Route 691 & 693 Picture Gallery There are two pages to this section [ 1 | 2 ]

Diagrammatic Map of the Routes

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Picture RH1 Roundabout at end of Barkingside High Street From: "Mike Hollis" <ardleigh@anglianet.co.uk> Thanks for the fantastic photos. I lived on Tomswood Hill from 1950 to 1973 and absolutely adored the busses a trolleybusses in the area. It was a lovely place and time to be a kid. One of my favourite memories of Barkingside High Street was when the Beatles "Revolver" album came out and the shop window of "Roylance" the music store was completely decked out with the LP record sleeves. Your photos have stirred many a happy memory, thank you very much.	Picture RH3 Barkingside High Street, with the roundabout seen in picture RH1 in the distance. The road going off to the left just before the roundabout is Fairlop Road. The trolley on the right will almost certainly be waiting at a bus stop - nowadays there is a swimming pool here [with bus stops more or less right outside].
Picture RH4 Outside the new site for Harrison Gibson furniture store in Ilford High Road which is now a pedestrian zone. Harrison Gibson still survives, unlike the South African trolley. From: "Warren Hanlon" <warren.hanlon@btopenworld.com> The Harrison Gibson's store was being rebuilt following a tremendous fire, which had destroyed it. The fire was visible from our house and thick smoke from it was coming across our back garden. From: "Alexander McKenna" <muscleco@aol.com> Thanks for those incredible, unique pictures of Ilford, where I lived a few years before those shots were taken. Brings it all back. Alexander McKenna	Picture RH11 Thought to be immediately outside Seven Kings station. The main road forms a dog-leg here as it crosses over the four track electrified railway, with Cameron Road joining it in the distance. The studs in the road would suggest that there is a pedestrian crossing here - which is still there today. These trolleys will be on the bridge over the railway with the station immediately off-camera to the left. The trolley on the left is probably heading towards Chadwell Heath. The photographer would be looking north, so the shadow on the footpath would suggest an afternoon photograph. From: "Warren Hanlon" <warren.hanlon@btopenworld.com> I can confirm that it is definitely taken by Seven Kings station, which lies to your left. Immediately on the right-hand edge of the picture is the building in which was situated the driving school with whom I learnt to drive in 1963. The trolleybus on the left is - as correctly mentioned in the caption - heading towards Chadwell Heath, which is where my first teaching appointment was.
Pictures RH12 and RH13 These pictures were taken in what was then Ilford Lane. The Ilford Hippodrome, bombed in WW2, used to stand on the left of the picture, and the road off to the right with the public conveniences in the middle was Roden Street. The photographer has his back to High Road and Station Approach [now part of Cranbrook Road]. This part of Ilford Lane, where the trolleybuses are standing, is now part of Chapel Road [the western gyratory at the edge of the Town Centre] and all buses serving central Ilford use this now one-way road. The part of Roden Street shown in the pictures is also now part of Chapel Road and the dominant feature in a modern photograph would be the Ilford Sainsbury's.     More Information	Pictures RH15 and RH16 East Street, Barking at the junction with Ripple Road, and the closer of the two trolleybuses is probably SA1 class #1727 of the batch originally intended for Durban and the second an SA3 originally for Johannesburg. The overhead emerging from the left of the picture is from the London Road terminus of routes 691 [Barking to Barkingside] and 693 [Barking to Chadwell Heath]. These traction wires are hardly visible and you also have to look quite closely to notice even the traction support poles.

Acknowledgements to "Cllr Hickey" <Morris.Hickey@redbridge.gov.uk>,
"Simon P. Smiler" <simon@garden.f9.co.uk> and ".." <-->
for caption information on this page.