton, Cosford & Shifnal before reaching the 1986 opened Telford Central, amidst all the trappings of New Town archetecture. Then it was onto Oakengates, where the station building has been converted into a dentist. Do people use the 2.30 to get there? Tooth hurty? Ohhh, never mind!

Wellington’s the next call, a nice station with a rarely used bay platform plus several disused platforms which give away the various branch lines that used to run from here, former London North Western Railway lines to Stafford & Coalport East and former Great Western Railway lines to Craven Arms & Crewe. And so we carried on, out into the shadow of the Wrekin hill that dominates the countryside hereabouts, and passing the new housing being built on the site of the former Allscott sugar beet refinary, which is now served by the new Telford & Wrekin tendered bus service 103, operated by Chaserider and featuring in Part Six of this series.

Then, it was into Shrewsbury. past the magnificent signal box, and into the station;

……where yet another new train could be seen, a TfW Class 197 (pretty much the same train as a 196!) on test!

Shrewsbury

We had around an hour before the 553 was due, so Paul suggested that we visited a video store that he knew in the Darwin shopping centre that backs onto the bus station. This place, manned by two very knowledgable young men, sold a large collection of DVDs & Blu Rays at remarkably low prices. Phil treated himself to the box set for season one of “Auf Weidersahn Pet” the 1983 drama/comedy about a group of British brickies in Germany, which turned the likes of Jimmy Nail, Tim Healey, Kevin Wheatley, Pat Roach & Timothy Spall into stars, for a fiver, whilst I found a copy of “Blackpool” the 2004 drama with musical interludes set in my favourite seaside resort, starring David Morrisey and a just pre Doctor Who David Tennent (who’s actually filmed here walking past the then Doctor Who Exhibition!) for just £1! Paul moaned that it was his idea to come here but it was us two who walked out with bargains!

We then made our way through the centre to the bus station, and spent the next forty minutes or so watching the various Arriva buses, plus other operators come to and thro, until Minsterley Motors Optare Metrocity YX65 EVT, branded for the 552/553 (as was the Metrocity that featured in Part Four on the 435, but that was YX65 EVV) pulled onto it’s stand, so we joined the queue of around fifteen, consisiting of a mixture of concessionary pass holders and fare payers, then, in Phil & my case, paid our £2, whilst Paul used his concessionary pass, and we made our way to the vacant back seat;

The 553

And so we set off, crossing the Welsh Bridge and following the route of the X5 that I took in Part Eight before joining the Copthorne Road, passing the new housing and flats that have been built on the site of the former Copthorne Barracks where my Grandad had served at the beginning of the war. Then, around a mile later, there’s another building with a link to my family, what’s now known as the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, where my Brother & Sister were born! We actually pulled into the hospital which seems little changed from 1978, when I visited with my Dad, getting a Midland Red Leyland National on the S3 or S13 from Barker Street bus station. By the time of my sister’s 1982 birth, the 892 & 893 from Wolverhampton provided a through service from our Telford home, though the 1984 building of the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford itself would reduce the need for a through bus. Today, the hospital is mainly served by Arriva’s 11, which continues to Gains Park.

Beyond the hospital, it was out into the country, the first major village we came to being Pontesbury, where the bus began to start emptying it’s load, the villagers returning to their homes after a morning’s shopping in the County Town, the age old off peak function of rural bus services. I’m currently re-reading my copy of Professor John Hibbs “The Country Bus”, published by David & Charles in 1986. Professor Hibbs, who was once the manager of an East Anglian rural operator himself, Corona Motor Services of Sudbury, very much champions the little man, mainly those who learnt mechanics in World War One and returned to civvy street with new skills to maintain vehicles, which they used to start up many hauliars or coach & bus operators, often in rural areas where many bus services commenced during this period, often providing more conveniant competition for the railways, with their out of the way stations, the new buses getting to the heart of the villages. Of course, these small operators themselves had competition, in the form of the larger territorial companies such as Midland Red, who ran along this corridor, running the 959 to Minsterley and the 960 to Plox Green, though as far as I can tell, Midland Red never got all the way to Bishops Castle (apparently, they did in the early days but such services weren’t deemed to be proiftable), this seemingly being exclusively in the hands of the independents. Then, of course, railway, small bus operator and large bus operator alike would all encounter one enormous competitor that still threatens to wipe them out today! The car! For the post WW2 growth of car ownership has made the fragile economics of providing rural public transport even more so!

Proffessor Hibbs explains all this, but largley paints the larger fleets as the villains (which, although I see his point, I don’t entirely agree with), using the 1930 Road Traffic Act to mop up many of the small bus operators, then finding that their higher costs made such operations even less viable! Of course, the year the book was published, 1986, would see the fruits of the 1985 Transport Act, which largely reversed the anti competitive edicts of the 1930 Act, allowing more freedom for operators to run what they wanted. Interestingly, the larger operators, after a period as part of the National Bus Company (NBC) now being privately owned again themselves, would use some of the low cost ways of the independents in rural areas, with operators such as Midland Red West, who expanded from their Hereford & Worcester home out into Shropshire, taking over what is now Minsterley Motors other main service, the 435 from Shrewsbury-Ludlow, as well as running a Saturday only 746 from Shrewsbury-Clun (famous for it’s castle, which lent it’s name to a now preserved GWR Castle-obviously-class steam loco) at one stage. Of course, non of these services were commercial, being won on tender from Shropshire County Council, such is the lack of commercial viability in such areas! But Midland Red West, which was sold to it’s management from NBC in December 1986, then passed to Badgerline in 1988, which would merge with the GRT Group to form First Bus in 1995, later becoming First, would later pull out of it’s Shropshire tenders, these not meeting the desired profit margins expected by the company’s new owners. Hence, via other operators, Minsterley Motors now run the 435 commercially.

Of course, Tony Blair’s Rural Bus Grant would provide money to improve rural services, and the half hourly Shrewsbury-Plox Green service is an unusually long lived example of such an improvement, many falling by the wayside when funding became tight following the 2009/10 recession. But I suspect the reason for the survival of such a healthy service is the loadings that I saw on this journey, though I did wonder if any of my fellow passengers were travelling because of the £2 maximum fare. Difficult to tell, really!

Actually, the fact that this seems such a strong corridor for a rural locale may explain why Midland Red held onto the 960 for so long, for despite the 959 short workings to Minsterley falling by the wayside in the early seventies, the Plox Green journeys survived the November 1979 Market Analysis Project (MAP) Hotspur revisions of Midland Red’s Shropshire services, passing to Midland Red North on the September 1981 Midland Red split. But October 1980 bought yet another Transport Act for NBC to contend with! Best known for deregulating Express Coach services (then designated as services that don’t pick up/set down within thirty miles, later changed to fifteen under the 1985 Transport Act) it also changed the onus for objctions against applications to run stage carriage (what’s now known as local services) routes, the main product of the original 1930 Road Traffic Act. The new rules stated that an objector could only prevent a new service from starting if they could prove that service was “against the public interest” (a spurious term, I know!) This meant that Minsterley Motors, having just taken over the former Valley Motors service to Bishops Castle, applied to carry local passengers over the section that paralleled the 960, which was accepted. Therefore, when deregulation came in October 1986, the 960 was one of very few services that Midland Red North wouldn’t register to continue commercially into the new era (of course, as stated in numerous other blogs, the troubled company would be forced to cutback greatly in April 1987, but it entered deregulation with considerable, ultimately misplaced confidence!) so Minsterley Motors had the corridor to itself!

We passed a yard which I thought maybe Minsterley Motors home but actually contained the coaches of Long Mynd Travel, which I thought was closer to Church Stretton but this was the other end of the Long Mynd hill that the company takes it’s name from, this being one of the South Shropshire hills visible in the distance, adding to the stunning views that this route offers!

We then entered the small town of Minsterley itself, though we could see no sign of the garage of it’s namesake bus company. Most of our remaining passengers got off here, leaving just a few of us on board. Plox Green is just a mile or so further, and, given that I knew the name from being the terminus of the 960, I was fairly surpised at how small it was! As well as the short workings to this point, this is also where the two hourly 552 splits off towards the village of Stiperstones. A glance at an old Midland Red early seventies route map revealed that this was originally served by Evans of Minsterley, which made me wonder if this is the operator that became Minsterley Motors. Any confirmation either way would be gratefully recieved and acknowledged in the comments. (Thanks to Chris Elmes, who indeed confirms that the Evans family is still the owners of Minsterley Motors, and that their garage is actually at Stiperstones. )

After Plox Green, the route got really rural! We climbed a wood surrounded hill, stopping only to drop a chap off right outside his house! Then, as we came out of the wooded area, by the village of Hope, we dropped off a lady at her front gate too! The conveniance of the country bus as Professor Hibbs would have remembered!

It wasn’t too long after that we entered Bishop’s Castle, where we noticed that the cattle market was in session today. We then passed the former railway station, with it’s accompanying museum, of the independent Bishop’s Castle Railway which ran from Craven Arms, then turned left, where our remaining fellow passenger got off, and then the driver informed us that this was the last stop, so we got off too, leaving the bus to head off somewhere to turn around for it’s return journey;

We then spotted a sign for the Town Centre, so we followed this, noting the whiff and accompanying moos coming from the cattle market and walked up a quaint street which got gradually steeper…….and steeper!

……and steeper as we nearly reached it’s top! Paul strode forward with confidence and vigour but Phil & I were soon feeling rather breathless! Honestly, this hill had become so steep that we felt it amiss that we’d neglected to pack climbing gear and oxygen for this trip! Paul looked back at us and declered how much younger we were than him (as I usually like to point out!) but I then did state that both of us younger fellas had more bulk and height to project us to the top of this virtual cliff!

The Three Tuns

When researching Bishop’s Castle on Wikkipedia, I’d noticed that the small town is particularly known for real ale, with pride of place going to the Three Tuns, the brewery pub of the Three Tuns brewing company, a fact conformed by me old mate John Batchelor when I met up with him at the Black Country Arms at the conclusion of Part Ten of this series. And at the top of the (did I say incredibly steep?) hill, a road sign stated that the Three Tuns was to the right! Obviously the local council felt that the exertions of travellers who had ascended this (steep) hill needed direction to extreme liquid refreshment to recover!

And sure enough, just around the corner, was the Three Tuns, a delightful country pub, full of various nooks and crannies to sit and quaff a few pints! So we found one of these, choosing a table therein, and looked at the choice of ales that hailed from the brewery next door! We chose Three Tuns Fruit & Nut, a delghfully dark bitter that was heading towards a mild! We also, having failed to notice or indeed sniff out a chip shop here, were delighted to find that the pub did food, so we asked for menus. Both Phil & Paul perused several options but, upon hearing me order beer battered fish & chips, decided to join me with this! So we ordered, then decided to sample one of the other ales on offer (there were four in all) plumping for the 5% Curate’s Cure, which, given it’s strength, we decided that a half rather than a pint, was wise!

The food then came, and I can honsetly say that they were the best pub fish & chips I’ve ever sampled, the batter crisp, the chips with a light and fluffy inner and slightly crisp outer! We then decided to ask for a dessert menu, and again, my previously unheard of reputation as a food influncer prevailed, as my choice of a chocalate & toffee tart was copied by my two companions, only they elected to have custard with there’s, wheras my lengthy experiance with similar puds persuaded me that ice cream was the way to go as an accomplement!

By this time, we were sampling our third beer, Three Tuns Solstice, leaving only the Three Tuns XXX unsampled, us decideing that a fourth pint was unwise with an hour bus ride ahead of us! Then the tarts arrived (BEHAVE!) and they were similarly wonderful! We all decided that we seriously could not recommend the Three Tuns highly enough, with incredible food, marvellous ales and very friendly and courteous service from the two barmaids, Molly & Emily (Paul found out their names, the old smoothy!)

Alas, it was soon time to leave this wonderful establishment, and make our way back down the steep hill, pausing to photograph this rather amusing sign!

After reaching the bus stop, Paul decided to wander round and have a peak at the Railway Museum, but Phil & I felt that this was too great a risk, as the 15.40 553 that we were waiting for, was actually the last bus of the day from here! Anyhow, Phil noticed a sign pointing to some toilets, which we decided to use before getting the bus, and then bumped into Paul, who said that the museum was closed. Nevertheless, after we’d relived ourselves, we took a quick look at the old station building, the line running from 1865-1935 and being placed in receivership almost immediately after opening, and remaining so for it’s sixty years of life, such was it’s lack of financial viability! Probably because of it’s fragile finances, the line wasn’t absorbed by one of the Big Four Group companies in 1923, with the receivers deciding that it’s time was up in 1935, when the line closed!

… and so we returned to the bus stop, awfully glad that I’d had the idea to visit this remote, charming town, and we decided that it would be worth doing so again sometime, even paying whatever the normal return fare is on the 553. Well worth taking the trouble to plan a trip if you want a day out in our countryside, using the Three Tuns for fine ales and food!

Then, on time, all white liveried Optare Versa YJ14 BBU appeared, obviously having started from a school, as a few school kids were already onboard;

And so we boarded, the driver speaking to me in a deep Shropshire accent;

“Why arrrrre you photographhhhing myyyyyy bus?”

“Only for my Facebook page & blog!” I replied! He looked at me a little suspiciously but issued my £2 fare and I then went to find a seat.

Phil got on next and asked him why the bus displayed “552/3” on it’s blinds (unfortunately not visible on the above photo) and the driver gave him a somewhat complex explanation. When Phil joined me, I asked him what the driver’s answer was:

“Not got a clue!” he said!

Well Phil, having thought about, I suspect the reason is that, because the 552 & 553 follow a common route from Plox Green into Shrewsbury, the company decided to save a little money by just programming in a common blind for Shrewsbury journeys.

Anyhow, we set off over the same route that we’d followed in, gradually dropping off school children at various remote points, some heading into adjoining cottages, whilst others were met by Parents driving 4 x 4s. At one point, a minibus was waiting to take several pupils to some remote corner! All illustrative of how the bus is vital to the continuation of country life, even after the owning of a car has become almost essential in such areas! We all need the bus!

It didn’t seem long before we were calling at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital again, with a woman boarding the bus here that the driver recognised, informing her that this wasn’t her bus, as she was heading out of town, us passing the Bishop’s Castle bus after we’d left. Obviously the value of a service like this is the driver’s knowing their regular customers!

And so, we were soon at Shrewsbury bus station, from where we made our way up to the railway station, catching 196 107 again for the journey back to Wolverhampton. I left Phil & Paul on board, they having decided to stay on the train (their TfWM Staff Pass & Concessionary pass respectively covering them for this part of the journey) and walked up to St Georges where CAF 3 37 took me rapidly back home, bringing to an end a marvellous trip to a remote country town by public transport!

Conclusions

And so this brings to an end my £2 journeys for April, so I therefore photographed my haul of £2 tickets for March & April;

And so, I’m now entering the final two months of the maximum £2 fare (and I suspect that it will be the last two months, they’ll be no extensions, other than possibly a few short distance examples! Update; Wrong again!) and, due to other plans, I’ve only the opportunity for, I think, another three “Just £2” bashes, which I’ve several ideas for, bringing the series to a proposed fourteen parts.

The trip that will feature in Part Twelve should, all being well, take place on the Tuesday after this trip, and will hopefully take me into the East Midlands!

To Be Continued…….!