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!