If you’ll remember any bus route number out of the 700 on the Transport for London (TfL) bus network, it should be the H3. That’s because this short North London bus route between Golders Green Station and East Finchley Hill Top has no service in the afternoons, evenings or Sundays.
There are only seven journeys on Monday to Saturday mornings and lunchtimes, with the last bus arriving back at the route’s Golders Green terminus at 2.52pm. Each journey runs in a ‘figure of 9’ shape, or like a frying pan, starting at Golders Green, running through the residential streets of Hampstead Garden Suburb and infamous The Bishop’s Avenue before performing a loop around East Finchley Hill Top and returning back along the same roads.
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The Bishops Avenue today
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To add to this curious arrangement, it is one of the few remaining TfL bus routes to have a ‘Hail and Ride’ section, where buses stop at any point is safe to do so along the road as long as you signal to the driver. There are no fixed bus stops, although there are special TfL signposts which indicate that ‘Hail and Ride’ applies there. You simply stand to the side of the road and put your hand out and the bus will stop. To get off the bus, just ask the driver to pull over where you need to jump off. It’s all very friendly and informal.
Given the route only serves residential areas plus one main shopping street and transport hub at Golders Green, its main purpose is to take people to and from the shops, hence why it only runs in shopping hours. It also is a route which adheres to former Mayor Ken Livingstone’s pledge to ensure that every London household was within 400 metres of a TfL bus route, a promise which is no longer possible to stick to given TfL’s dire funding situation.
There is a method in the madness though. The abrupt 3pm finish allows the one bus per day which is used on the H3 route to run a schooldays only service called the 631. That route also starts from Golders Green Station, but runs to Henrietta Barnett School, a 111 year old girls secondary school, which sits just off the H3 route, so cannot be served by short journeys on it.
You’ll notice that there is also a two hour 15 min gap in the morning between the first and second H3 journey. This allows the bus to run the H3 to the school in the morning. The schooldays 631 is also an anomaly among TfL school bus routes as it runs journeys to the school as well as from it in the afternoons, which allows residents who live near the school an opportunity to take a later bus home after 3pm too.
Other unusual points of interest on the H3 route include the London Underground’s biggest urban myth, the East Finchley archer, billionaire’s row The Bishop’s Avenue, verdant palace Kenwood House with its spectacular view over Hampstead Heath into The City, the Hampstead Heath Extension and now abandoned Bull and Bush Tube station and the heart of North West London’s Jewish community at Golders Green. For such a tiny bus route, it sure is bursting with transport trivia!
Have you ever taken a ride on the H3? Tell us in the comments below!
You can read all of MyLondon’s transport related news stories, features and trivia pieces on our dedicated page here.
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